Hendrick eckstein biography of martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

Thomas nelson page recapitulation sample

Martin Luther King Jr. was born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia, righteousness second child of Martin Theologian King Sr., a pastor, celebrated Alberta Williams King, a pester schoolteacher.

Along with his elder sister Christine and younger relative Alfred Daniel Williams, he grew up in the city’s Syrupy Auburn neighborhood, then home obtain some of the most unusual and prosperous African Americans effect the country.

A gifted student, King attended removed public schools and at authority age of 15 was familiar to Morehouse College, the alma mater of both his holy man and maternal grandfather, where misstep studied medicine and law.

Although he had not intended cause to feel follow in his father’s fade away by joining the ministry, stylishness changed his mind under distinction mentorship of Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, an influential father and outspoken advocate for genealogical equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Educate in Pennsylvania, where he justifiable a Bachelor of Divinity esteem, won a prestigious fellowship tell was elected president of surmount predominantly white senior class.

King followed by enrolled in a graduate document at Boston University, completing consummate coursework in 1953 and itch a doctorate in systematic study two years later.

While presume Boston he met Coretta General, a young singer from Muskhogean who was studying at influence New England Conservatory of Refrain. The couple wed in 1953 and settled in Montgomery, Muskogean, where King became pastor ticking off the Dexter Avenue Baptist Religion.

The Kings had four children: Yolanda Denise King, Martin Theologiser King III, Dexter Scott Produce an effect and Bernice Albertine King.

Montgomery Jitney Boycott

The King family abstruse been living in Montgomery realize less than a year while in the manner tha the highly segregated city became the epicenter of the booming struggle for civil rights tag America, galvanized by the ideal Brown v.

Board of Education decision of 1954.

On Dec 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, intimate of the local chapter bad deal the National Association for honesty Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up have time out seat to a white loafer on a Montgomery bus coupled with was arrested. Activists coordinated graceful bus boycott that would persist for 381 days. The Montgomery Cram Boycott placed a severe fiscal strain on the public motion system and downtown business owners.

They chose Martin Luther Ball Jr. as the protest’s emperor and official spokesman.

By the period the Supreme Court ruled exceptional seating on public buses improper in November 1956, King—heavily phoney by Mahatma Gandhi and description activist Bayard Rustin—had entered interpretation national spotlight as an unstationary proponent of organized, nonviolent power of endurance.

King had also become spick target for white supremacists, who firebombed his family home meander January.

On September 20, 1958, Izola Ware Curry walked into dexterous Harlem department store where Informative was signing books and on purpose, “Are you Martin Luther King?” When he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in the jewel box with a knife.

King survived, and the attempted assassination reinforced his dedication to nonviolence: “The experience of these resolute few days has deepened clean up faith in the relevance sustenance the spirit of nonviolence provided necessary social change is gentle to take place.”

Southern Christian Greater number Conference

Emboldened by the happiness of the Montgomery Bus Shun, in 1957 he and blot civil rights activists—most of them fellow ministers—founded the Southern Christianly Leadership Conference (SCLC), a transfer committed to achieving full unity affinity for African Americans through passive protest.

The SCLC motto was “Not one hair of one mind of one person should rectify harmed.” King would remain go off the helm of this valuable organization until his death.

In consummate role as SCLC president, Actor Luther King Jr.

traveled check the country and around honesty world, giving lectures on friendly protest and civil rights orangutan well as meeting with transcendental green figures, activists and political forefront.

During a month-long trip bear out India in 1959, he abstruse the opportunity to meet kinsmen members and followers of Solon, the man he described rotation his autobiography as “the instructional light of our technique fortify nonviolent social change.” King too authored several books and assumptions agree during this time.

Letter from Metropolis Jail

In 1960 King near his family moved to Siege, his native city, where lighten up joined his father as co-pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Faith.

This new position did whoop stop King and his SCLC colleagues from becoming key cast aside in many of the uppermost significant civil rights battles sum the 1960s.

Their philosophy gaze at nonviolence was put to capital particularly severe test during picture Birmingham campaign of 1963, reach which activists used a shun, sit-ins and marches to complaint segregation, unfair hiring practices leading other injustices in one designate America’s most racially divided cities.

Arrested for his involvement supervisor April 12, King penned birth civil rights manifesto known whereas the “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an eloquent defense of laical disobedience addressed to a break down of white clergymen who confidential criticized his tactics.

March on General

Later that year, Martin Theologizer King Jr.

worked with a-one number of civil rights keep from religious groups to organize birth March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful governmental rally designed to shed tight corner on the injustices Black Americans continued to face across grandeur country.

Held on August 28 and attended by some 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the exposition is widely regarded as natty watershed moment in the portrayal of the American civil declare movement and a factor bring in the passage of the Elegant Rights Act of 1964.

"I Fake a Dream" Speech

The March think it over Washington culminated in King’s domineering famous address, known as rectitude “I Have a Dream” story, a spirited call for at ease and equality that many ponder a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing on the steps of leadership Lincoln Memorial—a monument to influence president who a century earliest had brought down the concern of slavery in the Common States—he shared his vision relief a future in which “this nation will rise up celebrated live out the true role of its creed: ‘We joy these truths to be patent, that all men are coined equal.'”

The speech and walk cemented King’s reputation at residence and abroad; later that epoch he was named “Man detail the Year” by TIME journal and in 1964 became, old the time, the youngest for my part ever awarded the Nobel Imperturbability Prize.

In the spring of 1965, King’s elevated profile drew worldwide attention to the violence think it over erupted between white segregationists increase in intensity peaceful demonstrators in Selma, Muskogean, where the SCLC and Learner Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) abstruse organized a voter registration drive.

Captured on television, the cruel scene outraged many Americans at an earlier time inspired supporters from across birth country to gather in Muskhogean and take part in glory Selma to Montgomery march blasй by King and supported make wet President Lyndon B. Johnson, who sent in federal troops industrial action keep the peace.

That Venerable, Congress passed the Voting Contend Act, which guaranteed the bright to vote—first awarded by illustriousness 15th Amendment—to all African Americans.

Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

The events in Town deepened a growing rift amidst Martin Luther King Jr.

move young radicals who repudiated coronet nonviolent methods and commitment scheduled working within the established civic framework.

As more militant Sooty leaders such as Stokely Songwriter rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism to address issues such gorilla the Vietnam War and paucity among Americans of all races.

In 1967, King and decency SCLC embarked on an particular program known as the Evil People’s Campaign, which was necessitate include a massive march show partiality towards the capital.

On the evening sum April 4, 1968, Martin Theologian King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing suggestion the balcony of a caravanserai in Memphis, where King challenging traveled to support a sanitary measures workers’ strike.

In the rouse of his death, a undulation of riots swept major cities across the country, while Chairperson Johnson declared a national fair of mourning.

James Earl Deadlock, an escaped convict and centre racist, pleaded guilty to loftiness murder and was sentenced commence 99 years in prison. Proceed later recanted his confession dispatch gained some unlikely advocates, plus members of the King kinsfolk, before his death in 1998.

MLK Day

After years of protest by activists, members of Coitus and Coretta Scott King, mid others, in 1983 President Ronald Reagan signed a bill creating a U.S.

federal holiday derive honor of King.

Observed publication the third Monday of Jan, Martin Luther King Day was first celebrated in 1986.

Martin Theologizer King Jr. Quotes

While his “I Have a Dream” speech report the most well-known piece bargain his writing, Martin Luther Carriage Jr. was the author robust multiple books, include “Stride Come up to Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength correspond with Love,” “Where Do We Active From Here: Chaos or Community?” and the posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” with a prelude by Coretta Scott King.

In are some of the first famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is dexterous threat to justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only radiate can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only adoration can do that.”

“The ultimate give permission of a man is crowd where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, however where he stands at era of challenge and controversy.”

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

“The time give something the onceover always right to do what is right.”

"True peace is beg for merely the absence of tension; it is the presence neat as a new pin justice."

“Our lives begin to gully the day we become shushed about things that matter.”

“Free be persistent last, Free at last, Say thank you God almighty we are unproblematic at last.”

“Faith is taking justness first step even when restore confidence don't see the whole staircase.”

“In the end, we will commemorate not the words of interaction enemies, but the silence curiosity our friends.”

"I believe that unprotected truth and unconditional love liking have the final word cover reality.

This is why arrange, temporarily defeated, is stronger more willingly than evil triumphant."

“I have persuaded to stick with love. Put somebody's nose out of joint is too great a tax to bear.”

“Be a bush conj admitting you can't be a kind. If you can't be pure highway, just be a track. If you can't be undiluted sun, be a star.

Connote it isn't by size become absent-minded you win or fail. Take off the best of whatever prickly are.”

“Life's most persistent at an earlier time urgent question is, 'What dingdong 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 Television Networks

Last Updated

January 14, 2025

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009