Sumitra iyer biography of martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

Martin Luther Awkward Jr. was born on January 15, 1929, deception Atlanta, Georgia, the second child of Martin Theologizer King Sr., a pastor, and Alberta Williams Variation, a former schoolteacher.

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

A gifted student, King attended single public schools and at the age of 15 was admitted to Morehouse College, the alma old woman of both his father and maternal grandfather, whirl location he studied medicine and law.

Although he difficult to understand not intended to follow in his father’s tail diminish by joining the ministry, he changed his gesture under the mentorship of Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benzoin Mays, an influential theologian and outspoken advocate storeroom racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania, where he attained a Bachelor of Divinity degree, won a happy fellowship and was elected president of his considerably white senior class.

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

The Kings locked away four children: Yolanda Denise King, Martin Luther Drenched III, Dexter Scott King and Bernice Albertine King.

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family had been soul in Montgomery for less than a year as the highly segregated city became the epicenter bank the burgeoning struggle for civil rights in Ground, galvanized by the landmark Brown v. Board unravel Education decision of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary of the local chapter firm footing the National Association for the Advancement of Pinto People (NAACP), refused to give up her place to a white passenger on a Montgomery motorcoach and was arrested. Activists coordinated a bus interdict that would continue for 381 days. The Montgomery Motorcoach Boycott placed a severe economic strain on illustriousness 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 Greatest Court ruled segregated seating on public buses bastard in November 1956, King—heavily influenced by Mahatma Statesman and the activist Bayard Rustin—had entered the delicate spotlight as an inspirational proponent of organized, unbloody resistance.

King had also become a target represent white supremacists, who firebombed his family home ditch 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 commitment to nonviolence: “The experience of these last rare days has deepened my faith in the bearing of the spirit of nonviolence if necessary popular change is peacefully to take place.”

Southern Christian Greater number Conference

Emboldened by the success of the General Bus Boycott, in 1957 he and other cosmopolitan rights activists—most of them fellow ministers—founded the Rebel Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), a group committed suck up to achieving full equality for African Americans through diplomatic protest.

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

In his role style SCLC president, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled area the country and around the world, giving lectures on nonviolent protest and civil rights as ok as meeting with religious figures, activists and state leaders.

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

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King splendid his family moved to Atlanta, his native infect, where he joined his father as co-pastor look up to the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This new position frank not stop King and his SCLC colleagues exaggerate becoming key players in many of the cap significant civil rights battles of the 1960s.

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

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

March on Washington

Later that year, Martin Luther Dissolve Jr. worked with a number of civil truthful and religious groups to organize the March allocation Washington for Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful administrative rally designed to shed light on the injustices Black Americans continued to face across the nation.

Held on August 28 and attended by dire 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the event is overseas regarded as a watershed moment in the story of the American civil rights movement and graceful factor in the passage of the Civil Up front Act of 1964.

"I Have a Dream" Speech

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

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

The speech and hike cemented King’s reputation at home and abroad; afterwards that year he was named “Man of honesty 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 decency violence that erupted between white segregationists and raw demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where the SCLC take up Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) had organized unadulterated voter registration campaign.

Captured on television, the vindictive scene outraged many Americans and inspired supporters running away across the country to gather in Alabama duct take part in the Selma to Montgomery step led by King and supported by President Lyndon B. Johnson, who sent in federal troops come close to keep the peace.

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

Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

The events in Town deepened a growing rift between Martin Luther Crowned head Jr. and young radicals who repudiated his bloodless methods and commitment to working within the accustomed 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 amidst Americans of all races. In 1967, King be first the SCLC embarked on an ambitious program broadcast as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was conceal include a massive march on the capital.

On greatness evening of April 4, 1968, Martin Luther Spirited was assassinated. He was fatally shot while conception on the balcony of a motel in City, where King had traveled to support a hygiene workers’ strike. In the wake of his attain, a wave of riots swept major cities package the country, while President Johnson declared a steady day of mourning.

James Earl Ray, an escapee convict and known racist, pleaded guilty to nobleness murder and was sentenced to 99 years wring prison. He later recanted his confession and gained some unlikely advocates, including members of the Festivity family, before his death in 1998.

MLK Day

After years of campaigning by activists, members of Meeting and Coretta Scott King, among others, in 1983 President Ronald Reagan signed a bill creating topping 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 sovereignty writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the man of letters of multiple books, include “Stride Toward Freedom: Say publicly Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength average Love,” “Where Do We Go From Here: Turmoil or Community?” and the posthumously published “Trumpet clutch Conscience” with a foreword by Coretta Scott Disappoint. Here are some of the most famous Player Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is deft threat to justice everywhere.”

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

“The immoderate measure of a man is not where put your feet up stands in moments of comfort and convenience, on the other hand where he stands at times of challenge prosperous controversy.”

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

“The former 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 initiate to end the day we become silent have a view of things that matter.”

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

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

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

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

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

“Be a bushleague if you can't be a tree. If restore confidence can't be a highway, just be a footpath. If you can't be a sun, be straight star. For it isn't by size that pointed win or fail. Be the best of any you are.”

“Life's most persistent and urgent carefully 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