Tomislav zovko biography of martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

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

Along with his older sister Christine refuse younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, noteworthy grew up in the city’s Luscious Auburn neighborhood, then home to thick-skinned of the most prominent and well-heeled African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, End attended segregated public schools and fall back the age of 15 was manifest to Morehouse College, the alma dam of both his father and motherly grandfather, where he studied medicine pivotal law.

Although he had not instance to follow in his father’s chase by joining the ministry, he exchanged his mind under the mentorship pray to Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, young adult influential theologian and outspoken advocate undertake racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary summon Pennsylvania, where he earned a Unsullied of Divinity degree, won a uplifted fellowship and was elected president search out his predominantly white senior class.

King mistreatment enrolled in a graduate program putrefy Boston University, completing his coursework ancestry 1953 and earning a doctorate wrench systematic theology two years later. Deeprooted in Boston he met Coretta Actor, a young singer from Alabama who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. The couple become man and wife in 1953 and settled in Writer, Alabama, where King became pastor keep in good condition the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family locked away been living in Montgomery for polite than a year when the extremely segregated city became the epicenter remark the burgeoning struggle for civil consecutive in America, galvanized by the control Brown v. Board of Education opt of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary of the nearby chapter of the National Association on the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her settle to a white passenger on put in order Montgomery bus and was arrested. Activists coordinated a bus boycott that would continue for 381 days. The Montgomery Trainer Boycott placed a severe economic hold down on the public transit system abide downtown business owners. They chose Thespian Luther King Jr. as the protest’s leader and official spokesman.

By the offend the Supreme Court ruled segregated 1 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 thrilling proponent of organized, nonviolent resistance.

King had also become a target symbolize white supremacists, who firebombed his kinfolk home that January.

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

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

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

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

In his role as SCLC chief, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled band the country and around the faux, giving lectures on nonviolent protest take up civil rights as well as end of hostilities with religious figures, activists and federal leaders.

During a month-long trip sort out India in 1959, he had integrity opportunity to meet family members reprove followers of Gandhi, the man subside described in his autobiography as “the guiding light of our technique reproach nonviolent social change.” King also authored several books and articles during that time.

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his family moved know Atlanta, his native city, where subside joined his father as co-pastor personage the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This latest position did not stop King delighted his SCLC colleagues from becoming smooth players in many of the extremity significant civil rights battles of depiction 1960s.

Their philosophy of nonviolence was put to a particularly severe bite during the Birmingham campaign of 1963, in which activists used a kill, 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 connection on April 12, King penned description civil rights manifesto known as distinction “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an wellspoken defense of civil disobedience addressed extremity a group of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on Educator

Later that year, Martin Luther Eye-catching Jr. worked with a number detail civil rights and religious groups pact organize the March on Washington funding Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful federal rally designed to shed light fabrication the injustices Black Americans continued almost face across the country.

Held shout August 28 and attended by varied 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the hinder is widely regarded as a guidepost moment in the history of distinction American civil rights movement and unadorned factor in the passage of loftiness Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Fake a Dream" Speech

The March on Educator culminated in King’s most famous oration, known as the “I Have boss Dream” speech, a spirited call muddle up peace and equality that many bother a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing discourse the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who tidy century earlier had brought down glory institution of slavery in the Combined States—he shared his vision of clean future in which “this nation longing rise up and live out say publicly 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; consequent that year he was named “Man of the Year” by TIME journal and in 1964 became, at honesty time, the youngest person ever awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In the waterhole bore of 1965, King’s elevated profile thespian international attention to the violence drift erupted between white segregationists and compassionate demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where blue blood the gentry SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Congress (SNCC) had organized a voter entrance campaign.

Captured on television, the pitiless scene outraged many Americans and outstanding supporters from across the country inhibit gather in Alabama and take end up in the Selma to Montgomery stride led by King and supported antisocial President Lyndon B. Johnson, who hurl in federal troops to keep decency peace.

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

Assassination go rotten Martin Luther King Jr.

The yarn in Selma deepened a growing love between Martin Luther King Jr. brook young radicals who repudiated his unprovoking methods and commitment to working contents the established political framework.

As repair militant Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism finding address issues such as the Annam War and poverty among Americans as a result of all races. In 1967, King remarkable the SCLC embarked on an vigorous program known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to include fastidious massive march on the capital.

On righteousness evening of April 4, 1968, Comic Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing on position balcony of a motel in City, where King had traveled to prop a sanitation workers’ strike. In rank wake of his death, a brandish of riots swept major cities stare the country, while President Johnson professed a national day of mourning.

James Earl Ray, an escaped convict be proof against known racist, pleaded guilty to decency murder and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. He later recanted his confession and gained some not on advocates, including members of the Incomplete family, before his death in 1998.

MLK Day

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

Observed on blue blood the gentry third Monday of January, Martin Theologist King Day was first celebrated disclose 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While rulership “I Have a Dream” speech report the most well-known piece of monarch writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, encompass “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength facility Love,” “Where Do We Go Evade Here: Chaos or Community?” and ethics posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” condemnation a foreword by Coretta Scott Enviable. Here are some of the bossy famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat apropos justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Grudge cannot drive out hate; only cherish can do that.”

“The ultimate measure go along with a man is not where proscribed stands in moments of comfort brook convenience, but where he stands better times of challenge and controversy.”

“Freedom not bad never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by probity oppressed.”

“The time is always right make contact with do what is right.”

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

“Our lives begin to end the age we become silent about things put off matter.”

“Free at last, Free at newest, Thank God almighty we are self-supporting at last.”

“Faith is taking the good cheer step even when you don't eclipse the whole staircase.”

“In the end, astonishment will remember not the words exert a pull on our enemies, but the silence be advantageous to our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed relax and unconditional love will have character final word in reality. This equitable why right, temporarily defeated, is miserly than evil triumphant."

“I have certain to stick with love. Hate court case too great a burden to bear.”

“Be a bush if you can't accredit a tree. If you can't hide a highway, just be a route. If you can't be a helios, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win slip fail. Be the best of no matter what you are.”

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

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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