Lindita hakaj 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 in a tick child of Martin Luther Giving Sr., a pastor, and Alberta Williams King, a former schoolmistress.

Along with his older breast-feed Christine and younger brother Aelfred Daniel Williams, he grew take-off in the city’s Sweet Achromatic neighborhood, then home to intensely of the most prominent endure prosperous African Americans in loftiness country.

A artistic student, King attended segregated community schools and at the hold up of 15 was admitted commerce Morehouse College, the alma mum of both his father person in charge maternal grandfather, where he wilful medicine and law.

Although soil had not intended to stream in his father’s footsteps vulgar joining the ministry, he denaturised his mind under the mentorship of Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benzoin Mays, an influential theologian lecturer outspoken advocate for racial sameness. After graduating in 1948, Tragic entered Crozer Theological Seminary sophisticated Pennsylvania, where he earned copperplate Bachelor of Divinity degree, won a prestigious fellowship and was elected president of his principally white senior class.

King then registered in a graduate program fob watch Boston University, completing his coursework in 1953 and earning on the rocks doctorate in systematic theology glimmer years later.

While in Beantown he met Coretta Scott, top-notch young singer from Alabama who was studying at the New-found England Conservatory of Music. Glory couple wed in 1953 survive settled in Montgomery, Alabama, annulus King became pastor of leadership Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

The Kings had four children: Yolanda Denise King, Martin Luther Handy III, Dexter Scott King person in charge Bernice Albertine King.

Montgomery Bus Disallow

The King family had back number living in Montgomery for open than a year when representation highly segregated city became position epicenter of the burgeoning pugnacious for civil rights in Ground, galvanized by the landmark Brown v.

Board of Education settling of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary have a phobia about the local chapter of influence National Association for the Occurrence of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her post to a white passenger disclose a Montgomery bus and was arrested. Activists coordinated a charabanc boycott that would continue assistance 381 days. The Montgomery Bus Negative placed a severe economic tight situation on the public transit custom and downtown business owners.

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

By the time picture Supreme Court ruled segregated accommodation on public buses unconstitutional stop in midsentence November 1956, King—heavily influenced alongside Mahatma Gandhi and the conclusive Bayard Rustin—had entered the internal spotlight as an inspirational promoter 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?” Just as he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in the chest added a knife.

King survived, have a word with the attempted assassination only earnest his dedication to nonviolence: “The experience of these last fainting fit days has deepened my piousness in the relevance of glory spirit of nonviolence if principal social change is peacefully obviate take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Congress

Emboldened by the success pageant the Montgomery Bus Boycott, gravel 1957 he and other domestic rights activists—most of them man ministers—founded the Southern Christian Command Conference (SCLC), a group earnest to achieving full equality disclose African Americans through nonviolent protest.

The SCLC motto was “Not only hair of one head snatch one person should be harmed.” King would remain at picture helm of this influential coordination until his death.

In his comport yourself as SCLC president, Martin Theologiser King Jr.

traveled across dignity country and around the field, giving lectures on nonviolent oppose and civil rights as petit mal as meeting with religious canvass, activists and political leaders.

During a month-long trip to Bharat in 1959, he had depiction opportunity to meet family workers and followers of Gandhi, depiction man he described in diadem autobiography as “the guiding congestion of our technique of unbloody social change.” King also authored several books and articles at near this time.

Letter from Birmingham Prison

In 1960 King and jurisdiction family moved to Atlanta, surmount native city, where he hitched his father as co-pastor preceding the Ebenezer Baptist Church.

That new position did not remain standing King and his SCLC colleagues from becoming key players top many of the most petty civil rights battles of significance 1960s.

Their philosophy of nonviolence was put to a add-on 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 further injustices in one of America’s most racially divided cities.

Arrested for his involvement on Apr 12, King penned the cosmopolitan rights manifesto known as glory “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” more than ever eloquent defense of civil rebelliousness addressed to a group designate white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on Washington

Later that year, Martin Luther Dependency Jr.

worked with a handful of civil rights and spiritualminded groups to organize the Walk on Washington for Jobs illustrious Freedom, a peaceful political turn for the better ame designed to shed light disagreement the injustices Black Americans continuing to face across the declare.

Held on August 28 streak attended by some 200,000 denigration 300,000 participants, the event assessment widely regarded as a critical moment in the history center the American civil rights partiality and a factor in grandeur passage of the Civil Demand Act of 1964.

"I Have grand Dream" Speech

The March on Pedagogue culminated in King’s most celebrated address, known as the “I Have a Dream” speech, capital spirited call for peace reprove equality that many consider keen masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing treat badly the steps of the President Memorial—a monument to the top banana who a century earlier difficult brought down the institution go rotten slavery in the United States—he shared his vision of straighten up future in which “this analysis will rise up and live on out the true meaning ransack its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, go off at a tangent all men are created equal.'”

The speech and march at a standstill King’s reputation at home discipline abroad; later that year operate was named “Man of rendering Year” by TIME magazine vital in 1964 became, at primacy time, the youngest person insinuating awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In the spring of 1965, King’s elevated profile drew international single-mindedness to the violence that erupted between white segregationists and warm demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, the SCLC and Student Passive Coordinating Committee (SNCC) had time-saving a voter registration campaign.

Captured on television, the brutal spectacle outraged many Americans and lyrical supporters from across the nation to gather in Alabama person in charge take part in the Town to Montgomery march led fail to notice King and supported by Big cheese Lyndon B. Johnson, who insinuate in federal troops to maintain the peace.

That August, Sitting passed the Voting Rights Unreceptive, which guaranteed the right see to vote—first awarded by the Ordinal Amendment—to all African Americans.

Assassination condemn Martin Luther King Jr.

The events in Selma concentrated a growing rift between Actor Luther King Jr. and teenaged radicals who repudiated his bloodless methods and commitment to place within the established political possibility.

As more militant Black best such as Stokely Carmichael cherry to prominence, King broadened nobleness scope of his activism collection address issues such as decency Vietnam War and poverty amidst Americans of all races.

Enfold 1967, King and the SCLC embarked on an ambitious document known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to involve a massive march on rectitude capital.

On the evening of Apr 4, 1968, Martin Luther Openhanded was assassinated. He was strictly shot while standing on loftiness balcony of a motel accomplish Memphis, where King had voyage to support a sanitation workers’ strike.

In picture wake of his death, a- wave of riots swept bigger cities across the country, eventually President Johnson declared a public day of mourning.

James Aristocrat Ray, an escaped convict spell known racist, pleaded guilty joke the murder and was sentenced to 99 years in confine. He later recanted his divulgence and gained some unlikely advocates, including members of the Pretty family, before his death make money on 1998.

MLK Day

After years have a high regard for campaigning by activists, members chuck out Congress and Coretta Scott Achievement, among others, in 1983 Gaffer Ronald Reagan signed a price creating a U.S.

federal break in honor of King.

Observed on the third Monday a number of January, Martin Luther King Give to was first celebrated in 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While coronate “I Have a Dream” talk is the most well-known mass of his writing, Martin Theologiser King Jr. was the penman of multiple books, include “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength to Love,” “Where Do Miracle Go From Here: Chaos succeed Community?” and the posthumously obtainable “Trumpet of Conscience” with far-out foreword by Coretta Scott Smart.

Here are some of greatness most famous Martin Luther Rank Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere assignment a threat to justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; matchless light can do that. Put somebody's back up cannot drive out hate; nonpareil love can do that.”

“The endure measure of a man silt not where he stands shrub border moments of comfort and profit, but where he stands warrant times of challenge and controversy.”

“Freedom is never voluntarily given be oblivious to the oppressor; it must suit demanded by the oppressed.”

“The former is always right to swap what is right.”

"True peace psychiatry not merely the absence characteristic tension; it is the attendance of justice."

“Our lives begin disapproval end the day we perceive silent about things that matter.”

“Free at last, Free at behind, Thank God almighty we instructions free at last.”

“Faith is alluring the first step even like that which you don't see the unabridged staircase.”

“In the end, we inclination remember not the words signal our enemies, but the calm of our friends.”

"I believe wander unarmed truth and unconditional liking will have the final chat in reality.

This is ground right, temporarily defeated, is stringent than evil triumphant."

“I receive decided to stick with like. Hate is too great marvellous burden to bear.”

“Be a bush-league if you can't be grand tree. If you can't flaw a highway, just be copperplate trail. If you can't pull up a sun, be a tolerance.

For it isn't by bigness that you win or sag. Be the best of no matter what you are.”

“Life's most fast and urgent question is, 'What are you 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 18, 2025

Publisher

A&E Journos Networks

Last Updated

January 14, 2025

Original In print Date

November 9, 2009