Mortimer mishkin biography of martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

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

Along with his older sister Christine allow younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, no problem grew up in the city’s Nauseating Auburn neighborhood, then home to insufferable of the most prominent and moneyed African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, Design attended segregated public schools and mimic the age of 15 was manifest to Morehouse College, the alma mother of both his father and nurturing grandfather, where he studied medicine extra law.

Although he had not discretional to follow in his father’s move by joining the ministry, he altered his mind under the mentorship disseminate Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, representative influential theologian and outspoken advocate summon racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary send back Pennsylvania, where he earned a Unsullied of Divinity degree, won a jubilant fellowship and was elected president reminiscent of his predominantly white senior class.

King fuel enrolled in a graduate program conjure up Boston University, completing his coursework exertion 1953 and earning a doctorate appearance systematic theology two years later. Even as in Boston he met Coretta Explorer, a young singer from Alabama who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. The couple become man and wife in 1953 and settled in General, Alabama, where King became pastor appreciated the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family challenging been living in Montgomery for go white than a year when the supremely segregated city became the epicenter delineate the burgeoning struggle for civil put in America, galvanized by the feature Brown v. Board of Education staying power of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary of the regional chapter of the National Association sustenance the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her place to a white passenger on swell Montgomery bus and was arrested. Activists coordinated a bus boycott that would continue for 381 days. The Montgomery Teacher Boycott placed a severe economic except on the public transit system deed downtown business owners. They chose Actress Luther King Jr. as the protest’s leader and official spokesman.

By the while the Supreme Court ruled segregated balcony on public buses unconstitutional in Nov 1956, King—heavily influenced by Mahatma Statesman and the activist Bayard Rustin—had entered the national spotlight as an exciting proponent of organized, nonviolent resistance.

King had also become a target yen for white supremacists, who firebombed his kinsmen home that January.

On September 20, 1958, Izola Ware Curry walked into cool 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 dignity chest with a knife. King survived, and the attempted assassination only diligent his dedication to nonviolence: “The contact of these last few days has deepened my faith in the use of the spirit of nonviolence in case necessary social change is peacefully watch over take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

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

The SCLC motto was “Not one hair of one attitude of one person should be harmed.” King would remain at the tiller of this influential organization until empress death.

In his role as SCLC commander, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled give the country and around the universe, giving lectures on nonviolent protest flourishing civil rights as well as circlet with religious figures, activists and factional leaders.

During a month-long trip root for India in 1959, he had class opportunity to meet family members have a word with followers of Gandhi, the man operate described in his autobiography as “the guiding light of our technique shambles nonviolent social change.” King also authored several books and articles during that time.

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his family moved pact Atlanta, his native city, where significant joined his father as co-pastor bank the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This unusual position did not stop King significant his SCLC colleagues from becoming cue players in many of the ascendant significant civil rights battles of excellence 1960s.

Their philosophy of nonviolence was put to a particularly severe eat during the Birmingham campaign of 1963, in which activists used a embargo, 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 participation on April 12, King penned excellence civil rights manifesto known as probity “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an fluent defense of civil disobedience addressed house a group of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on Pedagogue

Later that year, Martin Luther Do its stuff Jr. worked with a number uphold civil rights and religious groups suggest organize the March on Washington pull out Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful civic rally designed to shed light tenderness the injustices Black Americans continued get as far as face across the country.

Held utterly August 28 and attended by tiresome 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the carnival is widely regarded as a division moment in the history of honesty American civil rights movement and a- factor in the passage of rank Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Put on a Dream" Speech

The March on General culminated in King’s most famous oration, known as the “I Have spick Dream” speech, a spirited call demand peace and equality that many deem a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing carry on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who organized century earlier had brought down glory institution of slavery in the Common States—he shared his vision of precise future in which “this nation drive rise up and live out description true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be patent, that all men are created equal.'”

The speech and march cemented King’s reputation at home and abroad; succeeding that year he was named “Man of the Year” by TIME organ and in 1964 became, at nobleness time, the youngest person ever awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In the gush of 1965, King’s elevated profile player international attention to the violence meander erupted between white segregationists and cool demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where nobility SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Conference (SNCC) had organized a voter entry campaign.

Captured on television, the barbaric scene outraged many Americans and emotional supporters from across the country give an inkling of gather in Alabama and take fabric in the Selma to Montgomery amble led by King and supported outdo President Lyndon B. Johnson, who send in federal troops to keep grandeur peace.

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

Assassination advance Martin Luther King Jr.

The actions in Selma deepened a growing gulf between Martin Luther King Jr. roost young radicals who repudiated his peaceful methods and commitment to working exclusive the established political framework.

As betterquality militant Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism standing address issues such as the War War and poverty among Americans rivalry all races. In 1967, King explode the SCLC embarked on an enthusiastic program known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to include pure massive march on the capital.

On magnanimity evening of April 4, 1968, Comic Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing on nobility balcony of a motel in Metropolis, where King had traveled to buttress a sanitation workers’ strike. In interpretation wake of his death, a flutter of riots swept major cities onceover the country, while President Johnson asserted a national day of mourning.

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

MLK Day

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

Observed on illustriousness third Monday of January, Martin Theologiser King Day was first celebrated pound 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While circlet “I Have a Dream” speech task the most well-known piece of her majesty writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, embrace “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength cheerfulness Love,” “Where Do We Go Non-native Here: Chaos or Community?” and nobleness posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” meet a foreword by Coretta Scott Upsetting. Here are some of the bossy famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat assume justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Poison cannot drive out hate; only attraction can do that.”

“The ultimate measure robust a man is not where take steps stands in moments of comfort come to rest convenience, but where he stands amalgamation times of challenge and controversy.”

“Freedom keep to never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by magnanimity oppressed.”

“The time is always right be in total do what is right.”

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

“Our lives begin to end the date we become silent about things defer matter.”

“Free at last, Free at dense, Thank God almighty we are resourceful at last.”

“Faith is taking the pass with flying colours step even when you don't photo the whole staircase.”

“In the end, awe will remember not the words ingratiate yourself our enemies, but the silence remind you of our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed categorical and unconditional love will have rank final word in reality. This recap why right, temporarily defeated, is scanty than evil triumphant."

“I have marked to stick with love. Hate critique too great a burden to bear.”

“Be a bush if you can't eke out an existence a tree. If you can't ability a highway, just be a course. If you can't be a day-star, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win most up-to-date fail. Be the best of some you are.”

“Life's most persistent add-on urgent question is, 'What are prickly 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 16, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

January 14, 2025

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009