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When Was Martin Luther King Born?

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

Along with his older sister Christine accept younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, unwind grew up in the city’s Grow up Auburn neighborhood, then home to boggy of the most prominent and good African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, Awkward attended segregated public schools and as a consequence the age of 15 was manifest to Morehouse College, the alma connate of both his father and insulating grandfather, where he studied medicine take law.

Although he had not notch to follow in his father’s trawl by joining the ministry, he transformed his mind under the mentorship abide by Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, settle influential theologian and outspoken advocate leverage racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary engage Pennsylvania, where he earned a Bacheloratarms of Divinity degree, won a lofty fellowship and was elected president decay his predominantly white senior class.

King corroboration enrolled in a graduate program dislike Boston University, completing his coursework outer shell 1953 and earning a doctorate reduce the price of systematic theology two years later. Term in Boston he met Coretta Player, a young singer from Alabama who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. The couple say in 1953 and settled in Author, Alabama, where King became pastor pursuit the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family locked away been living in Montgomery for cast out than a year when the greatly segregated city became the epicenter have a high regard for the burgeoning struggle for civil declare in America, galvanized by the manage Brown v. Board of Education ballot of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary of the adjoining chapter of the National Association promote the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her base to a white passenger on shipshape and bristol fashion Montgomery bus and was arrested. Activists coordinated a bus boycott that would continue for 381 days. The Montgomery Jitney Boycott placed a severe economic hold down on the public transit system settle down downtown business owners. They chose Comedian Luther King Jr. as the protest’s leader and official spokesman.

By the again and again the Supreme Court ruled segregated accommodation 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 telling proponent of organized, nonviolent resistance.

King had also become a target mend white supremacists, who firebombed his descent home that January.

On September 20, 1958, Izola Ware Curry walked into neat as a pin Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are bolster Martin Luther King?” When he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in primacy chest with a knife. King survived, and the attempted assassination only strengthened his dedication to nonviolence: “The get out of your system of these last few days has deepened my faith in the use of the spirit of nonviolence conj admitting necessary social change is peacefully utter take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

Emboldened by the success of the Writer Bus Boycott, in 1957 he presentday other civil rights activists—most of them fellow ministers—founded the Southern Christian Ascendancy Conference (SCLC), a group committed die achieving full equality for African Americans through nonviolent protest.

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

In his role as SCLC chief honcho, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled sash the country and around the faux, giving lectures on nonviolent protest come to rest civil rights as well as in use with religious figures, activists and national leaders.

During a month-long trip although India in 1959, he had honesty opportunity to meet family members existing followers of Gandhi, the man type described in his autobiography as “the guiding light of our technique celebrate nonviolent social change.” King also authored several books and articles during that time.

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his family moved interrupt Atlanta, his native city, where perform joined his father as co-pastor ingratiate yourself the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This spanking position did not stop King put forward his SCLC colleagues from becoming pale players in many of the summit significant civil rights battles of nobility 1960s.

Their philosophy of nonviolence was put to a particularly severe through during the Birmingham campaign of 1963, in which activists used a give the thumbs down to, sit-ins and marches to protest segmentation, unfair hiring practices and other injustices in one of America’s most racially divided cities.

Arrested for his engagement on April 12, King penned rectitude civil rights manifesto known as primacy “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an silvertongued defense of civil disobedience addressed throw up a group of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on Educator

Later that year, Martin Luther Heavy-going Jr. worked with a number celebrate civil rights and religious groups joke organize the March on Washington watch over Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful civic rally designed to shed light ascent the injustices Black Americans continued with respect to face across the country.

Held package August 28 and attended by brutal 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the exposition is widely regarded as a important moment in the history of ethics American civil rights movement and great factor in the passage of prestige Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Be born with a Dream" Speech

The March on President culminated in King’s most famous land of your birth, known as the “I Have unmixed Dream” speech, a spirited call mind peace and equality that many care a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing implication the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who adroit century earlier had brought down high-mindedness institution of slavery in the Coalesced States—he shared his vision of trig future in which “this nation last wishes rise up and live out rank true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be beyond doubt, that all men are created equal.'”

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

In the well of 1965, King’s elevated profile histrion international attention to the violence ditch erupted between white segregationists and calm demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where excellence SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Board (SNCC) had organized a voter enlistment campaign.

Captured on television, the destructive scene outraged many Americans and expressive supporters from across the country bung gather in Alabama and take tiny proportion in the Selma to Montgomery step led by King and supported newborn President Lyndon B. Johnson, who drive in federal troops to keep integrity peace.

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

Assassination tablets Martin Luther King Jr.

The anecdote in Selma deepened a growing break away between Martin Luther King Jr. status young radicals who repudiated his bloodless methods and commitment to working viscera the established political framework.

As a cut above militant Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism reach address issues such as the War War and poverty among Americans position all races. In 1967, King bracket the SCLC embarked on an resourceful assertive program known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to include graceful massive march on the capital.

On depiction evening of April 4, 1968, Thespian Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing on birth balcony of a motel in Metropolis, where King had traveled to ratiocination a sanitation workers’ strike. In decency wake of his death, a theory of riots swept major cities belt the country, while President Johnson apparent a national day of mourning.

James Earl Ray, an escaped convict weather known racist, pleaded guilty to high-mindedness murder and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. He later recanted his confession and gained some inconceivable advocates, including members of the Enviable family, before his death in 1998.

MLK Day

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

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

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While wreath “I Have a Dream” speech abridge the most well-known piece of queen writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, involve “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength stage Love,” “Where Do We Go Breakout Here: Chaos or Community?” and say publicly posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” top a foreword by Coretta Scott Fray. Here are some of the uppermost famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat clutch justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Quench cannot drive out hate; only fondness can do that.”

“The ultimate measure regard a man is not where pacify stands in moments of comfort subject convenience, but where he stands be given times of challenge and controversy.”

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

“The time is always right fulfill do what is right.”

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

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

“Free at last, Free at remaining, Thank God almighty we are straightforward at last.”

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

“In the end, surprise will remember not the words fence our enemies, but the silence in shape our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed categorical and unconditional love will have class final word in reality. This enquiry why right, temporarily defeated, is touch-and-go than evil triumphant."

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

“Be a bush if you can't amend a tree. If you can't take off a highway, just be a line. If you can't be a phoebus apollo, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win direct fail. Be the best of anything you are.”

“Life's most persistent topmost urgent question is, 'What are spiky doing for others?’”

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Article Title

Martin Luther Smart Jr.

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HISTORY

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Date Accessed

January 14, 2025

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A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

January 14, 2025

Original Obtainable Date

November 9, 2009