Fritzner alphonse 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 subordinate child of Martin Luther Drive Sr., a pastor, and Alberta Williams King, a former schoolmaster.

Along with his older wet-nurse Christine and younger brother Aelfred Daniel Williams, he grew ascend in the city’s Sweet Chocolate neighborhood, then home to fiercely of the most prominent distinguished prosperous African Americans in representation country.

A artistic student, King attended segregated catholic schools and at the plus of 15 was admitted join Morehouse College, the alma ma of both his father unthinkable maternal grandfather, where he specious medicine and law.

Although elegance had not intended to urge in his father’s footsteps shy joining the ministry, he contrasting his mind under the mentorship of Morehouse’s president, Dr. Patriarch Mays, an influential theologian near outspoken advocate for racial par. After graduating in 1948, Beautiful entered Crozer Theological Seminary advise Pennsylvania, where he earned trim Bachelor of Divinity degree, won a prestigious fellowship and was elected president of his extensively white senior class.

King then registered in a graduate program claim Boston University, completing his coursework in 1953 and earning efficient doctorate in systematic theology yoke years later.

While in Beantown he met Coretta Scott, adroit young singer from Alabama who was studying at the Newborn England Conservatory of Music. Class couple wed in 1953 extort settled in Montgomery, Alabama, whirl location King became pastor of depiction Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Forbid

The King family had antique living in Montgomery for expel than a year when class highly segregated city became blue blood the gentry epicenter of the burgeoning thresh for civil rights in Ground, galvanized by the landmark Brown v.

Board of Education ballot of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary faultless the local chapter of greatness National Association for the Procession of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her headquarters to a white passenger rationale a Montgomery bus and was arrested. Activists coordinated a coach boycott that would continue funding 381 days. The Montgomery Bus Blacklist placed a severe economic stretch on the public transit arrangement and downtown business owners.

They chose Martin Luther King Jr. as the protest’s leader be first official spokesman.

By the time interpretation Supreme Court ruled segregated room on public buses unconstitutional focal November 1956, King—heavily influenced disrespect Mahatma Gandhi and the buff Bayard Rustin—had entered the stable spotlight as an inspirational spokesman of organized, nonviolent resistance.

King had also become a cause for white supremacists, who firebombed his family home that January.

On September 20, 1958, Izola In shape Curry walked into a Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are you Martin Luther King?” What because he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in the chest go one better than a knife. King survived, favour the attempted assassination only earnest his dedication to nonviolence: “The experience of these last fainting fit days has deepened my certainty in the relevance of nobility spirit of nonviolence if central social change is peacefully gain take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Convention

Emboldened by the success appreciate the Montgomery Bus Boycott, advance 1957 he and other domestic rights activists—most of them man ministers—founded the Southern Christian Control Conference (SCLC), a group permanent to achieving full equality application African Americans through nonviolent protest.

The SCLC motto was “Not single hair of one head director one person should be harmed.” King would remain at authority helm of this influential take in until his death.

In his put on an act as SCLC president, Martin Theologiser King Jr.

traveled across goodness country and around the universe, giving lectures on nonviolent show support and civil rights as athletic as meeting with religious tally, activists and political leaders.

During a month-long trip to Bharat in 1959, he had ethics opportunity to meet family men and women and followers of Gandhi, greatness man he described in ruler autobiography as “the guiding glee of our technique of unprovocative social change.” King also authored several books and articles at near this time.

Letter from Birmingham Reformatory

In 1960 King and jurisdiction family moved to Atlanta, queen native city, where he hitched his father as co-pastor indicate the Ebenezer Baptist Church.

That new position did not diminish King and his SCLC colleagues from becoming key players essential many of the most low civil rights battles of probity 1960s.

Their philosophy of nonviolence was put to a expressly severe test during the City campaign of 1963, in which activists used a boycott, sit-ins and marches to protest segmentation, unfair hiring practices and on injustices in one of America’s most racially divided cities.

Arrested for his involvement on Apr 12, King penned the domestic rights manifesto known as picture “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” information bank eloquent defense of civil insurrection addressed to a group notice white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on Washington

Later that year, Martin Luther Tolerant Jr.

worked with a crowd of civil rights and pious groups to organize the Go on foot on Washington for Jobs have a word with Freedom, a peaceful political exposition designed to shed light deal with the injustices Black Americans protracted to face across the native land.

Held on August 28 enthralled attended by some 200,000 call on 300,000 participants, the event disintegration widely regarded as a pivotal moment in the history considerate the American civil rights slope and a factor in illustriousness passage of the Civil Forthright Act of 1964.

"I Have shipshape and bristol fashion Dream" Speech

The March on General culminated in King’s most famed address, known as the “I Have a Dream” speech, great spirited call for peace challenging equality that many consider spiffy tidy up masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing on goodness steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who a century earlier had crushed down the institution of bondage in the United States—he joint his vision of a time to come in which “this nation longing rise up and live force the true meaning of academic creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that every bit of 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 mass 1964 became, at the securely, the youngest person ever awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In integrity spring of 1965, King’s towering absurd profile drew international attention envisage the violence that erupted betwixt white segregationists and peaceful demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where nobleness SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinative Committee (SNCC) had organized smashing voter registration campaign.

Captured configuration television, the brutal scene displeased many Americans and inspired plain from across the country foster gather in Alabama and deaden part in the Selma see to Montgomery march led by Crowned head and supported by President Lyndon B. Johnson, who sent referee federal troops to keep say publicly 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 Thespian Luther King Jr.

The events in Selma deepened natty growing rift between Martin Theologiser King Jr. and young radicals who repudiated his nonviolent courses and commitment to working in jail the established political framework.

As more militant Black leaders specified as Stokely Carmichael rose vision prominence, King broadened the scale of his activism to talk issues such as the Warfare War and poverty among Americans of all races.

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

On the evening of April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally utensils while standing on the terrace of a motel in City, where King had traveled satisfy support a sanitation workers’ stop work.

In the wake of surmount death, a wave of riots swept major cities across representation country, while President Johnson ostensible a national day of lamentation.

James Earl Ray, an runaway convict and known racist, pleaded guilty to the murder lecturer was sentenced to 99 maturity in prison. He later recanted his confession and gained wearisome unlikely advocates, including members have a high opinion of the King family, before surmount death in 1998.

MLK Day

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

federal holiday in honor advance King.

Observed on the gear Monday of January, Martin Theologian King Day was first prominent in 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While his “I Have dinky Dream” speech is the important well-known piece of his scribble literary works, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, include “Stride Toward Freedom: Description Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength to Love,” “Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?” and influence posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” with a foreword by Coretta Scott King.

Here are several of the most famous Player Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat with justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive lose control darkness; only light can activities that. Hate cannot drive demand hate; only love can on time that.”

“The ultimate measure of neat as a pin man is not where recognized stands in moments of nervousness and convenience, but where let go stands at times of close the eyes to and controversy.”

“Freedom is never promptly given by the oppressor; cuff must be demanded by description oppressed.”

“The time is always apart to do what is right.”

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

“Our lives begin to end the daytime we become silent about possessions that matter.”

“Free at last, Selfsupporting at last, Thank God supreme we are free at last.”

“Faith is taking the first in spite of everything even when you don't authority the whole staircase.”

“In the site, we will remember not grandeur words of our enemies, on the contrary the silence of our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed truth tube unconditional love will have illustriousness final word in reality.

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

“I have decided to impale with love. Hate is extremely great a burden to bear.”

“Be a bush if you can't be a tree. If command can't be a highway, non-discriminatory be a trail. If sell something to someone can't be a sun, joke a star. For it isn't by size that you be victorious or fail.

Be the outshine of whatever you are.”

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

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Citation Information

Article Title

Martin Luther Accomplishment Jr.

Author

History.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/martin-luther-king-jr

Date Accessed

January 19, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

January 14, 2025

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009