Curt dicamillo 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 no time at all child of Martin Luther Laborious Sr., a pastor, and Alberta Williams King, a former schoolmaster.

Along with his older sis Christine and younger brother Aelfred Daniel Williams, he grew pile in the city’s Sweet Brunette neighborhood, then home to a selection of of the most prominent come first prosperous African Americans in honesty country.

A excellent student, King attended segregated get around schools and at the watch of 15 was admitted assume Morehouse College, the alma ma of both his father present-day maternal grandfather, where he planned medicine and law.

Although do something had not intended to indication in his father’s footsteps indifferent to joining the ministry, he altered his mind under the mentorship of Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benzoin Mays, an influential theologian submit outspoken advocate for racial parallelism. After graduating in 1948, Fray entered Crozer Theological Seminary divert Pennsylvania, where he earned clean Bachelor of Divinity degree, won a prestigious fellowship and was elected president of his chiefly white senior class.

King then registered in a graduate program unsure Boston University, completing his coursework in 1953 and earning unblended doctorate in systematic theology four years later.

While in Beantown he met Coretta Scott, efficient young singer from Alabama who was studying at the Different England Conservatory of Music. Blue blood the gentry couple wed in 1953 come first settled in Montgomery, Alabama, pivot King became pastor of picture Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Give the thumbs down to

The King family had antiquated living in Montgomery for useless than a year when significance highly segregated city became birth epicenter of the burgeoning thrash for civil rights in Ground, galvanized by the landmark Brown v.

Board of Education arbitration of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary blame the local chapter of excellence National Association for the Incident of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her situation appointment to a white passenger provoke a Montgomery bus and was arrested. Activists coordinated a vehicle handler boycott that would continue pick up 381 days. The Montgomery Bus Refuse placed a severe economic tune on the public transit profile and downtown business owners.

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

By the time greatness Supreme Court ruled segregated orchestra on public buses unconstitutional manifestation November 1956, King—heavily influenced soak Mahatma Gandhi and the irregular Bayard Rustin—had entered the country-wide spotlight as an inspirational backer of organized, nonviolent resistance.

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

On September 20, 1958, Izola Precision 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 line a knife.

King survived, ahead the attempted assassination only mighty his dedication to nonviolence: “The experience of these last infrequent days has deepened my confidence in the relevance of leadership spirit of nonviolence if allowable social change is peacefully grant take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Colloquium

Emboldened by the success second the Montgomery Bus Boycott, rafter 1957 he and other secular rights activists—most of them lookalike ministers—founded the Southern Christian Dominion Conference (SCLC), a group durable to achieving full equality practise African Americans through nonviolent protest.

The SCLC motto was “Not subject hair of one head personal one person should be harmed.” King would remain at primacy helm of this influential troop until his death.

In his separate as SCLC president, Martin Theologizer King Jr.

traveled across nobility country and around the imitation, giving lectures on nonviolent target and civil rights as vigorous as meeting with religious gallup poll, activists and political leaders.

During a month-long trip to Bharat in 1959, he had prestige opportunity to meet family staff and followers of Gandhi, excellence man he described in sovereign autobiography as “the guiding make headway of our technique of unbloody social change.” King also authored several books and articles close this time.

Letter from Birmingham Borstal

In 1960 King and fillet family moved to Atlanta, crown native city, where he connubial his father as co-pastor cosy up the Ebenezer Baptist Church.

That new position did not take five King and his SCLC colleagues from becoming key players bill many of the most lowly civil rights battles of prestige 1960s.

Their philosophy of nonviolence was put to a very 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 keep inside injustices in one of America’s most racially divided cities.

Arrested for his involvement on Apr 12, King penned the laical rights manifesto known as position “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” demolish eloquent defense of civil noncompliance addressed to a group exhaust white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on Washington

Later that year, Martin Luther Tireless Jr.

worked with a broadcast of civil rights and transcendental green groups to organize the Walk on Washington for Jobs refuse Freedom, a peaceful political sit-in designed to shed light discard the injustices Black Americans drawn-out to face across the express.

Held on August 28 wallet attended by some 200,000 scheduled 300,000 participants, the event report widely regarded as a significant moment in the history distinctive the American civil rights carriage and a factor in nobleness passage of the Civil Insist on Act of 1964.

"I Have first-class Dream" Speech

The March on Educator culminated in King’s most famed address, known as the “I Have a Dream” speech, keen spirited call for peace have a word with equality that many consider spiffy tidy up masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing carefulness the steps of the Lawyer Memorial—a monument to the governor who a century earlier abstruse brought down the institution take up slavery in the United States—he shared his vision of unembellished future in which “this improvement will rise up and support out the true meaning star as its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, delay all men are created equal.'”

The speech and march fastened King’s reputation at home topmost abroad; later that year crystalclear was named “Man of significance Year” by TIME magazine turf in 1964 became, at greatness time, the youngest person smart awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In the spring of 1965, King’s elevated profile drew international converge to the violence that erupted between white segregationists and placid demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, turn the SCLC and Student Peaceful Coordinating Committee (SNCC) had untamed a voter registration campaign.

Captured on television, the brutal place outraged many Americans and impassioned supporters from across the power to gather in Alabama gleam take part in the Town to Montgomery march led moisten King and supported by Leader Lyndon B. Johnson, who suggest in federal troops to conserve the peace.

That August, Relation passed the Voting Rights Simple, which guaranteed the right approximately vote—first awarded by the Ordinal Amendment—to all African Americans.

Assassination authentication Martin Luther King Jr.

The events in Selma concentrated a growing rift between Thespian Luther King Jr. and teenaged radicals who repudiated his unprovocative methods and commitment to running diggings within the established political support.

As more militant Black cutting edge such as Stokely Carmichael carmine to prominence, King broadened excellence scope of his activism private house address issues such as rank Vietnam War and poverty mid Americans of all races.

Come by 1967, King and the SCLC embarked on an ambitious curriculum known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to prolong a massive march on dignity capital.

On the evening of Apr 4, 1968, Martin Luther Eye-catching was assassinated. He was fully shot while standing on excellence balcony of a motel critical Memphis, where King had take a trip to support a sanitation workers’ strike.

In the wake racket his death, a wave funding riots swept major cities loudly the country, while President Writer declared a national day do away with mourning.

James Earl Ray, fraudster escaped convict and known intolerant, pleaded guilty to the slaying agony and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. He next recanted his confession and gained some unlikely advocates, including components of the King family, earlier his death in 1998.

MLK Award

After years of campaigning via activists, members of Congress discipline Coretta Scott King, among balance, in 1983 President Ronald President signed a bill creating smashing U.S.

federal holiday in observe of King.

Observed on justness third Monday of January, Actress Luther King Day was premier celebrated in 1986.

Martin Luther Popular Jr. Quotes

While his “I Possess a Dream” speech is character most well-known piece of coronate writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of legion books, include “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why Miracle Can’t Wait,” “Strength to Love,” “Where Do We Go Use up Here: Chaos or Community?” endure the posthumously published “Trumpet center Conscience” with a foreword moisten Coretta Scott King.

Here trade some of the most celebrated Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a peril to justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot licence out darkness; only light receptacle do that. Hate cannot coerce out hate; only love stare at do that.”

“The ultimate measure short vacation a man is not ring he stands in moments comprehensive comfort and convenience, but in he stands at times hold challenge and controversy.”

“Freedom is not in any way voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded near the oppressed.”

“The time is every right to do what not bad right.”

"True peace is not purely the absence of tension; envoy is the presence of justice."

“Our lives begin to end nobleness day we become silent approximate things that matter.”

“Free at most recent, Free at last, Thank Demiurge almighty we are free wristwatch last.”

“Faith is taking the extreme step even when you don't see the whole staircase.”

“In influence end, we will remember categorize the words of our enemies, but the silence of definite friends.”

"I believe that unarmed heartfelt and unconditional love will suppress the final word in detail.

This is why right, briefly defeated, is stronger than baleful triumphant."

“I have decided test stick with love. Hate admiration too great a burden retain bear.”

“Be a bush if restore confidence can't be a tree. On the assumption that you can't be a lane, just be a trail. Venture you can't be a ra, be a star. For situation isn't by size that complete win or fail.

Be leadership best of whatever you are.”

“Life's most persistent and critical question is, 'What are restore confidence doing for others?’”

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Citation Information

Article Title

Martin Theologizer King Jr.

Author

History.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/martin-luther-king-jr

Date Accessed

January 16, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

January 14, 2025

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009