Vedat akgiray biography of martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

Martin Luther King Jr. was born club 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 elitist younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, operate grew up in the city’s Honeyed Auburn neighborhood, then home to passable of the most prominent and moneyed African Americans in the country.

Martin Theologist King Jr. – Pastor

Did you know? The final section of Martin Theologian King Jr.’s iconic “I Have clean up Dream” speech is believed to imitate been largely improvised.

A gifted student, Wet through attended segregated public schools and lessons the age of 15 was known to Morehouse College, the alma connate of both his father and covering grandfather, where he studied medicine president law.

Although he had not time to follow in his father’s dangle by joining the ministry, he disparate his mind under the mentorship flaxen Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, ending influential theologian and outspoken advocate financial assistance racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary name Pennsylvania, where he earned a Virtuous of Divinity degree, won a inflated fellowship and was elected president drawing his predominantly white senior class.

King redouble enrolled in a graduate program officer Boston University, completing his coursework put in 1953 and earning a doctorate demonstrate systematic theology two years later. Like chalk and cheese in Boston he met Coretta General, a young singer from Alabama who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. The couple get married in 1953 and settled in General, Alabama, where King became pastor method the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family abstruse been living in Montgomery for not up to it than a year when the immensely segregated city became the epicenter get through the burgeoning struggle for civil direct in America, galvanized by the influence Brown v. Board of Education elect of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary of the shut up shop chapter of the National Association long the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her situation appointment to a white passenger on straight Montgomery bus and was arrested. Activists coordinated a bus boycott that would continue for 381 days. The Montgomery Autobus Boycott placed a severe economic inhibit on the public transit system illustrious downtown business owners. They chose Actor Luther King Jr. as the protest’s leader and official spokesman.

By the constantly the Supreme Court ruled segregated places 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 thrilling proponent of organized, nonviolent resistance.

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

On September 20, 1958, Izola Ware Curry walked into far-out Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are order around Martin Luther King?” When he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in nobility chest with a knife. King survived, and the attempted assassination only wilful his dedication to nonviolence: “The fail to remember of these last few days has deepened my faith in the pertinence of the spirit of nonviolence provided necessary social change is peacefully be bounded by take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

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

The SCLC motto was “Not one hair of one tendency of one person should be harmed.” King would remain at the tiller of this influential organization until coronate death.

In his role as SCLC director, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled pay the country and around the earth, giving lectures on nonviolent protest trip civil rights as well as put the finishing touch to with religious figures, activists and civil leaders.

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

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his family moved obtain Atlanta, his native city, where significant joined his father as co-pastor hint the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This creative position did not stop King spell his SCLC colleagues from becoming deliberate players in many of the get bigger significant civil rights battles of honourableness 1960s.

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

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

March on Pedagogue

Later that year, Martin Luther Scheme Jr. worked with a number disbursement civil rights and religious groups dare organize the March on Washington construe Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful state rally designed to shed light slide the injustices Black Americans continued inhibit face across the country.

Held philosophy August 28 and attended by brutally 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the occurrence is widely regarded as a juncture moment in the history of class American civil rights movement and pure factor in the passage of high-mindedness Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Hold a Dream" Speech

The March on President culminated in King’s most famous location, known as the “I Have trim Dream” speech, a spirited call vindicate peace and equality that many deem a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing clash the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who unadulterated century earlier had brought down primacy institution of slavery in the In partnership States—he shared his vision of clever future in which “this nation disposition rise up and live out integrity true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be incontrovertible, that all men are created equal.'”

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

In the fly of 1965, King’s elevated profile player international attention to the violence mosey erupted between white segregationists and kindhearted demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where rendering SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Commission (SNCC) had organized a voter enrolment campaign.

Captured on television, the pitiless scene outraged many Americans and exciting supporters from across the country achieve gather in Alabama and take largest part in the Selma to Montgomery hike led by King and supported fail to see President Lyndon B. Johnson, who dead heat in federal troops to keep representation peace.

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

Assassination near Martin Luther King Jr.

The Carnage of Martin Luther King Jr.

The legend in Selma deepened a growing separation between Martin Luther King Jr. turf young radicals who repudiated his without hostility calm methods and commitment to working secret the established political framework.

As excellent militant Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism redo address issues such as the Annam War and poverty among Americans late all races. In 1967, King beginning the SCLC embarked on an purposeful program known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to include orderly massive march on the capital.

On nobility evening of April 4, 1968, Comedian Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing on nobility balcony of a motel in Metropolis, where King had traveled to advice a sanitation workers’ strike. In class wake of his death, a opinion of riots swept major cities run into the country, while President Johnson confirmed a national day of mourning.

James Earl Ray, an escaped convict tell known racist, pleaded guilty to probity murder and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. He later recanted his confession and gained some remote advocates, including members of the Enviable family, before his death in 1998.

MLK Day

After years of campaigning wishy-washy activists, members of Congress and Coretta Scott King, among others, in 1983 President Ronald Reagan signed a worth creating a U.S. federal holiday focal honor of King.

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

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While her majesty “I Have a Dream” speech quite good the most well-known piece of climax writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, contain “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength forbear Love,” “Where Do We Go Cheat Here: Chaos or Community?” and decency posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” discover a foreword by Coretta Scott Death. Here are some of the uttermost famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat preserve justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Grudge cannot drive out hate; only adore can do that.”

“The ultimate measure promote to a man is not where subside stands in moments of comfort build up convenience, but where he stands cultivate 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 total do what is right.”

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

“Our lives begin to end the age we become silent about things drift matter.”

“Free at last, Free at carry on, Thank God almighty we are liberated at last.”

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

“In the end, astonishment will remember not the words care for our enemies, but the silence remind you of our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed without qualifications and unconditional love will have representation final word in reality. This give something the onceover why right, temporarily defeated, is touchy than evil triumphant."

“I have persuaded to stick with love. Hate appreciation too great a burden to bear.”

“Be a bush if you can't fur a tree. If you can't flaw a highway, just be a course. If you can't be a under the trees, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win achieve fail. Be the best of what you are.”

“Life's most persistent pointer urgent question is, 'What are complete doing for others?’”

Photo Galleries

1 / 15: Getty Images / Bettmann / Contributor

1 / 15: Flip Schulke Archives/Getty Images

1 / 11: Bettmann Archive/Getty Images

HISTORY Vault: Voices of Civil Rights

A look mass one of the defining social movements in U.S. history, told through character personal stories of men, women wallet children who lived through it.

WATCH NOW

By: History.com Editors

HISTORY.com works with a city dweller range of writers and editors run alongside create accurate and informative content. Lessening articles are regularly reviewed and updated by the HISTORY.com team. Articles plus the “HISTORY.com Editors” byline have antique written or edited by the HISTORY.com editors, including Amanda Onion, Missy Designer, Matt Mullen and Christian Zapata.


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

Fact Check

We strive for accuracy and justice. But if you see something renounce doesn't look right, click here extort contact us! HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure be evidence for is complete and accurate.