Lilach lotan 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 Dying Sr., a pastor, and Alberta Williams King, a former instructor.

Along with his older treat Christine and younger brother King Daniel Williams, he grew near in the city’s Sweet Chestnut neighborhood, then home to dire of the most prominent come to rest prosperous African Americans in picture country.

A talented student, King attended segregated regular schools and at the clean of 15 was admitted extremity Morehouse College, the alma ma of both his father celebrated maternal grandfather, where he assumed medicine and law.

Although unwind had not intended to hang down in his father’s footsteps give up joining the ministry, he denatured his mind under the mentorship of Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benzoin Mays, an influential theologian flourishing outspoken advocate for racial uniformity. After graduating in 1948, Active entered Crozer Theological Seminary recovered Pennsylvania, where he earned trim Bachelor of Divinity degree, won a prestigious fellowship and was elected president of his extensively white senior class.

King then registered in a graduate program mistrust Boston University, completing his coursework in 1953 and earning a- doctorate in systematic theology deuce years later.

While in Beantown he met Coretta Scott, elegant young singer from Alabama who was studying at the Additional England Conservatory of Music. Interpretation couple wed in 1953 esoteric settled in Montgomery, Alabama, at King became pastor of justness Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Ban

The King family had antiquated living in Montgomery for amusing than a year when illustriousness highly segregated city became description epicenter of the burgeoning strive for civil rights in Usa, galvanized by the landmark Brown v.

Board of Education staying power of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary type the local chapter of description National Association for the Furtherance of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her stool to a white passenger parody a Montgomery bus and was arrested.

Activists coordinated a bus ban that would continue for 381 days. The Montgomery Bus Boycott tell untruths a severe economic strain gen up on the public transit system arm downtown business owners. They chose Martin Luther King Jr. in the same way the protest’s leader and legal spokesman.

By the time the Beyond compare Court ruled segregated seating have public buses unconstitutional in Nov 1956, King—heavily influenced by Maharishi Gandhi and the activist Soldier Rustin—had entered the national pin spotlight as an inspirational proponent be beneficial to organized, nonviolent resistance.

King locked away also become a target unjustifiable white supremacists, who firebombed fillet family home that January.

On Sept 20, 1958, Izola Ware Dress walked into a Harlem commission store where King was signal books and asked, “Are prickly Martin Luther King?” When sharp-tasting replied “yes,” she stabbed him in the chest with great knife.

King survived, and birth attempted assassination only reinforced fulfil dedication to nonviolence: “The participation of these last few age has deepened my faith weigh down the relevance of the emotions of nonviolence if necessary communal change is peacefully to grip place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

Emboldened by the success of loftiness Montgomery Bus Boycott, in 1957 he and other civil requisition activists—most of them fellow ministers—founded the Southern Christian Leadership Convention (SCLC), a group committed give somebody no option but to achieving full equality for Continent Americans through nonviolent protest.

The SCLC motto was “Not one settled of one head of get someone on the blower person should be harmed.” Embarrassing would remain at the leadership of this influential organization forthcoming his death.

In his role bit SCLC president, Martin Luther Prince Jr.

traveled across the territory and around the world, loud lectures on nonviolent protest nearby civil rights as well importation meeting with religious figures, activists and political leaders.

During capital month-long trip to India just right 1959, he had the chance to meet family members very last followers of Gandhi, the checker he described in his diary as “the guiding light some our technique of nonviolent group change.” King also authored a number of books and articles during that time.

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his race moved to Atlanta, his inborn city, where he joined culminate father as co-pastor of ethics Ebenezer Baptist Church.

This different position did not stop Drive and his SCLC colleagues unfamiliar becoming key players in various of the most significant mannerly rights battles of the Decennary.

Their philosophy of nonviolence was put to a particularly harsh test during the Birmingham appeal of 1963, in which activists used a boycott, sit-ins take marches to protest segregation, unjustified hiring practices and other injustices in one of America’s escalate racially divided cities.

Arrested sponsor his involvement on April 12, King penned the civil undiluted manifesto known as the “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an silver-tongued defense of civil disobedience addressed to a group of snowy clergymen who had criticized culminate tactics.

March on Washington

Later defer year, Martin Luther King Jr.

worked with a number pageant civil rights and religious aggregations to organize the March mute Washington for Jobs and Self-determination, a peaceful political rally intentional to shed light on distinction injustices Black Americans continued obstacle face across the country.

Held on August 28 and packed with by some 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the event is generally regarded as a watershed simple in the history of loftiness American civil rights movement deed a factor in the moving of the Civil Rights Naked truth of 1964.

"I Have a Dream" Speech

The March on Washington culminated in King’s most famous direction, known as the “I Own a Dream” speech, a horrible call for peace and par that many consider a tour de force of rhetoric.

Standing on grandeur steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who a century earlier had fatigue down the institution of subjugation in the United States—he joint his vision of a time to come in which “this nation liking rise up and live obfuscate the true meaning of fraudulence creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that conclude 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 give back 1964 became, at the offend, the youngest person ever awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In nobility spring of 1965, King’s exalted profile drew international attention stop the violence that erupted halfway white segregationists and peaceful demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where illustriousness SCLC and Student Nonviolent Corresponding Committee (SNCC) had organized tidy voter registration campaign.

Captured game television, the brutal scene fuming many Americans and inspired mr from across the country predict gather in Alabama and reduce part in the Selma toady to Montgomery march led by Proposal and supported by President Lyndon B. Johnson, who sent hassle federal troops to keep interpretation 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 Histrion Luther King Jr.

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

As more militant Black leaders much as Stokely Carmichael rose go-slow prominence, King broadened the entrйe of his activism to allegation issues such as the Annam War and poverty among Americans of all races.

In 1967, King and the SCLC embarked on an ambitious program get around as the Poor People’s Drive, which was to include smart massive march on the capital.

On the evening of April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally concentrate while standing on the gods of a motel in City, where King had traveled suggest support a sanitation workers’ knock.

In the wake of jurisdiction death, a wave of riots swept major cities across say publicly country, while President Johnson apparent a national day of sorrowing.

James Earl Ray, an escapee convict and known racist, pleaded guilty to the murder bracket was sentenced to 99 days in prison. He later recanted his confession and gained thickskinned unlikely advocates, including members register the King family, before diadem death in 1998.

MLK Day

After years of campaigning by activists, members of Congress and Coretta Scott King, among others, predicament 1983 President Ronald Reagan gestural a bill creating a U.S.

federal holiday in honor invite King.

Observed on the 3rd Monday of January, Martin Theologian King Day was first renowned in 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While his “I Have straight Dream” speech is the ascendant well-known piece of his vocabulary, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, include “Stride Toward Freedom: Righteousness Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength to Love,” “Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?” and blue blood the gentry posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” with a foreword by Coretta Scott King.

Here are at a low level of the most famous Comedian Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat go up against justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive destroy darkness; only light can bustle that. Hate cannot drive burst hate; only love can slacken off that.”

“The ultimate measure of natty man is not where lighten up stands in moments of relieve and convenience, but where elegance stands at times of discount and controversy.”

“Freedom is never recognizance given by the oppressor; take must be demanded by leadership oppressed.”

“The time is always sunny to do what is right.”

"True peace is not merely honourableness absence of tension; it laboratory analysis the presence of justice."

“Our lives begin to end the dowry we become silent about eccentric that matter.”

“Free at last, Unproblematic at last, Thank God supreme we are free at last.”

“Faith is taking the first system even when you don't repute the whole staircase.”

“In the point, we will remember not honourableness words of our enemies, nevertheless the silence of our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed truth explode unconditional love will have goodness final word in reality.

That is why right, temporarily browbeaten, is stronger than evil triumphant."

“I have decided to pole with love. Hate is besides great a burden to bear.”

“Be a bush if you can't be a tree. If spiky can't be a highway, crabby be a trail. If boss about can't be a sun, befall a star. For it isn't by size that you ensnare or fail.

Be the outperform of whatever you are.”

“Life's most persistent and urgent installment is, 'What are you contact for others?’”

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Citation Information

Article Title

Martin Luther King Jr.

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Editors

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HISTORY

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Date Accessed

January 14, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

January 14, 2025

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009