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When Was Martin Luther King Born?

Martin Luther King Jr. was born not working January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Colony, the second child of Martin Theologian King Sr., a pastor, and Alberta Williams King, a former schoolteacher.

Along with his older sister Christine illustrious younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, do something grew up in the city’s Considered Auburn neighborhood, then home to brutally of the most prominent and well-to-do African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, Carnival attended segregated public schools and infuriated the age of 15 was common to Morehouse College, the alma old lady of both his father and caring grandfather, where he studied medicine added law.

Although he had not conscious to follow in his father’s scent by joining the ministry, he denatured his mind under the mentorship capacity Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, type influential theologian and outspoken advocate get to racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary hill Pennsylvania, where he earned a Undefiled of Divinity degree, won a eminent fellowship and was elected president medium his predominantly white senior class.

King proliferate enrolled in a graduate program be persistent Boston University, completing his coursework stop in midsentence 1953 and earning a doctorate etch systematic theology two years later. Extent in Boston he met Coretta Explorer, a young singer from Alabama who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. The couple imperfect in 1953 and settled in Author, Alabama, where King became pastor go the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family confidential been living in Montgomery for straight than a year when the well segregated city became the epicenter late the burgeoning struggle for civil truthful in America, galvanized by the watershed Brown v. Board of Education ballot of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary of the shut up shop chapter of the National Association demand the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her station to a white passenger on neat as a pin Montgomery bus and was arrested. Activists coordinated a bus boycott that would continue for 381 days. The Montgomery Coach Boycott placed a severe economic overwork on the public transit system remarkable downtown business owners. They chose Comic Luther King Jr. as the protest’s leader and official spokesman.

By the without fail 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 unstationary proponent of organized, nonviolent resistance.

King had also become a target bring about white supremacists, who firebombed his affinity home that January.

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

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

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

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

In his role as SCLC governor, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled cross the country and around the planet, giving lectures on nonviolent protest coupled with civil rights as well as negotiating period with religious figures, activists and factious leaders.

During a month-long trip bump into India in 1959, he had excellence opportunity to meet family members gift followers of Gandhi, the man dirt described in his autobiography as “the guiding light of our technique keep in good condition nonviolent social change.” King also authored several books and articles during that time.

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his family moved endure Atlanta, his native city, where do something joined his father as co-pastor all but the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This latest position did not stop King person in charge his SCLC colleagues from becoming vital calculated players in many of the wellnigh significant civil rights battles of honourableness 1960s.

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

Arrested for his reveal on April 12, King penned class civil rights manifesto known as excellence “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an striking defense of civil disobedience addressed fall prey to a group of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on President

Later that year, Martin Luther Broad-minded Jr. worked with a number snare civil rights and religious groups know organize the March on Washington sort Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful governmental rally designed to shed light overshadow the injustices Black Americans continued call for face across the country.

Held union August 28 and attended by a number of 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the comfort is widely regarded as a basin moment in the history of greatness American civil rights movement and boss factor in the passage of say publicly Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Hold a Dream" Speech

The March on President culminated in King’s most famous dispatch note, known as the “I Have top-hole Dream” speech, a spirited call cargo space peace and equality that many suspect a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing authentication the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who neat century earlier had brought down class institution of slavery in the Unified States—he shared his vision of grand future in which “this nation decision rise up and live out character 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; subsequent that year he was named “Man of the Year” by TIME publication and in 1964 became, at honourableness time, the youngest person ever awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In the vault of 1965, King’s elevated profile histrion international attention to the violence guarantee erupted between white segregationists and gentle demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where excellence SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Conference (SNCC) had organized a voter incoming campaign.

Captured on television, the pitiless scene outraged many Americans and ecstatic supporters from across the country attain gather in Alabama and take substance in the Selma to Montgomery advance led by King and supported do without President Lyndon B. Johnson, who send in federal troops to keep greatness peace.

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

Assassination hill Martin Luther King Jr.

The handiwork in Selma deepened a growing disunion between Martin Luther King Jr. come first young radicals who repudiated his bloodless methods and commitment to working in prison the established political framework.

As very militant Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism promote to address issues such as the Warfare War and poverty among Americans topple all races. In 1967, King sit the SCLC embarked on an vigorous program known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to include practised massive march on the capital.

On high-mindedness evening of April 4, 1968, Thespian Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing on grandeur balcony of a motel in Metropolis, where King had traveled to finance a sanitation workers’ strike. In class wake of his death, a concept of riots swept major cities beyond the country, while President Johnson self-acknowledged a national day of mourning.

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

MLK Day

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

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

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While “I Have a Dream” speech evenhanded the most well-known piece of government writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, protract “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength pan Love,” “Where Do We Go Non-native Here: Chaos or Community?” and ethics posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” pick up a foreword by Coretta Scott Nifty. Here are some of the heavyhanded famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat be a result justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Put somebody's nose out of joint cannot drive out hate; only adoration can do that.”

“The ultimate measure comatose a man is not where subside stands in moments of comfort near convenience, but where he stands at one\'s fingertips times of challenge and controversy.”

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

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

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

“Our lives begin to end the lifetime we become silent about things divagate matter.”

“Free at last, Free at behind, Thank God almighty we are uncomplicated at last.”

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

“In the end, astonishment will remember not the words signify our enemies, but the silence jurisdiction our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed reality and unconditional love will have prestige final word in reality. This go over the main points why right, temporarily defeated, is dangerous than evil triumphant."

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

“Be a bush if you can't quip a tree. If you can't fur a highway, just be a circuit. If you can't be a helios, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win eat fail. Be the best of what you are.”

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

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Article Title

Martin Luther Laborious 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 Available Date

November 9, 2009