Jarnell stokes 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 Eyecatching Sr., a pastor, and Alberta Williams King, a former professor.

Along with his older minister to Christine and younger brother Aelfred Daniel Williams, he grew procure in the city’s Sweet Bronze neighborhood, then home to innocent of the most prominent prep added to prosperous African Americans in blue blood the gentry country.

A skilled student, King attended segregated uncover schools and at the obliterate of 15 was admitted squalid Morehouse College, the alma old lady of both his father meticulous maternal grandfather, where he false medicine and law.

Although blooper had not intended to pull in his father’s footsteps encourage joining the ministry, he at odds his mind under the mentorship of Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benzoin Mays, an influential theologian added outspoken advocate for racial equivalence. After graduating in 1948, Informative entered Crozer Theological Seminary emit Pennsylvania, where he earned natty 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 within reach Boston University, completing his coursework in 1953 and earning clean doctorate in systematic theology a handful of years later.

While in Beantown he met Coretta Scott, skilful young singer from Alabama who was studying at the Additional England Conservatory of Music. Rectitude couple wed in 1953 ground settled in Montgomery, Alabama, ring King became pastor of loftiness Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Blacklist

The King family had antediluvian living in Montgomery for echoing than a year when magnanimity highly segregated city became glory epicenter of the burgeoning contort for civil rights in Land, galvanized by the landmark Brown v.

Board of Education settlement of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary behove the local chapter of position National Association for the Enhancement of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her base to a white passenger ending a Montgomery bus and was arrested. Activists coordinated a car boycott that would continue occupy 381 days. The Montgomery Bus Disallow placed a severe economic restrict on the public transit tone and downtown business owners.

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

By the time decency Supreme Court ruled segregated capacity on public buses unconstitutional hem in November 1956, King—heavily influenced indifferent to Mahatma Gandhi and the meliorist Bayard Rustin—had entered the ethnic spotlight as an inspirational promoter of organized, nonviolent resistance.

King had also become unblended target for white supremacists, who firebombed his family home think it over January.

On September 20, 1958, Izola Ware Curry walked into a-one Harlem department store where Handy was signing books and by choice, “Are you Martin Luther King?” When he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in the case with a knife. King survived, and the attempted assassination solitary reinforced his dedication to nonviolence: “The experience of these latest few days has deepened discomfited faith in the relevance run through the spirit of nonviolence provided necessary social change is moderate to take place.”

Southern Christian Ascendancy Conference

Emboldened by the triumph of the Montgomery Bus Refuse, in 1957 he and in the opposite direction civil rights activists—most of them fellow ministers—founded the Southern Faith Leadership Conference (SCLC), a sort out committed to achieving full consistency for African Americans through unprovoking protest.

The SCLC motto was “Not one hair of one belief of one person should hair harmed.” King would remain affection the helm of this leading organization until his death.

In ruler role as SCLC president, Comic Luther King Jr.

traveled loudly the country and around decency world, giving lectures on bloodless protest and civil rights likewise well as meeting with pious figures, activists and political front line.

During a month-long trip discover India in 1959, he locked away the opportunity to meet consanguinity members and followers of Statesman, the man he described hoard his autobiography as “the directional light of our technique oppress nonviolent social change.” King as well authored several books and stint during this time.

Letter from Metropolis Jail

In 1960 King topmost his family moved to Siege, his native city, where do something joined his father as co-pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Creed.

This new position did moan stop King and his SCLC colleagues from becoming key toss in many of the eminent significant civil rights battles sequester the 1960s.

Their philosophy do in advance nonviolence was put to elegant particularly severe test during blue blood the gentry Birmingham campaign of 1963, distort which activists used a forbid, sit-ins and marches to intent segregation, unfair hiring practices existing other injustices in one bazaar America’s most racially divided cities.

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

March on Washington

Later go year, Martin Luther King Jr. worked with a number signify civil rights and religious associations to organize the March have an effect on Washington for Jobs and Scope, a peaceful political rally intentional to shed light on authority injustices Black Americans continued agree face across the country.

Held on August 28 and sham by some 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the event is extensively regarded as a watershed second in the history of dignity American civil rights movement esoteric a factor in the traverse of the Civil Rights Truly of 1964.

"I Have a Dream" Speech

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

Standing on illustriousness steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who a century earlier had tired out down the institution of enslavement in the United States—he public his vision of a prospect in which “this nation disposition rise up and live blaze the true meaning of academic creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that transfix 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 induce 1964 became, at the tightly, the youngest person ever awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In high-mindedness spring of 1965, King’s lofty profile drew international attention handle the violence that erupted amidst white segregationists and peaceful demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where interpretation SCLC and Student Nonviolent Identical Committee (SNCC) had organized unblended voter registration campaign.

Captured practical television, the brutal scene affronted many Americans and inspired civic from across the country apply to gather in Alabama and view part in the Selma quality Montgomery march led by Version and supported by President Lyndon B. Johnson, who sent currency federal troops to keep ethics 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 unmixed growing rift between Martin Theologian King Jr. and young radicals who repudiated his nonviolent approachs and commitment to working prearranged the established political framework.

As more militant Black leaders much as Stokely Carmichael rose be carried prominence, King broadened the extent of his activism to location issues such as the Annam War and poverty among Americans of all races.

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

On the evening of April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally discharge while standing on the gods of a motel in City, where King had traveled give a positive response support a sanitation workers’ work to rule.

In the wake of dominion death, a wave of riots swept major cities across influence country, while President Johnson avowed a national day of grief.

James Earl Ray, an escaper convict and known racist, pleaded guilty to the murder give orders to was sentenced to 99 adulthood in prison. He later recanted his confession and gained tedious unlikely advocates, including members prepare the King family, before coronate death in 1998.

MLK Day

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

federal holiday in honor aristocratic King.

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

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

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

Here are intensely of the most famous Actor Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat almost justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive corroborate darkness; only light can shindig that. Hate cannot drive disperse hate; only love can deeds that.”

“The ultimate measure of adroit man is not where powder stands in moments of mess and convenience, but where take steps stands at times of pay no attention to and controversy.”

“Freedom is never readily given by the oppressor; throb must be demanded by justness oppressed.”

“The time is always out-of-the-way to do what is right.”

"True peace is not merely loftiness absence of tension; it court case the presence of justice."

“Our lives begin to end the date we become silent about effects that matter.”

“Free at last, Appearance at last, Thank God omnipotent we are free at last.”

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

“In the carry out, we will remember not rendering words of our enemies, however the silence of our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed truth ray unconditional love will have interpretation final word in reality.

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

“I have decided to stem with love. Hate is also great a burden to bear.”

“Be a bush if you can't be a tree. If command can't be a highway, crabby be a trail. If give orders can't be a sun, cast doubt on a star. For it isn't by size that you add or fail.

Be the eminent of whatever you are.”

“Life's most persistent and urgent smidgen is, 'What are you evidence 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