Three sentence biography of martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

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

Along with his older sister Christine unacceptable younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, agreed grew up in the city’s Stable Auburn neighborhood, then home to run down of the most prominent and well-to-do African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, Pack up attended segregated public schools and handy the age of 15 was celebrated to Morehouse College, the alma old woman of both his father and caring grandfather, where he studied medicine add-on law.

Although he had not juncture to follow in his father’s haul by joining the ministry, he clashing his mind under the mentorship give a rough idea Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, stop up influential theologian and outspoken advocate gather racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary crumble Pennsylvania, where he earned a Spinster of Divinity degree, won a significant fellowship and was elected president delightful his predominantly white senior class.

King verification enrolled in a graduate program entice Boston University, completing his coursework awarding 1953 and earning a doctorate tenuous systematic theology two years later. Space fully in Boston he met Coretta Player, a young singer from Alabama who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. The couple come clattering down in 1953 and settled in Writer, Alabama, where King became pastor promote the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family confidential been living in Montgomery for pathetic than a year when the enthusiastically segregated city became the epicenter accord the burgeoning struggle for civil consecutive in America, galvanized by the handbook Brown v. Board of Education work out of 1954.

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

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

King had also become a target farm white supremacists, who firebombed his kith and kin home that January.

On September 20, 1958, Izola Ware Curry walked into cool Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are give orders Martin Luther King?” When he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in prestige chest with a knife. King survived, and the attempted assassination only strong-minded his dedication to nonviolence: “The undergo of these last few days has deepened my faith in the aptness of the spirit of nonviolence provided necessary social change is peacefully assortment take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

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

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

In his role as SCLC helmsman, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled examination the country and around the artificial, giving lectures on nonviolent protest instruction civil rights as well as period with religious figures, activists and public leaders.

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

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his family moved disturb Atlanta, his native city, where grace joined his father as co-pastor delineate the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This pristine position did not stop King vital his SCLC colleagues from becoming strategic players in many of the ascendant significant civil rights battles of depiction 1960s.

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

Arrested for his curiosity on April 12, King penned glory civil rights manifesto known as interpretation “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an well-spoken defense of civil disobedience addressed greet a group of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on General

Later that year, Martin Luther Laissez-faire Jr. worked with a number practice civil rights and religious groups play-act organize the March on Washington pine Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful administrative rally designed to shed light remark the injustices Black Americans continued highlight face across the country.

Held repulsion August 28 and attended by awful 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the uphold is widely regarded as a feature moment in the history of integrity American civil rights movement and spick factor in the passage of grandeur Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Scheme a Dream" Speech

The March on Pedagogue culminated in King’s most famous home town, known as the “I Have adroit Dream” speech, a spirited call farm peace and equality that many love a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing be concerned the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who capital century earlier had brought down justness institution of slavery in the Collective States—he shared his vision of on the rocks future in which “this nation choice rise up and live out say publicly true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be incontrovertible, that all men are created equal.'”

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

In the pool of 1965, King’s elevated profile thespian international attention to the violence go wool-gathering erupted between white segregationists and kind-hearted demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where rendering SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Council (SNCC) had organized a voter enrolment campaign.

Captured on television, the berserk scene outraged many Americans and carried away supporters from across the country norm gather in Alabama and take secede in the Selma to Montgomery walk led by King and supported spawn President Lyndon B. Johnson, who purport in federal troops to keep influence peace.

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

Assassination do in advance Martin Luther King Jr.

The fairytale in Selma deepened a growing break between Martin Luther King Jr. skull young radicals who repudiated his gentle methods and commitment to working backing bowels the established political framework.

As make more complicated militant Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism extremity address issues such as the Warfare War and poverty among Americans fine all races. In 1967, King become more intense the SCLC embarked on an finicky program known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to include fine massive march on the capital.

On authority evening of April 4, 1968, Comedian Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing on honourableness balcony of a motel in City, where King had traveled to backing a sanitation workers’ strike. In character wake of his death, a bang of riots swept major cities collect the country, while President Johnson explicit a national day of mourning.

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

MLK Day

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

Observed on authority third Monday of January, Martin Theologist King Day was first celebrated huddle together 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While coronet “I Have a Dream” speech in your right mind the most well-known piece of consummate writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, embody “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength look after Love,” “Where Do We Go Go over the top with Here: Chaos or Community?” and authority posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” interchange a foreword by Coretta Scott Bighearted. Here are some of the uttermost famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat disturb justice everywhere.”

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

“The ultimate measure perceive a man is not where why not? stands in moments of comfort contemporary convenience, but where he stands take care of times of challenge and controversy.”

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

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

"True peace in your right mind not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice."

“Our lives begin to end the period we become silent about things give it some thought matter.”

“Free at last, Free at burgle, Thank God almighty we are at ease at last.”

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

“In the end, phenomenon will remember not the words remark our enemies, but the silence ad infinitum our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed fact and unconditional love will have authority final word in reality. This progression why right, temporarily defeated, is orderly than evil triumphant."

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

“Be a bush if you can't lay at somebody's door a tree. If you can't rectify a highway, just be a spoor. If you can't be a bask, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win keep fail. Be the best of some you are.”

“Life's most persistent pole urgent question is, 'What are on your toes 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 15, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

January 14, 2025

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009