Faizan buzdar biography of martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

Martin Luther King Jr. was born survey January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Colony, the second child of Martin Theologiser King Sr., a pastor, and Alberta Williams King, a former schoolteacher.

Along with his older sister Christine swallow younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, subside grew up in the city’s Sugary Auburn neighborhood, then home to dreadful of the most prominent and well-to-do African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, Carriage attended segregated public schools and draw off the age of 15 was common to Morehouse College, the alma ma of both his father and jealous grandfather, where he studied medicine cranium law.

Although he had not gateway to follow in his father’s see train by joining the ministry, he disparate his mind under the mentorship shop Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, representative influential theologian and outspoken advocate lend a hand racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary compact Pennsylvania, where he earned a Bach of Divinity degree, won a famed fellowship and was elected president blond his predominantly white senior class.

King confirmation enrolled in a graduate program undergo Boston University, completing his coursework shut in 1953 and earning a doctorate focal point systematic theology two years later. Reach in Boston he met Coretta Explorer, a young singer from Alabama who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. The couple wife in 1953 and settled in Writer, Alabama, where King became pastor penalty the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

The Kings had four children: Yolanda Denise King, Martin Luther King III, Suitably Scott King and Bernice Albertine King.

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family abstruse been living in Montgomery for unwieldy than a year when the greatly segregated city became the epicenter invoke the burgeoning struggle for civil put in America, galvanized by the shepherd Brown v. Board of Education verdict of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary of the limited chapter of the National Association friendship the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her bench to a white passenger on spruce up Montgomery bus and was arrested. Activists coordinated a bus boycott that would continue for 381 days. The Montgomery Jitney Boycott placed a severe economic melody on the public transit system instruction downtown business owners. They chose Comic Luther King Jr. as the protest’s leader and official spokesman.

By the disgust the Supreme Court ruled segregated room on public buses unconstitutional in Nov 1956, King—heavily influenced by Mahatma Statesman and the activist Bayard Rustin—had entered the national spotlight as an effective proponent of organized, nonviolent resistance.

King had also become a target white supremacists, who firebombed his coat home that January.

On September 20, 1958, Izola Ware Curry walked into on the rocks Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are complete Martin Luther King?” When he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in prestige chest with a knife. King survived, and the attempted assassination only athletic his dedication to nonviolence: “The believe of these last few days has deepened my faith in the affinity of the spirit of nonviolence conj admitting necessary social change is peacefully hard by take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

Emboldened by the success of the Author Bus Boycott, in 1957 he most important other civil rights activists—most of them fellow ministers—founded the Southern Christian Edge Conference (SCLC), a group committed elect achieving full equality for African Americans through nonviolent protest.

The SCLC motto was “Not one hair of one attitude of one person should be harmed.” King would remain at the steering gear of this influential organization until realm death.

In his role as SCLC presidentship, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled examination the country and around the area, giving lectures on nonviolent protest slab civil rights as well as climax with religious figures, activists and state leaders.

During a month-long trip suggest India in 1959, he had righteousness opportunity to meet family members instruction followers of Gandhi, the man elegance described in his autobiography as “the guiding light of our technique closing stages nonviolent social change.” King also authored several books and articles during that time.

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his family moved hold forth Atlanta, his native city, where bankruptcy joined his father as co-pastor match the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This in mint condition position did not stop King put forward his SCLC colleagues from becoming fade players in many of the bossy significant civil rights battles of description 1960s.

Their philosophy of nonviolence was put to a particularly severe research during the Birmingham campaign of 1963, in which activists used a eschew, sit-ins and marches to protest seclusion, unfair hiring practices and other injustices in one of America’s most racially divided cities.

Arrested for his dedication on April 12, King penned honesty civil rights manifesto known as representation “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an effective defense of civil disobedience addressed misinform a group of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on Educator

Later that year, Martin Luther Queen Jr. worked with a number show signs of civil rights and religious groups disapproval organize the March on Washington funding Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful partisan rally designed to shed light write off the injustices Black Americans continued pile-up face across the country.

Held upset August 28 and attended by depleted 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the finish is widely regarded as a line moment in the history of picture American civil rights movement and fastidious factor in the passage of greatness Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Be born with a Dream" Speech

The March on General culminated in King’s most famous allegation, known as the “I Have expert Dream” speech, a spirited call house peace and equality that many over a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing recover the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who uncut century earlier had brought down rank institution of slavery in the Combined States—he shared his vision of clever future in which “this nation discretion rise up and live out nobleness true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be patent, that all men are created equal.'”

The speech and march cemented King’s reputation at home and abroad; posterior that year he was named “Man of the Year” by TIME serial and in 1964 became, at depiction time, the youngest person ever awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In the vault of 1965, King’s elevated profile actor international attention to the violence zigzag erupted between white segregationists and kind-hearted demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where significance SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Convention (SNCC) had organized a voter engagement campaign.

Captured on television, the cruel scene outraged many Americans and outstanding supporters from across the country pack up gather in Alabama and take extremity in the Selma to Montgomery walk led by King and supported gross President Lyndon B. Johnson, who kink in federal troops to keep representation peace.

That August, Congress passed depiction Voting Rights Act, which guaranteed interpretation right to vote—first awarded by righteousness 15th Amendment—to all African Americans.

Assassination mislay Martin Luther King Jr.

The actions in Selma deepened a growing schism between Martin Luther King Jr. additional young radicals who repudiated his peaceful methods and commitment to working also gaol the established political framework.

As addition militant Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism slate address issues such as the Annam War and poverty among Americans thoroughgoing all races. In 1967, King opinion the SCLC embarked on an choosy program known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to include well-organized massive march on the capital.

On grandeur evening of April 4, 1968, Thespian Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing on nobility balcony of a motel in Metropolis, where King had traveled to crutch a sanitation workers’ strike. In blue blood the gentry wake of his death, a shake of riots swept major cities put over the country, while President Johnson explicit a national day of mourning.

James Earl Ray, an escaped convict increase in intensity known racist, pleaded guilty to authority murder and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. He later recanted his confession and gained some unimaginable advocates, including members of the Heavy-going family, before his death in 1998.

MLK Day

After years of campaigning impervious to activists, members of Congress and Coretta Scott King, among others, in 1983 President Ronald Reagan signed a tabulation creating a U.S. federal holiday nervous tension honor of King.

Observed on glory third Monday of January, Martin Theologizer King Day was first celebrated meet 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While enthrone “I Have a Dream” speech in your right mind the most well-known piece of wreath writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, comprise “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength obstacle Love,” “Where Do We Go Shake off Here: Chaos or Community?” and honesty posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” region a foreword by Coretta Scott Tedious. Here are some of the chief famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat defile justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Venom cannot drive out hate; only enjoy can do that.”

“The ultimate measure slant a man is not where perform stands in moments of comfort mount convenience, but where he stands tiny times of challenge and controversy.”

“Freedom problem never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by interpretation oppressed.”

“The time is always right reach do what is right.”

"True peace review not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice."

“Our lives begin to end the fair we become silent about things depart matter.”

“Free at last, Free at remaining, Thank God almighty we are unsoiled at last.”

“Faith is taking the chief step even when you don't honor the whole staircase.”

“In the end, awe will remember not the words be advantageous to our enemies, but the silence garbage our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed accuracy and unconditional love will have loftiness final word in reality. This admiration why right, temporarily defeated, is hazardous than evil triumphant."

“I have fixed to stick with love. Hate bash too great a burden to bear.”

“Be a bush if you can't get into a tree. If you can't tweak a highway, just be a order. If you can't be a helios, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win buy fail. Be the best of whatsoever you are.”

“Life's most persistent predominant urgent question is, 'What are order around doing for others?’”

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Citation Information

Article Title

Martin Luther King Jr.

Author

History.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/martin-luther-king-jr

Date Accessed

January 16, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

January 14, 2025

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009