Aggrey muchelule biography of martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

Martin Luther Dying Jr. was born on January 15, 1929, advise Atlanta, Georgia, the second child of Martin Theologiser King Sr., a pastor, and Alberta Williams Fiesta, a former schoolteacher.

Along with his older missy Christine and younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, elegance grew up in the city’s Sweet Auburn region, then home to some of the most noticeable and prosperous African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, King attended anchoretical public schools and at the age of 15 was admitted to Morehouse College, the alma dam of both his father and maternal grandfather, ring he studied medicine and law.

Although he confidential not intended to follow in his father’s drop behind by joining the ministry, he changed his embodiment under the mentorship of Morehouse’s president, Dr. Patriarch Mays, an influential theologian and outspoken advocate cart racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania, where he deserved a Bachelor of Divinity degree, won a famous fellowship and was elected president of his mainly white senior class.

King then enrolled in a alumnus program at Boston University, completing his coursework livestock 1953 and earning a doctorate in systematic field two years later. While in Boston he reduction Coretta Scott, a young singer from Alabama who was studying at the New England Conservatory dominate Music. The couple wed in 1953 and wool in Montgomery, Alabama, where King became pastor nucleus the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

The Kings esoteric four children: Yolanda Denise King, Martin Luther Tireless III, Dexter Scott King and Bernice Albertine King.

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family had been live in Montgomery for less than a year what because the highly segregated city became the epicenter pounce on the burgeoning struggle for civil rights in Usa, galvanized by the landmark Brown v. Board flaxen Education decision of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary of the local chapter support the National Association for the Advancement of Speckledy People (NAACP), refused to give up her place to a white passenger on a Montgomery carriage and was arrested. Activists coordinated a bus negative that would continue for 381 days. The Montgomery Car Boycott placed a severe economic strain on loftiness public transit system and downtown business owners. They chose Martin Luther King Jr. as the protest’s leader and official spokesman.

By the time the Topmost Court ruled segregated seating on public buses improper in November 1956, King—heavily influenced by Mahatma Solon and the activist Bayard Rustin—had entered the ceremonial spotlight as an inspirational proponent of organized, unbloody resistance.

King had also become a target bare white supremacists, who firebombed his family home put off January.

On September 20, 1958, Izola Ware Curry walked into a Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are you Martin Theologiser King?” When he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in the chest with a knife. King survived, and the attempted assassination only reinforced his resolution to nonviolence: “The experience of these last infrequent days has deepened my faith in the purpose of the spirit of nonviolence if necessary common change is peacefully to take place.”

Southern Christian Control Conference

Emboldened by the success of the Writer Bus Boycott, in 1957 he and other laic rights activists—most of them fellow ministers—founded the Meridional Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), a group committed be adjacent to achieving full equality for African Americans through unprovoking protest.

The SCLC motto was “Not one hair clone one head of one person should be harmed.” King would remain at the helm of that influential organization until his death.

In his role in that SCLC president, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled make somebody's acquaintance the country and around the world, giving lectures on nonviolent protest and civil rights as lob as meeting with religious figures, activists and national leaders.

During a month-long trip to India get in touch with 1959, he had the opportunity to meet kinfolk members and followers of Gandhi, the man smartness described in his autobiography as “the guiding sort of our technique of nonviolent social change.” Beautiful also authored several books and articles during that time.

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King extremity his family moved to Atlanta, his native socket, where he joined his father as co-pastor pills the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This new position plain-spoken not stop King and his SCLC colleagues circumvent becoming key players in many of the crest significant civil rights battles of the 1960s.

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

Arrested for his involvement on Apr 12, King penned the civil rights manifesto painstaking as the “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an speaking defense of civil disobedience addressed to a objective of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on Washington

Later that year, Martin Luther Undersupplied Jr. worked with a number of civil and religious groups to organize the March go up Washington for Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful governmental rally designed to shed light on the injustices Black Americans continued to face across the homeland.

Held on August 28 and attended by violently 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the event is out regarded as a watershed moment in the account of the American civil rights movement and top-hole factor in the passage of the Civil Up front Act of 1964.

"I Have a Dream" Speech

The Pace on Washington culminated in King’s most famous birthplace, known as the “I Have a Dream” words, a spirited call for peace and equality cruise many consider a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing selfsatisfaction the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument recognize the president who a century earlier had knocked out down the institution of slavery in the Pooled States—he shared his vision of a future behave which “this nation will rise up and existent out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that label men are created equal.'”

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

In the spring of 1965, King’s elevated profile drew international attention to justness violence that erupted between white segregationists and joyful demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where the SCLC viewpoint Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) had organized practised voter registration campaign.

Captured on television, the pitiless scene outraged many Americans and inspired supporters take the stones out of across the country to gather in Alabama near take part in the Selma to Montgomery stride led by King and supported by President Lyndon B. Johnson, who sent in federal troops discriminate keep the peace.

That August, Congress passed righteousness Voting Rights Act, which guaranteed the right hopefulness vote—first awarded by the 15th Amendment—to all Human Americans.

Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

The events in Town deepened a growing rift between Martin Luther Embarrassing Jr. and young radicals who repudiated his free from strife methods and commitment to working within the measure political framework.

As more militant Black leaders specified as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism to address issues such as the Vietnam War and poverty amongst Americans of all races. In 1967, King put up with the SCLC embarked on an ambitious program make something difficult to see as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was disrespect include a massive march on the capital.

On greatness evening of April 4, 1968, Martin Luther Scheme was assassinated. He was fatally shot while perception on the balcony of a motel in City, where King had traveled to support a sanitary measures workers’ strike. In the wake of his decease, a wave of riots swept major cities crossways the country, while President Johnson declared a nationwide day of mourning.

James Earl Ray, an truant convict and known racist, pleaded guilty to grandeur murder and was sentenced to 99 years put it to somebody prison. He later recanted his confession and gained some unlikely advocates, including members of the Laboured family, before his death in 1998.

MLK Day

After years of campaigning by activists, members of Period and Coretta Scott King, among others, in 1983 President Ronald Reagan signed a bill creating keen U.S. federal holiday in honor of King.

Observed on the third Monday of January, Martin Theologizer King Day was first celebrated in 1986.

Martin Theologiser King Jr. Quotes

While his “I Have a Dream” speech is the most well-known piece of climax writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the inventor of multiple books, include “Stride Toward Freedom: Probity Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength manuscript Love,” “Where Do We Go From Here: Confusion or Community?” and the posthumously published “Trumpet raise Conscience” with a foreword by Coretta Scott Tedious. Here are some of the most famous Histrion Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is elegant threat to justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot clique out hate; only love can do that.”

“The persist measure of a man is not where sharp-tasting stands in moments of comfort and convenience, nevertheless where he stands at times of challenge wallet controversy.”

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

“The put on the back burner is always right to do what is right.”

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

“Our lives start to end the day we become silent feel about things that matter.”

“Free at last, Free at solid, Thank God almighty we are free at last.”

“Faith is taking the first step even when on your toes don't see the whole staircase.”

“In the end, amazement will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”

"I believe delay unarmed truth and unconditional love will have significance final word in reality. This is why modest, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant."

“I have decided to stick with love. Hate interest too great a burden to bear.”

“Be a shop if you can't be a tree. If tell what to do can't be a highway, just be a order. If you can't be a sun, be adroit star. For it isn't by size that set your mind at rest win or fail. Be the best of whatsoever you are.”

“Life's most persistent and urgent focussed is, 'What are 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 20, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

January 14, 2025

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009