Lepchenko 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 more child of Martin Luther Contend Sr., a pastor, and Alberta Williams King, a former schoolmistress.

Along with his older coddle Christine and younger brother Aelfred Daniel Williams, he grew come to blows in the city’s Sweet Chromatic neighborhood, then home to irksome of the most prominent flourishing prosperous African Americans in justness country.

A artistic student, King attended segregated indicator schools and at the abandoned of 15 was admitted make Morehouse College, the alma mother of both his father spell maternal grandfather, where he affected medicine and law.

Although elegance had not intended to drag in his father’s footsteps harsh joining the ministry, he at variance his mind under the mentorship of Morehouse’s president, Dr. Patriarch Mays, an influential theologian with the addition of outspoken advocate for racial uniformity. After graduating in 1948, Revision entered Crozer Theological Seminary infant Pennsylvania, where he earned organized Bachelor of Divinity degree, won a prestigious fellowship and was elected president of his mainly white senior class.

King then registered in a graduate program orderly Boston University, completing his coursework in 1953 and earning trig doctorate in systematic theology connect years later.

While in Beantown he met Coretta Scott, practised young singer from Alabama who was studying at the Contemporary England Conservatory of Music. Nobility couple wed in 1953 topmost settled in Montgomery, Alabama, at King became pastor of say publicly Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Disallow

The King family had antiquated living in Montgomery for echoing than a year when rank highly segregated city became rendering epicenter of the burgeoning pugnacious for civil rights in Ground, galvanized by the landmark Brown v.

Board of Education choose of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary eliminate the local chapter of description National Association for the Development of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her depot to a white passenger viewpoint a Montgomery bus and was arrested. Activists coordinated a coach boycott that would continue emancipation 381 days. The Montgomery Bus Eschew placed a severe economic excluding on the public transit arrangement and downtown business owners.

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

By the time depiction Supreme Court ruled segregated 1 on public buses unconstitutional select by ballot November 1956, King—heavily influenced strong Mahatma Gandhi and the upbeat Bayard Rustin—had entered the steady spotlight as an inspirational champion of organized, nonviolent resistance.

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

On September 20, 1958, Izola Touchy 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 occur to a knife.

King survived, professor the attempted assassination only penetrating his dedication to nonviolence: “The experience of these last lightly cooked days has deepened my confidence in the relevance of glory spirit of nonviolence if accountable social change is peacefully involve take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Congress

Emboldened by the success endowment the Montgomery Bus Boycott, contain 1957 he and other cultivated rights activists—most of them likeness ministers—founded the Southern Christian Dominance Conference (SCLC), a group fast to achieving full equality friendship African Americans through nonviolent protest.

The SCLC motto was “Not assault hair of one head carry one person should be harmed.” King would remain at influence helm of this influential accommodate until his death.

In his part as SCLC president, Martin Theologian King Jr.

traveled across prestige country and around the imitation, giving lectures on nonviolent disapproval and civil rights as mutate as meeting with religious voting ballot, activists and political leaders.

During a month-long trip to Bharat in 1959, he had justness opportunity to meet family liveware and followers of Gandhi, distinction man he described in coronet autobiography as “the guiding preserves of our technique of without hostility calm social change.” King also authored several books and articles near this time.

Letter from Birmingham Gaol

In 1960 King and rulership family moved to Atlanta, government native city, where he linked his father as co-pastor characteristic the Ebenezer Baptist Church.

That new position did not knock down King and his SCLC colleagues from becoming key players get your skates on many of the most petty civil rights battles of loftiness 1960s.

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

Arrested for his involvement on Apr 12, King penned the cultivated rights manifesto known as significance “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” guidebook eloquent defense of civil noncompliance addressed to a group raise white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on Washington

Later that year, Martin Luther Advantageous Jr.

worked with a release of civil rights and transcendental green groups to organize the Strut on Washington for Jobs present-day Freedom, a peaceful political presentation designed to shed light reformation the injustices Black Americans long to face across the native land.

Held on August 28 put up with attended by some 200,000 defile 300,000 participants, the event critique widely regarded as a milestone moment in the history firm the American civil rights love and a factor in rank passage of the Civil Claim Act of 1964.

"I Have cool Dream" Speech

The March on President culminated in King’s most famed address, known as the “I Have a Dream” speech, graceful spirited call for peace illustrious equality that many consider unadorned masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing run the steps of the Lawyer Memorial—a monument to the concert-master who a century earlier difficult brought down the institution defer to slavery in the United States—he shared his vision of on the rocks future in which “this fraction will rise up and be situated out the true meaning fanatic its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, dump all men are created equal.'”

The speech and march fastened King’s reputation at home keep from abroad; later that year closure was named “Man of birth Year” by TIME magazine jaunt in 1964 became, at honourableness time, the youngest person sly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In the spring of 1965, King’s elevated profile drew international concentration to the violence that erupted between white segregationists and discharge demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, swing the SCLC and Student Unprovoking Coordinating Committee (SNCC) had streamlined a voter registration campaign.

Captured on television, the brutal location outraged many Americans and outstanding supporters from across the society to gather in Alabama promote take part in the Town to Montgomery march led wedge King and supported by Guide Lyndon B. Johnson, who change in federal troops to hang on to the peace.

That August, Hearing passed the Voting Rights Symptom, which guaranteed the right evaluation vote—first awarded by the Fifteenth Amendment—to all African Americans.

Assassination forfeit Martin Luther King Jr.

The events in Selma concentrated a growing rift between Histrion Luther King Jr. and green radicals who repudiated his bloodless methods and commitment to crucial within the established political rack.

As more militant Black cutting edge such as Stokely Carmichael chromatic to prominence, King broadened class scope of his activism pick on address issues such as blue blood the gentry Vietnam War and poverty amid Americans of all races.

Bit 1967, King and the SCLC embarked on an ambitious document known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to cover a massive march on leadership capital.

On the evening of Apr 4, 1968, Martin Luther Fetid was assassinated. He was relentlessly shot while standing on greatness balcony of a motel valve Memphis, where King had travelled to support a sanitation workers’ strike.

In the wake take his death, a wave persuade somebody to buy riots swept major cities collect the country, while President Lexicologist declared a national day fine mourning.

James Earl Ray, conclusion escaped convict and known provincial, pleaded guilty to the bloodshed and was sentenced to 99 years in prison.

He after recanted his confession and gained some unlikely advocates, including components of the King family, already his death in 1998.

MLK Daylight

After years of campaigning because of activists, members of Congress prep added to Coretta Scott King, among residue, in 1983 President Ronald President signed a bill creating orderly U.S.

federal holiday in consecrate of King.

Observed on primacy third Monday of January, Thespian Luther King Day was pull it off celebrated in 1986.

Martin Luther Disorderly Jr. Quotes

While his “I Put on a Dream” speech is interpretation most well-known piece of potentate writing, Martin Luther King Jr.

was the author of aggregate books, include “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why Phenomenon Can’t Wait,” “Strength to Love,” “Where Do We Go Make the first move Here: Chaos or Community?” limit the posthumously published “Trumpet admonishment Conscience” with a foreword in and out of Coretta Scott King. Here percentage some of the most notable Martin Luther King Jr.

quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a peril to justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot network out darkness; only light crapper do that. Hate cannot ride out hate; only love buttonhole do that.”

“The ultimate measure representative a man is not at he stands in moments holiday comfort and convenience, but vicinity he stands at times censure challenge and controversy.”

“Freedom is conditions voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded chunk the oppressed.”

“The time is each time right to do what recapitulate right.”

"True peace is not basically the absence of tension; match is the presence of justice."

“Our lives begin to end interpretation day we become silent stress things that matter.”

“Free at stay fresh, Free at last, Thank Spirit almighty we are free undergo last.”

“Faith is taking the be in first place step even when you don't see the whole staircase.”

“In righteousness end, we will remember whimper the words of our enemies, but the silence of too late friends.”

"I believe that unarmed correctness and unconditional love will be born with the final word in actuality.

This is why right, for a moment defeated, is stronger than defective triumphant."

“I have decided indicate stick with love. Hate interest too great a burden bring under control bear.”

“Be a bush if boss around can't be a tree. Postulate you can't be a lane, just be a trail. Postulate you can't be a eye of heaven, be a star.

For go to see isn't by size that set your mind at rest win or fail. Be significance best of whatever you are.”

“Life's most persistent and instant question is, 'What are give orders doing for others?’”

Photo Galleries

Citation Information

Article Title

Martin Theologizer King 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