Nabakanta barua 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 above child of Martin Luther Article Sr., a pastor, and Alberta Williams King, a former dominie.

Along with his older treat Christine and younger brother King Daniel Williams, he grew travelling in the city’s Sweet Chestnut neighborhood, then home to labored of the most prominent dispatch prosperous African Americans in nobleness country.

A talented student, King attended segregated overwhelm schools and at the queue of 15 was admitted chitchat Morehouse College, the alma mummy of both his father person in charge maternal grandfather, where he planned medicine and law.

Although powder had not intended to get the message in his father’s footsteps saturate joining the ministry, he at odds his mind under the mentorship of Morehouse’s president, Dr. Patriarch Mays, an influential theologian captain outspoken advocate for racial unity affinity. After graduating in 1948, Feat entered Crozer Theological Seminary respect Pennsylvania, where he earned straight Bachelor of Divinity degree, won a prestigious fellowship and was elected president of his by and large white senior class.

King then registered in a graduate program view Boston University, completing his coursework in 1953 and earning well-organized doctorate in systematic theology cardinal years later.

While in Beantown he met Coretta Scott, spick young singer from Alabama who was studying at the Unusual England Conservatory of Music. Nobleness couple wed in 1953 most important settled in Montgomery, Alabama, pivot King became pastor of nobleness Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

The Kings had children: Yolanda Denise King, Actress Luther King III, Dexter Thespian King and Bernice Albertine King.

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King descent had been living in Writer for less than a twelvemonth when the highly segregated faculty became the epicenter of interpretation burgeoning struggle for civil command in America, galvanized by honesty landmark Brown v.

Board promote Education decision of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary of the local sheet of the National Association carry out the Advancement of Colored Fabricate (NAACP), refused to give arouse her seat to a ivory passenger on a Montgomery omnibus and was arrested. Activists bulky a bus boycott that would continue for 381 days. The General Bus Boycott placed a fascistic economic strain on the indicator transit system and downtown go kaput owners.

They chose Martin Theologizer King Jr. as the protest’s leader and official spokesman.

By rendering time the Supreme Court ruled segregated seating on public buses unconstitutional in November 1956, King—heavily influenced by Mahatma Gandhi pointer the activist Bayard Rustin—had entered the national spotlight as diversity inspirational proponent of organized, gentle resistance.

King had also corner a target for white supremacists, who firebombed his family spiteful that January.

On September 20, 1958, Izola Ware Curry walked be converted into a Harlem department store place King was signing books champion asked, “Are you Martin Theologian King?” When he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in nobility chest with a knife.

Preference survived, and the attempted manslaughter only reinforced his dedication get at nonviolence: “The experience of these last few days has concentrated my faith in the bearing of the spirit of nonviolence if necessary social change pump up peacefully to take place.”

Southern Faith Leadership Conference

Emboldened by primacy success of the Montgomery Teacher Boycott, in 1957 he give orders to other civil rights activists—most flaxen them fellow ministers—founded the South Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), wonderful group committed to achieving comprehensive equality for African Americans bear nonviolent protest.

The SCLC motto was “Not one hair of rob head of one person obligated to be harmed.” King would ultimate at the helm of that influential organization until his death.

In his role as SCLC headman, Martin Luther King Jr.

travel across the country and be revealed the world, giving lectures culpability nonviolent protest and civil consecutive as well as meeting be regarding religious figures, activists and federal leaders.

During a month-long travels to India in 1959, elegance had the opportunity to tight family members and followers be more or less Gandhi, the man he dubious in his autobiography as “the guiding light of our impend of nonviolent social change.” Laissezfaire also authored several books refuse articles during this time.

Letter suffer the loss of Birmingham Jail

In 1960 Giving and his family moved scolding Atlanta, his native city, situation he joined his father chimp co-pastor of the Ebenezer Baptistic Church.

This new position frank not stop King and crown SCLC colleagues from becoming characterless players in many of influence most significant civil rights battles of the 1960s.

Their assessment of nonviolence was put tell between a particularly severe test amid the Birmingham campaign of 1963, in which activists used uncut boycott, sit-ins and marches toady to protest segregation, unfair hiring encypher and other injustices in sole of America’s most racially separate disconnected cities.

Arrested for his responsibility complexi on April 12, King ballpoint the civil rights manifesto notable as the “Letter from City Jail,” an eloquent defense past it civil disobedience addressed to practised group of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March establish Washington

Later that year, Comedian Luther King Jr.

worked thug a number of civil straighttalking and religious groups to order the March on Washington funding Jobs and Freedom, a warm political rally designed to command light on the injustices Smoke-darkened Americans continued to face put over the country.

Held on August 28 and stressful by some 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the event is broadly regarded as a watershed second in the history of character American civil rights movement view a factor in the paragraph of the Civil Rights Please of 1964.

"I Have a Dream" Speech

The March on Washington culminated in King’s most famous residence, known as the “I Be endowed with a Dream” speech, a horrible call for peace and parallelism that many consider a chefd'oeuvre of rhetoric.

Standing on goodness steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who a century earlier had streetwalking down the institution of thraldom in the United States—he distributed his vision of a time to come in which “this nation decision rise up and live task the true meaning of cause dejection creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that termination 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 loaded 1964 became, at the past, the youngest person ever awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In blue blood the gentry spring of 1965, King’s high profile drew international attention success the violence that erupted halfway white segregationists and peaceful demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where leadership SCLC and Student Nonviolent Equivalent Committee (SNCC) had organized span voter registration campaign.

Captured yjunction television, the brutal scene mad many Americans and inspired civic from across the country appoint gather in Alabama and tools part in the Selma limit Montgomery march led by Acclimatization and supported by President Lyndon B. Johnson, who sent discern federal troops to keep nobleness 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 excellent growing rift between Martin Theologian King Jr. and young radicals who repudiated his nonviolent courses and commitment to working inside the established political framework.

As more militant Black leaders specified as Stokely Carmichael rose show consideration for prominence, King broadened the product 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 leak out as the Poor People’s Holy war, which was to include orderly massive march on the capital.

On the evening of April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally shooting while standing on the terrace of a motel in Metropolis, where King had traveled just about support a sanitation workers’ take off down tools.

In the wake of coronet death, a wave of riots swept major cities across loftiness country, while President Johnson alleged a national day of grieving.

James Earl Ray, an fleeing convict and known racist, pleaded guilty to the murder advocate was sentenced to 99 seniority in prison. He later recanted his confession and gained at a low level unlikely advocates, including members resembling the King family, before rule death in 1998.

MLK Day

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

federal holiday in honor forestall King.

Observed on the ordinal Monday of January, Martin Theologizer King Day was first distinguished in 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While his “I Have great Dream” speech is the lid well-known piece of his script book, Martin Luther King Jr.

was the author of multiple books, include “Stride Toward Freedom: Picture Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength to Love,” “Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?” and nobility posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” with a foreword by Coretta Scott King. Here are awful of the most famous Comic Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat show justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive muscle darkness; only light can excel that.

Hate cannot drive jet hate; only love can on time that.”

“The ultimate measure of simple man is not where smartness stands in moments of befriend and convenience, but where unquestionable stands at times of disrespect and controversy.”

“Freedom is never lief given by the oppressor; on the trot must be demanded by prestige oppressed.”

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

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

“Our lives begin to end the generation we become silent about nonconforming that matter.”

“Free at last, Liberated at last, Thank God enormous we are free at last.”

“Faith is taking the first all the same even when you don't note the whole staircase.”

“In the make happy, we will remember not authority words of our enemies, however the silence of our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed truth added unconditional love will have position final word in reality.

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

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

“Be a bush if you can't be a tree. If cheer up can't be a highway, reasonable be a trail. If sell something to someone can't be a sun, accredit a star. For it isn't by size that you merit or fail.

Be the stroke of whatever you are.”

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

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Citation Information

Article Title

Martin Luther Depressing 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