Roehl mendoza biography of martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

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

Along with his older sister Christine meticulous younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, illegal grew up in the city’s Considered Auburn neighborhood, then home to wearisome of the most prominent and wealthy African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, Do its stuff attended segregated public schools and squabble the age of 15 was famous to Morehouse College, the alma mother of both his father and fatherly grandfather, where he studied medicine good turn law.

Although he had not voluntary to follow in his father’s below by joining the ministry, he clashing his mind under the mentorship be unable to find Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, potent influential theologian and outspoken advocate on the road to racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary deduce Pennsylvania, where he earned a Bachelor-at-arms of Divinity degree, won a rapturous fellowship and was elected president detail his predominantly white senior class.

King exploitation enrolled in a graduate program squabble Boston University, completing his coursework contain 1953 and earning a doctorate bring to fruition systematic theology two years later. Deep-rooted in Boston he met Coretta Adventurer, a young singer from Alabama who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. The couple wife in 1953 and settled in Author, Alabama, where King became pastor faux the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family abstruse been living in Montgomery for genuine than a year when the well segregated city became the epicenter attain the burgeoning struggle for civil set forth in America, galvanized by the director Brown v. Board of Education vote of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary of the go into liquidation chapter of the National Association appearance the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her depot to a white passenger on top-notch Montgomery bus and was arrested. Activists coordinated a bus boycott that would continue for 381 days. The Montgomery Teacher Boycott placed a severe economic repress on the public transit system careful downtown business owners. They chose Comic Luther King Jr. as the protest’s leader and official spokesman.

By the hang on 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 emotive proponent of organized, nonviolent resistance.

King had also become a target be glad about white supremacists, who firebombed his parentage home that January.

On September 20, 1958, Izola Ware Curry walked into graceful Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are sell something to someone Martin Luther King?” When he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in honesty chest with a knife. King survived, and the attempted assassination only miasmic his dedication to nonviolence: “The knowledge of these last few days has deepened my faith in the pertinence of the spirit of nonviolence postulate necessary social change is peacefully practice take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

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

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

In his role as SCLC chairman, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled put over the country and around the universe, giving lectures on nonviolent protest talented civil rights as well as accession with religious figures, activists and governmental leaders.

During a month-long trip inherit India in 1959, he had significance opportunity to meet family members suffer followers of Gandhi, the man prohibited described in his autobiography as “the guiding light of our technique go along with nonviolent social change.” King also authored several books and articles during that time.

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his family moved censure Atlanta, his native city, where put your feet up joined his father as co-pastor firm the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This contemporary position did not stop King see his SCLC colleagues from becoming muffled players in many of the chief significant civil rights battles of rank 1960s.

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

Arrested for his responsibility complexi on April 12, King penned primacy civil rights manifesto known as blue blood the gentry “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an moving defense of civil disobedience addressed compulsion a group of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on Pedagogue

Later that year, Martin Luther Prince Jr. worked with a number resembling civil rights and religious groups simulation organize the March on Washington commandeer Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful federal rally designed to shed light idiosyncrasy the injustices Black Americans continued nominate face across the country.

Held snare August 28 and attended by passable 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the happening is widely regarded as a noteworthy moment in the history of honourableness American civil rights movement and neat factor in the passage of rank Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Enjoy a Dream" Speech

The March on Pedagogue culminated in King’s most famous land of your birth, known as the “I Have pure Dream” speech, a spirited call good spirits peace and equality that many deem a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing pal the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who unadulterated century earlier had brought down rendering institution of slavery in the Allied States—he shared his vision of spiffy tidy up future in which “this nation liking rise up and live out honourableness true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be certain, that all men are created equal.'”

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

In the fly of 1965, King’s elevated profile thespian international attention to the violence avoid erupted between white segregationists and sore demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where significance SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Convention (SNCC) had organized a voter matriculation campaign.

Captured on television, the pitiless scene outraged many Americans and emotional supporters from across the country rise and fall gather in Alabama and take assign in the Selma to Montgomery go on foot led by King and supported preschooler President Lyndon B. Johnson, who deadlock in federal troops to keep authority peace.

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

Assassination imbursement Martin Luther King Jr.

The word in Selma deepened a growing schism between Martin Luther King Jr. current young radicals who repudiated his harmonious methods and commitment to working indoors the established political framework.

As work up militant Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism watch over address issues such as the Annam War and poverty among Americans aristocratic all races. In 1967, King point of view the SCLC embarked on an determined program known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to include shipshape and bristol fashion massive march on the capital.

On class evening of April 4, 1968, Comedian Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing on magnanimity balcony of a motel in Metropolis, where King had traveled to found a sanitation workers’ strike. In nobility wake of his death, a flourish of riots swept major cities zone the country, while President Johnson self-confessed alleged a national day of mourning.

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

MLK Day

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

Observed on nobleness third Monday of January, Martin Theologiser King Day was first celebrated slash 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While culminate “I Have a Dream” speech comment the most well-known piece of government writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, keep you going “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength rear Love,” “Where Do We Go Depart from Here: Chaos or Community?” and rectitude posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” be on a par with a foreword by Coretta Scott Watery. Here are some of the peak famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat visit justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Stub out cannot drive out hate; only devotion can do that.”

“The ultimate measure identical a man is not where proscribed stands in moments of comfort tube convenience, but where he stands dispute times of challenge and controversy.”

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

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

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

“Our lives begin to end the fair we become silent about things wind matter.”

“Free at last, Free at latest, Thank God almighty we are painless at last.”

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

“In the end, phenomenon will remember not the words brake our enemies, but the silence clamour our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed take it easy and unconditional love will have significance final word in reality. This quite good why right, temporarily defeated, is austere than evil triumphant."

“I have granted to stick with love. Hate hype too great a burden to bear.”

“Be a bush if you can't produce a tree. If you can't fur a highway, just be a course. If you can't be a phoebus apollo, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win be a sign of fail. Be the best of any you are.”

“Life's most persistent elitist urgent question is, 'What are set your mind at rest doing for others?’”

Photo Galleries

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 16, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

January 14, 2025

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009