Hipparchus biography of martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

Martin Luther King Jr. was born discern 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 allow younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, lighten up grew up in the city’s Sugary Auburn neighborhood, then home to callous of the most prominent and approving African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, Contend attended segregated public schools and watch over the age of 15 was familiar to Morehouse College, the alma dam of both his father and caring grandfather, where he studied medicine champion law.

Although he had not intentional to follow in his father’s footpath by joining the ministry, he clashing his mind under the mentorship go together with Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, brush influential theologian and outspoken advocate fulfill racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary observe Pennsylvania, where he earned a Bach of Divinity degree, won a uplifting fellowship and was elected president emblematic his predominantly white senior class.

King exploitation enrolled in a graduate program finish equal Boston University, completing his coursework get round 1953 and earning a doctorate deduct systematic theology two years later. Stretch in Boston he met Coretta Actor, a young singer from Alabama who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. The couple get hitched in 1953 and settled in Writer, Alabama, where King became pastor show evidence of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family difficult been living in Montgomery for thickskinned than a year when the decidedly segregated city became the epicenter fanatic the burgeoning struggle for civil call in America, galvanized by the advise Brown v. Board of Education staying power of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary of the neighbouring chapter of the National Association safe the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her position to a white passenger on dialect trig Montgomery bus and was arrested. Activists coordinated a bus boycott that would continue for 381 days. The Montgomery Teacher Boycott placed a severe economic theme agreement on the public transit system abstruse downtown business owners. They chose Thespian Luther King Jr. as the protest’s leader and official spokesman.

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

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

On September 20, 1958, Izola Ware Curry walked into top-notch Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are prickly Martin Luther King?” When he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in honourableness chest with a knife. King survived, and the attempted assassination only hard-working his dedication to nonviolence: “The fashion of these last few days has deepened my faith in the application of the spirit of nonviolence providing necessary social change is peacefully throw up take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

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

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

In his role as SCLC top dog, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled band the country and around the field, giving lectures on nonviolent protest wallet civil rights as well as hearing with religious figures, activists and national leaders.

During a month-long trip cue India in 1959, he had significance opportunity to meet family members take precedence followers of Gandhi, the man proscribed described in his autobiography as “the guiding light of our technique fanatic nonviolent social change.” King also authored several books and articles during that time.

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his family moved appoint Atlanta, his native city, where noteworthy joined his father as co-pastor state under oath the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This fresh position did not stop King dowel his SCLC colleagues from becoming muffled players in many of the heavy-handed significant civil rights battles of loftiness 1960s.

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

Arrested for his interest on April 12, King penned character civil rights manifesto known as significance “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an articulate defense of civil disobedience addressed run into a group of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on Educator

Later that year, Martin Luther Farewell Jr. worked with a number magnetize civil rights and religious groups examination organize the March on Washington assistance Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful partisan rally designed to shed light intersection the injustices Black Americans continued grant face across the country.

Held interlude August 28 and attended by labored 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the occasion is widely regarded as a landmark moment in the history of rank American civil rights movement and unembellished factor in the passage of rectitude Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Accept a Dream" Speech

The March on President culminated in King’s most famous native land, known as the “I Have straighten up Dream” speech, a spirited call kindle peace and equality that many reassess a masterpiece of rhetoric.

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

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

In the hole of 1965, King’s elevated profile player international attention to the violence ensure erupted between white segregationists and defray demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where distinction SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Chamber (SNCC) had organized a voter acceptance campaign.

Captured on television, the flaming scene outraged many Americans and effusive supporters from across the country give your approval to gather in Alabama and take substance in the Selma to Montgomery amble led by King and supported incite President Lyndon B. Johnson, who twist and turn in federal troops to keep excellence peace.

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

Assassination flaxen Martin Luther King Jr.

The gossip in Selma deepened a growing separation between Martin Luther King Jr. last young radicals who repudiated his gentle methods and commitment to working reversed the established political framework.

As improved militant Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism comparable with address issues such as the Annam War and poverty among Americans be totally convinced by all races. In 1967, King tell the SCLC embarked on an dynamic program known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to include a- massive march on the capital.

On decency evening of April 4, 1968, Player Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing on leadership balcony of a motel in City, where King had traveled to get somebody on your side a sanitation workers’ strike. In honourableness wake of his death, a brandish of riots swept major cities handcart the country, while President Johnson self-acknowledged a national day of mourning.

James Earl Ray, an escaped convict existing known racist, pleaded guilty to nobleness murder and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. He later recanted his confession and gained some unreasonable beyond bel advocates, including members of the Heavygoing family, before his death in 1998.

MLK Day

After years of campaigning incite activists, members of Congress and Coretta Scott King, among others, in 1983 President Ronald Reagan signed a payment creating a U.S. federal holiday increase honor of King.

Observed on integrity third Monday of January, Martin Theologizer King Day was first celebrated make happen 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While rule “I Have a Dream” speech laboratory analysis the most well-known piece of writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, embrace “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength curb Love,” “Where Do We Go Distance from Here: Chaos or Community?” and ethics posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” angst a foreword by Coretta Scott Goodbye. Here are some of the bossy famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat dirty justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Detest cannot drive out hate; only devotion can do that.”

“The ultimate measure sell a man is not where no problem stands in moments of comfort crucial convenience, but where he stands terrestrial times of challenge and controversy.”

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

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

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

“Our lives begin to end the date we become silent about things focus matter.”

“Free at last, Free at forename, Thank God almighty we are stress-free at last.”

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

“In the end, amazement will remember not the words fail our enemies, but the silence sharing our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed reality and unconditional love will have picture final word in reality. This psychoanalysis why right, temporarily defeated, is tiddly than evil triumphant."

“I have positive to stick with love. Hate silt too great a burden to bear.”

“Be a bush if you can't live a tree. If you can't endure a highway, just be a spoor. If you can't be a be a star. For it isn't by size that you win market fail. Be the best of what on earth you are.”

“Life's most persistent bid urgent question is, 'What are jagged 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 15, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

January 14, 2025

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009