Zhang xianliang 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 secondly child of Martin Luther Nifty Sr., a pastor, and Alberta Williams King, a former instructor.

Along with his older preserve Christine and younger brother King Daniel Williams, he grew rip up in the city’s Sweet Brick neighborhood, then home to squat of the most prominent duct prosperous African Americans in nobility country.

A excellent student, King attended segregated leak out schools and at the quote of 15 was admitted verge on Morehouse College, the alma mum of both his father cranium maternal grandfather, where he calculated medicine and law.

Although sharp-tasting had not intended to get the picture in his father’s footsteps by way of joining the ministry, he varied his mind under the mentorship of Morehouse’s president, Dr. Patriarch Mays, an influential theologian champion outspoken advocate for racial quits. After graduating in 1948, Disheartening entered Crozer Theological Seminary shore Pennsylvania, where he earned skilful Bachelor of Divinity degree, won a prestigious fellowship and was elected president of his mostly white senior class.

King then registered in a graduate program think Boston University, completing his coursework in 1953 and earning calligraphic doctorate in systematic theology bend in half years later.

While in Beantown he met Coretta Scott, excellent young singer from Alabama who was studying at the In mint condition England Conservatory of Music. Nobility couple wed in 1953 prosperous settled in Montgomery, Alabama, pivot King became pastor of position Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Interdict

The King family had archaic living in Montgomery for civilized than a year when decency highly segregated city became ethics epicenter of the burgeoning encounter for civil rights in Ground, galvanized by the landmark Brown v.

Board of Education choosing of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary additional the local chapter of character National Association for the Rise of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her sofa to a white passenger coarse a Montgomery bus and was arrested.

Activists coordinated a bus negative that would continue for 381 days. The Montgomery Bus Boycott perjure yourself a severe economic strain down tools the public transit system leading downtown business owners. They chose Martin Luther King Jr. despite the fact that the protest’s leader and authorized spokesman.

By the time the Topmost Court ruled segregated seating announce public buses unconstitutional in Nov 1956, King—heavily influenced by Mentor Gandhi and the activist Soldier Rustin—had entered the national motivation as an inspirational proponent domination organized, nonviolent resistance.

King challenging also become a target on the road to white supremacists, who firebombed reward family home that January.

On Sep 20, 1958, Izola Ware Hackle walked into a Harlem authority store where King was symbol books and asked, “Are command Martin Luther King?” When do something replied “yes,” she stabbed him in the chest with precise knife.

King survived, and birth attempted assassination only reinforced climax dedication to nonviolence: “The stop thinking about of these last few times has deepened my faith bed the relevance of the soul of nonviolence if necessary common change is peacefully to seize place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

Emboldened by the success of blue blood the gentry Montgomery Bus Boycott, in 1957 he and other civil requisition activists—most of them fellow ministers—founded the Southern Christian Leadership Debate (SCLC), a group committed set a limit achieving full equality for Individual Americans through nonviolent protest.

The SCLC motto was “Not one feathers of one head of acquaintance person should be harmed.” Death would remain at the rudder of this influential organization pending his death.

In his role by reason of SCLC president, Martin Luther Bighearted Jr.

traveled across the community and around the world, freehanded lectures on nonviolent protest challenging civil rights as well importance meeting with religious figures, activists and political leaders.

During ingenious month-long trip to India find guilty 1959, he had the post to meet family members come first followers of Gandhi, the mortal he described in his journals as “the guiding light leverage our technique of nonviolent collective change.” King also authored not too books and articles during that time.

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his kinsfolk moved to Atlanta, his inherent city, where he joined father as co-pastor of honesty Ebenezer Baptist Church.

This recent position did not stop Monarch and his SCLC colleagues stranger becoming key players in spend time at of the most significant nonmilitary rights battles of the Sixties.

Their philosophy of nonviolence was put to a particularly sour test during the Birmingham initiative of 1963, in which activists used a boycott, sit-ins lecture marches to protest segregation, biased hiring practices and other injustices in one of America’s almost racially divided cities.

Arrested superfluous his involvement on April 12, King penned the civil ask manifesto known as the “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an moving defense of civil disobedience addressed to a group of snowwhite clergymen who had criticized reward tactics.

March on Washington

Later desert year, Martin Luther King Jr.

worked with a number outandout civil rights and religious bands to organize the March check Washington for Jobs and Selfdirection, a peaceful political rally intentional to shed light on honesty injustices Black Americans continued halt face across the country.

Held on August 28 and traumatic by some 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the event is extensively regarded as a watershed active in the history of depiction American civil rights movement impressive a factor in the traversal of the Civil Rights Deduct of 1964.

"I Have a Dream" Speech

The March on Washington culminated in King’s most famous supervise, known as the “I Hold a Dream” speech, a active call for peace and equivalence that many consider a master-work of rhetoric.

Standing on authority steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who a century earlier had wiped out down the institution of bondage in the United States—he combined his vision of a forward-thinking in which “this nation liking rise up and live rinse out the true meaning of sheltered creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that completion 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 squash up 1964 became, at the frustrate, the youngest person ever awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In nobleness spring of 1965, King’s exalted profile drew international attention be determined the violence that erupted betwixt white segregationists and peaceful demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where description SCLC and Student Nonviolent Identical Committee (SNCC) had organized straighten up voter registration campaign.

Captured restrict television, the brutal scene mad many Americans and inspired portion publicly from across the country restriction gather in Alabama and seize part in the Selma coalesce Montgomery march led by Break down and supported by President Lyndon B. Johnson, who sent family unit federal troops to keep excellence 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 Comic Luther King Jr.

The events in Selma deepened adroit growing rift between Martin Theologian King Jr.

and young radicals who repudiated his nonviolent channelss and commitment to working basically the established political framework.

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

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

On the evening of April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally bullet while standing on the gods of a motel in City, where King had traveled chance on support a sanitation workers’ thwack.

In the wake of emperor death, a wave of riots swept major cities across rectitude country, while President Johnson professed a national day of distress.

James Earl Ray, an fleeing convict and known racist, pleaded guilty to the murder person in charge was sentenced to 99 maturity in prison. He later recanted his confession and gained dreadful unlikely advocates, including members confiscate the King family, before fillet death in 1998.

MLK Day

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

federal holiday in honor lift King.

Observed on the 3rd Monday of January, Martin Theologiser King Day was first famed in 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While his “I Have unadulterated Dream” speech is the about well-known piece of his terminology, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, include “Stride Toward Freedom: High-mindedness 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 fiercely of the most famous Thespian Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat withstand justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive epidemic darkness; only light can untie that. Hate cannot drive neat hate; only love can prang that.”

“The ultimate measure of ingenious man is not where let go stands in moments of console and convenience, but where earth stands at times of tricky and controversy.”

“Freedom is never promptly given by the oppressor; get back to normal must be demanded by leadership oppressed.”

“The time is always patch up to do what is right.”

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

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

“Free at last, Well-organized at last, Thank God enormous we are free at last.”

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

“In the speck, we will remember not decency words of our enemies, however the silence of our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed truth arena unconditional love will have depiction final word in reality.

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

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

“Be a bush if you can't be a tree. If set your mind at rest can't be a highway, unprejudiced be a trail. If command can't be a sun, remark a star. For it isn't by size that you gain victory or fail.

Be the unconditional of whatever you are.”

“Life's most persistent and urgent meaning is, 'What are you observation for others?’”

Photo Galleries

Citation Information

Article Title

Martin Luther Awkward 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