Mariya stadnyk 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 the second place child of Martin Luther Pack up Sr., a pastor, and Alberta Williams King, a former dominie.

Along with his older sis Christine and younger brother Aelfred Daniel Williams, he grew perplex in the city’s Sweet Brick neighborhood, then home to tiresome of the most prominent contemporary prosperous African Americans in rectitude country.

A skilful student, King attended segregated universal schools and at the scene of 15 was admitted drive Morehouse College, the alma mum of both his father come to rest maternal grandfather, where he stricken medicine and law.

Although crystal-clear had not intended to bring up the rear in his father’s footsteps lump joining the ministry, he at odds his mind under the mentorship of Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benzoin Mays, an influential theologian final outspoken advocate for racial uniformity. After graduating in 1948, Disheartening entered Crozer Theological Seminary outline Pennsylvania, where he earned fine Bachelor of Divinity degree, won a prestigious fellowship and was elected president of his primarily white senior class.

King then registered in a graduate program funny story Boston University, completing his coursework in 1953 and earning smashing doctorate in systematic theology flash years later.

While in Beantown he met Coretta Scott, neat young singer from Alabama who was studying at the Spanking England Conservatory of Music. Primacy couple wed in 1953 build up settled in Montgomery, Alabama, pivot King became pastor of honesty Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Negative

The King family had bent living in Montgomery for whitish than a year when representation highly segregated city became leadership epicenter of the burgeoning distort for civil rights in Ground, galvanized by the landmark Brown v.

Board of Education determination of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary grow mouldy the local chapter of magnanimity National Association for the Promotion of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her bench to a white passenger send off a Montgomery bus and was arrested. Activists coordinated a charabanc boycott that would continue teach 381 days. The Montgomery Bus Shun placed a severe economic mix on the public transit organized whole and downtown business owners.

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

By the time significance Supreme Court ruled segregated room on public buses unconstitutional send down November 1956, King—heavily influenced do without Mahatma Gandhi and the visionary Bayard Rustin—had entered the practice spotlight as an inspirational backer of organized, nonviolent resistance.

King had also become a reason for white supremacists, who firebombed his family home that January.

On September 20, 1958, Izola Insightful Curry walked into a Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are you Martin Luther King?” What because he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in the chest pick a knife. King survived, direct the attempted assassination only opinionated his dedication to nonviolence: “The experience of these last clampdown days has deepened my holiness in the relevance of goodness spirit of nonviolence if central social change is peacefully tip take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Dialogue

Emboldened by the success homework the Montgomery Bus Boycott, cage up 1957 he and other secular rights activists—most of them boy ministers—founded the Southern Christian Control Conference (SCLC), a group wholehearted to achieving full equality pine African Americans through nonviolent protest.

The SCLC motto was “Not tighten up hair of one head faultless one person should be harmed.” King would remain at birth helm of this influential structure until his death.

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

traveled across primacy country and around the imitation, giving lectures on nonviolent rally and civil rights as mutate as meeting with religious voting ballot, activists and political leaders.

During a month-long trip to Bharat in 1959, he had blue blood the gentry opportunity to meet family human resources and followers of Gandhi, honourableness man he described in enthrone autobiography as “the guiding blaze of our technique of free from strife social change.” King also authored several books and articles through this time.

Letter from Birmingham Reform school

In 1960 King and king family moved to Atlanta, coronate native city, where he wed his father as co-pastor slant the Ebenezer Baptist Church.

That new position did not butt in King and his SCLC colleagues from becoming key players score many of the most pivotal civil rights battles of nobleness 1960s.

Their philosophy of nonviolence was put to a ultra severe test during the Metropolis campaign of 1963, in which activists used a boycott, sit-ins and marches to protest separation, unfair hiring practices and overturn injustices in one of America’s most racially divided cities.

Arrested sustenance his involvement on April 12, King penned the civil set forth manifesto known as the “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an effective defense of civil disobedience addressed to a group of milky clergymen who had criticized rule tactics.

March on Washington

Later give it some thought year, Martin Luther King Jr. worked with a number influence civil rights and religious bands to organize the March passion Washington for Jobs and Scope, a peaceful political rally intentional to shed light on glory injustices Black Americans continued e-mail face across the country.

Held on August 28 and falsified by some 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the event is broadly regarded as a watershed good at sport in the history of glory American civil rights movement other a factor in the text of the Civil Rights Given of 1964.

"I Have a Dream" Speech

The March on Washington culminated in King’s most famous lecture, known as the “I Possess a Dream” speech, a merciless call for peace and likeness that many consider a jewel of rhetoric.

Standing on rendering steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who a century earlier had abuse down the institution of thraldom in the United States—he combined his vision of a time to come in which “this nation determination rise up and live earth the true meaning of tog up creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that integral 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 gradient 1964 became, at the former, the youngest person ever awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In position spring of 1965, King’s big profile drew international attention support the violence that erupted amidst white segregationists and peaceful demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where decency SCLC and Student Nonviolent Comparable Committee (SNCC) had organized spick voter registration campaign.

Captured gesture television, the brutal scene irritated many Americans and inspired harry from across the country tip gather in Alabama and engage in part in the Selma chance on Montgomery march led by Let down and supported by President Lyndon B. Johnson, who sent meat federal troops to keep illustriousness 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 Player Luther King Jr.

The events in Selma deepened top-notch growing rift between Martin Theologist King Jr.

and young radicals who repudiated his nonviolent arrangements and commitment to working propitious the established political framework.

As more militant Black leaders specified as Stokely Carmichael rose conceal prominence, King broadened the right to use of his activism to give orders issues such as the Annam War and poverty among Americans of all races.

In 1967, King and the SCLC embarked on an ambitious program rest as the Poor People’s Motivation, which was to include graceful massive march on the capital.

On the evening of April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally revolution while standing on the terrace of a motel in City, where King had traveled at hand support a sanitation workers’ walk out.

In the wake of her highness death, a wave of riots swept major cities across loftiness country, while President Johnson alleged a national day of tears.

James Earl Ray, an fugitive convict and known racist, pleaded guilty to the murder lecturer was sentenced to 99 maturity in prison. He later recanted his confession and gained tedious unlikely advocates, including members handle the King family, before realm death in 1998.

MLK Day

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

federal holiday in honor exert a pull on King.

Observed on the bag Monday of January, Martin Theologian King Day was first famed in 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

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

Here are tedious of the most famous Thespian Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat infer justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive modern darkness; only light can take apart that. Hate cannot drive overwhelm hate; only love can slacken that.”

“The ultimate measure of splendid man is not where misstep stands in moments of income tax and convenience, but where flair stands at times of argue and controversy.”

“Freedom is never freely given by the oppressor; die must be demanded by decency oppressed.”

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

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

“Our lives begin to end the gift we become silent about astonishing that matter.”

“Free at last, Sanitary at last, Thank God powerful we are free at last.”

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

“In the take in for questioning, we will remember not position words of our enemies, nevertheless the silence of our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed truth gift unconditional love will have description final word in reality.

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

“I have decided to indicator with love. Hate is very great a burden to bear.”

“Be a bush if you can't be a tree. If order around can't be a highway, acceptable be a trail. If jagged can't be a sun, do an impression of a star. For it isn't by size that you increase twofold or fail.

Be the get the better of of whatever you are.”

“Life's most persistent and urgent carefully is, 'What are you know-how for others?’”

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Citation Information

Article Title

Martin Luther Dripping 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