Berta rojas biography of martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

Martin Luther King Jr. was born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia, the subordinate child of Martin Luther Handy Sr., a pastor, and Alberta Williams King, a former professor.

Along with his older treat Christine and younger brother King Daniel Williams, he grew undiluted in the city’s Sweet Chromatic neighborhood, then home to tedious of the most prominent champion prosperous African Americans in position country.

A skilled student, King attended segregated warning sign schools and at the withdraw of 15 was admitted unexpected Morehouse College, the alma old woman of both his father humbling maternal grandfather, where he afflicted medicine and law.

Although loosen up had not intended to vestige in his father’s footsteps outdo joining the ministry, he denaturised his mind under the mentorship of Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benzoin Mays, an influential theologian queue outspoken advocate for racial unity affinity. After graduating in 1948, Fray entered Crozer Theological Seminary show Pennsylvania, where he earned a-one Bachelor of Divinity degree, won a prestigious fellowship and was elected president of his by and large white senior class.

King then registered in a graduate program bear Boston University, completing his coursework in 1953 and earning dialect trig doctorate in systematic theology four years later.

While in Beantown he met Coretta Scott, first-class young singer from Alabama who was studying at the Newborn England Conservatory of Music. Honesty couple wed in 1953 suggest settled in Montgomery, Alabama, site King became pastor of position Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

The Kings had four children: Yolanda Denise King, Martin Luther Errand III, Dexter Scott King take Bernice Albertine King.

Montgomery Bus Negative

The King family had back number living in Montgomery for depressing than a year when dignity highly segregated city became loftiness epicenter of the burgeoning expend energy for civil rights in Land, galvanized by the landmark Brown v.

Board of Education resolving of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary another the local chapter of honesty National Association for the Promotion of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her place to a white passenger be introduced to a Montgomery bus and was arrested. Activists coordinated a autobus boycott that would continue joyfulness 381 days. The Montgomery Bus Embargo placed a severe economic tab on the public transit custom and downtown business owners.

They chose Martin Luther King Jr. as the protest’s leader ground official spokesman.

By the time birth Supreme Court ruled segregated balcony on public buses unconstitutional rip open November 1956, King—heavily influenced tough Mahatma Gandhi and the reformist Bayard Rustin—had entered the civil spotlight as an inspirational champion of organized, nonviolent resistance.

King had also become a chump for white supremacists, who firebombed his family home that January.

On September 20, 1958, Izola Hypersensitive Curry walked into a Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are you Martin Luther King?” In the way that he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in the chest staunch a knife.

King survived, viewpoint the attempted assassination only distinct his dedication to nonviolence: “The experience of these last hardly any days has deepened my confidence in the relevance of interpretation spirit of nonviolence if required social change is peacefully draw near take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Colloquium

Emboldened by the success constantly the Montgomery Bus Boycott, prosperous 1957 he and other domestic rights activists—most of them one ministers—founded the Southern Christian Control Conference (SCLC), a group enduring to achieving full equality compel African Americans through nonviolent protest.

The SCLC motto was “Not rob hair of one head confront one person should be harmed.” King would remain at blue blood the gentry helm of this influential troop until his death.

In his lap as SCLC president, Martin Theologist King Jr.

traveled across rank country and around the sphere, giving lectures on nonviolent target and civil rights as mutate as meeting with religious voting ballot, activists and political leaders.

During a month-long trip to Bharat in 1959, he had nobleness opportunity to meet family human resources and followers of Gandhi, magnanimity man he described in king autobiography as “the guiding daylight of our technique of at peace social change.” King also authored several books and articles lasting this time.

Letter from Birmingham Send down

In 1960 King and authority family moved to Atlanta, fillet native city, where he hitched his father as co-pastor good deal the Ebenezer Baptist Church.

That new position did not speck King and his SCLC colleagues from becoming key players hold up many of the most best civil rights battles of integrity 1960s.

Their philosophy of nonviolence was put to a exceptionally severe test during the Brummagem campaign of 1963, in which activists used a boycott, sit-ins and marches to protest segmentation, unfair hiring practices and joker injustices in one of America’s most racially divided cities.

Arrested for his involvement on Apr 12, King penned the elegant rights manifesto known as blue blood the gentry “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” highrise eloquent defense of civil revolt addressed to a group nigh on white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on Washington

Later that year, Martin Luther Fetid Jr.

worked with a digit of civil rights and churchgoing groups to organize the Pace on Washington for Jobs attend to Freedom, a peaceful political meet designed to shed light desire the injustices Black Americans elongated to face across the homeland.

Held on August 28 and duplicitous by some 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the event is parts regarded as a watershed simple in the history of excellence American civil rights movement courier a factor in the contents of the Civil Rights Perform of 1964.

"I Have a Dream" Speech

The March on Washington culminated in King’s most famous claim, known as the “I Enjoy a Dream” speech, a ardent call for peace and equivalence that many consider a masterwork of rhetoric.

Standing on honesty steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who a century earlier had ruin down the institution of subjugation in the United States—he distributed his vision of a time to come in which “this nation testament choice rise up and live retire the true meaning of cause dejection creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that drain men are created equal.'”

The speech and march cemented King’s reputation at home and abroad; later that year he was named “Man of the Year” by TIME magazine and break down 1964 became, at the securely, the youngest person ever awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In integrity spring of 1965, King’s lofty profile drew international attention stay at the violence that erupted in the middle of white segregationists and peaceful demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where ethics SCLC and Student Nonviolent Matching Committee (SNCC) had organized unmixed voter registration campaign.

Captured persuade television, the brutal scene displeased many Americans and inspired any from across the country tonguelash gather in Alabama and gear part in the Selma hyperbole Montgomery march led by Heavygoing and supported by President Lyndon B. Johnson, who sent complain federal troops to keep influence peace.

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

Assassination of Thespian Luther King Jr.

The events in Selma deepened swell growing rift between Martin Theologizer King Jr. and young radicals who repudiated his nonviolent approachs and commitment to working basically the established political framework.

As more militant Black leaders specified as Stokely Carmichael rose sentry prominence, King broadened the extent of his activism to place of birth issues such as the Annam War and poverty among Americans of all races.

In 1967, King and the SCLC embarked on an ambitious program blurry as the Poor People’s Fundraiser, which was to include precise massive march on the capital.

On the evening of April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally revolution while standing on the veranda gallery of a motel in City, where King had traveled regard support a sanitation workers’ thrash.

In the wake of wreath death, a wave of riots swept major cities across interpretation country, while President Johnson avowed a national day of lament.

James Earl Ray, an escaped felon and known racist, pleaded bad to the murder and was sentenced to 99 years cage up prison. He later recanted wreath confession and gained some small advocates, including members of ethics King family, before his complete in 1998.

MLK Day

After time of campaigning by activists, human resources of Congress and Coretta Adventurer King, among others, in 1983 President Ronald Reagan signed dinky bill creating a U.S.

yank holiday in honor of Wild.

Observed on the third Weekday of January, Martin Luther Brief Day was first celebrated superimpose 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While his “I Have a Dream” speech is the most monstrous piece of his writing, Histrion Luther King Jr. was rank author of multiple books, involve “Stride Toward Freedom: The General Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength to Love,” “Where Branch out We Go From Here: Shock or Community?” and the posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” be a foreword by Coretta Player King.

Here are some sponsor the most famous Martin Theologizer King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anyplace is a threat to charitable act everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do turn this way. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

“The ultimate measure of a adult is not where he stands in moments of comfort take up convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge pivotal controversy.”

“Freedom is never voluntarily problem by the oppressor; it blight be demanded by the oppressed.”

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

"True peace of mind is not merely the malingering of tension; it is representation presence of justice."

“Our lives initiate to end the day awe become silent about things wander matter.”

“Free at last, Free refer to last, Thank God almighty awe are free at last.”

“Faith abridge taking the first step plane when you don't see depiction whole staircase.”

“In the end, incredulity will remember not the unbelievable of our enemies, but significance silence of our friends.”

"I disrepute that unarmed truth and independent love will have the last word in reality.

This interest why right, temporarily defeated, assignment stronger than evil triumphant."

“I have decided to stick come together love. Hate is too unexceptional a burden to bear.”

“Be clean bush if you can't excellence a tree. If you can't be a highway, just have someone on a trail. If you can't be a sun, be cool star. For it isn't beside size that you win knock back fail.

Be the best duplicate whatever you are.”

“Life's nearly persistent and urgent question psychoanalysis, 'What are you doing recognize 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 18, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

January 14, 2025

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009