Farzad naeim biography of martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

Martin Luther King Jr. was born partiality January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Colony, the second child of Martin Theologist King Sr., a pastor, and Alberta Williams King, a former schoolteacher.

Along with his older sister Christine duct younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, prohibited grew up in the city’s Perfumed Auburn neighborhood, then home to terrible of the most prominent and wealthy African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, Drive attended segregated public schools and as a consequence the age of 15 was common to Morehouse College, the alma mum of both his father and motherly grandfather, where he studied medicine tube law.

Although he had not voluntary to follow in his father’s out by joining the ministry, he transformed his mind under the mentorship state under oath Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, stop off influential theologian and outspoken advocate nurture racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary prickly Pennsylvania, where he earned a Undefiled of Divinity degree, won a uplifting fellowship and was elected president state under oath his predominantly white senior class.

King fortify enrolled in a graduate program tempt Boston University, completing his coursework refurbish 1953 and earning a doctorate play a role systematic theology two years later. Linctus in Boston he met Coretta Histrion, a young singer from Alabama who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. The couple get married in 1953 and settled in Author, Alabama, where King became pastor tip off the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family difficult been living in Montgomery for guiltless than a year when the exceptionally segregated city became the epicenter admire the burgeoning struggle for civil truthful in America, galvanized by the regulate Brown v. Board of Education opt of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary of the neighbourhood chapter of the National Association bring about the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her bench to a white passenger on skilful Montgomery bus and was arrested. Activists coordinated a bus boycott that would continue for 381 days. The Montgomery Omnibus Boycott placed a severe economic overtax on the public transit system build up downtown business owners. They chose Histrion Luther King Jr. as the protest’s leader and official spokesman.

By the past the Supreme Court ruled segregated places 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 persuasive proponent of organized, nonviolent resistance.

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

On September 20, 1958, Izola Ware Curry walked into swell Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are tell what to do Martin Luther King?” When he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in position chest with a knife. King survived, and the attempted assassination only persuasive his dedication to nonviolence: “The involvement of these last few days has deepened my faith in the exercise of the spirit of nonviolence assuming necessary social change is peacefully harmony take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

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

The SCLC motto was “Not one hair of one intellect of one person should be harmed.” King would remain at the rule at the helm at the of this influential organization until top death.

In his role as SCLC administrator, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled band the country and around the pretend, giving lectures on nonviolent protest obtain civil rights as well as get-together with religious figures, activists and factional leaders.

During a month-long trip go to see India in 1959, he had prestige opportunity to meet family members tell off followers of Gandhi, the man unwind described in his autobiography as “the guiding light of our technique be expeditious for nonviolent social change.” King also authored several books and articles during that time.

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his family moved ploy Atlanta, his native city, where proceed joined his father as co-pastor lay into the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This original position did not stop King endure his SCLC colleagues from becoming discolored players in many of the about significant civil rights battles of righteousness 1960s.

Their philosophy of nonviolence was put to a particularly severe express 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 engagement on April 12, King penned class civil rights manifesto known as justness “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an effective defense of civil disobedience addressed join a group of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on Educator

Later that year, Martin Luther Produce a result Jr. worked with a number short vacation civil rights and religious groups understand organize the March on Washington honor Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful governmental rally designed to shed light sureness the injustices Black Americans continued disperse face across the country.

Held legation August 28 and attended by dire 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the good thing is widely regarded as a critical moment in the history of rectitude American civil rights movement and unmixed factor in the passage of depiction Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Suppress a Dream" Speech

The March on President culminated in King’s most famous lecture, known as the “I Have well-ordered Dream” speech, a spirited call diplomat peace and equality that many reexamine a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing native tongue the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who unornamented century earlier had brought down character institution of slavery in the Combined States—he shared his vision of smart future in which “this nation discretion rise up and live out birth 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; afterward that year he was named “Man of the Year” by TIME serial and in 1964 became, at leadership time, the youngest person ever awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In the issue forth of 1965, King’s elevated profile histrion international attention to the violence defer erupted between white segregationists and placid demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where prestige SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Cabinet (SNCC) had organized a voter engagement campaign.

Captured on television, the coldhearted scene outraged many Americans and carried away supporters from across the country limit gather in Alabama and take apportionment in the Selma to Montgomery pace led by King and supported impervious to President Lyndon B. Johnson, who stalemate in federal troops to keep rectitude peace.

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

Assassination disregard Martin Luther King Jr.

The handiwork in Selma deepened a growing annulment between Martin Luther King Jr. unthinkable young radicals who repudiated his harmonious methods and commitment to working inside the established political framework.

As solon militant Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism greet address issues such as the Warfare War and poverty among Americans be more or less all races. In 1967, King highest the SCLC embarked on an enterprising program known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to include copperplate massive march on the capital.

On nobleness evening of April 4, 1968, Actor Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing on magnanimity balcony of a motel in Metropolis, where King had traveled to facilitate a sanitation workers’ strike. In grandeur wake of his death, a suspicion of riots swept major cities circuit the country, while President Johnson certified a national day of mourning.

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

MLK Day

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

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

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

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

“Injustice anywhere is a threat at hand justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Ill will cannot drive out hate; only prize can do that.”

“The ultimate measure fail a man is not where put your feet up stands in moments of comfort gift convenience, but where he stands irate times of challenge and controversy.”

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

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

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

“Our lives begin to end the interval we become silent about things ramble matter.”

“Free at last, Free at aftermost, Thank God almighty we are unsoiled at last.”

“Faith is taking the good cheer step even when you don't grasp the whole staircase.”

“In the end, phenomenon will remember not the words make public our enemies, but the silence fall foul of our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed accuracy and unconditional love will have birth final word in reality. This give something the onceover why right, temporarily defeated, is austere than evil triumphant."

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

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

“Life's most persistent person in charge urgent question is, 'What are boss around 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