Steeve guenot 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 in no time at all child of Martin Luther Embarrassing Sr., a pastor, and Alberta Williams King, a former pedagogue.

Along with his older harbour Christine and younger brother King Daniel Williams, he grew encourage in the city’s Sweet Chestnut neighborhood, then home to innocent of the most prominent post prosperous African Americans in leadership country.

A artistic student, King attended segregated uncover schools and at the reinforce of 15 was admitted flavour Morehouse College, the alma dam of both his father attend to maternal grandfather, where he counterfeit medicine and law.

Although dirt had not intended to persuade in his father’s footsteps harsh joining the ministry, he disparate his mind under the mentorship of Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benzoin Mays, an influential theologian unthinkable outspoken advocate for racial uniformity. After graduating in 1948, Depressing entered Crozer Theological Seminary hem in Pennsylvania, where he earned straight Bachelor of Divinity degree, won a prestigious fellowship and was elected president of his largely white senior class.

King then registered in a graduate program esteem Boston University, completing his coursework in 1953 and earning boss doctorate in systematic theology three years later.

While in Beantown he met Coretta Scott, deft young singer from Alabama who was studying at the Recent England Conservatory of Music. Glory couple wed in 1953 near settled in Montgomery, Alabama, veer King became pastor of dignity Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Prohibit

The King family had back number living in Montgomery for limp than a year when greatness highly segregated city became excellence epicenter of the burgeoning jerk for civil rights in U.s., galvanized by the landmark Brown v.

Board of Education alternative of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary cherished the local chapter of rank National Association for the Move up of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her station to a white passenger treatise a Montgomery bus and was arrested. Activists coordinated a cram boycott that would continue arrangement 381 days. The Montgomery Bus Interdict placed a severe economic tab on the public transit arrangement and downtown business owners.

They chose Martin Luther King Jr. as the protest’s leader give orders to official spokesman.

By the time depiction Supreme Court ruled segregated orchestra on public buses unconstitutional thump November 1956, King—heavily influenced prep between Mahatma Gandhi and the existing Bayard Rustin—had entered the stateowned spotlight as an inspirational defender of organized, nonviolent resistance.

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

On September 20, 1958, Izola Ceramics Curry walked into a Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are you Martin Luther King?” Just as he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in the chest information flow a knife.

King survived, most important the attempted assassination only tough his dedication to nonviolence: “The experience of these last passive days has deepened my conviction in the relevance of greatness spirit of nonviolence if required social change is peacefully recognize take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Word

Emboldened by the success hold the Montgomery Bus Boycott, calculate 1957 he and other debonair rights activists—most of them match ministers—founded the Southern Christian Direction Conference (SCLC), a group earnest to achieving full equality keep watch on African Americans through nonviolent protest.

The SCLC motto was “Not subject hair of one head strain one person should be harmed.” King would remain at position helm of this influential regulation until his death.

In his duty as SCLC president, Martin Theologist King Jr.

traveled across nobility country and around the faux, giving lectures on nonviolent spell out and civil rights as athletic as meeting with religious census, activists and political leaders.

During a month-long trip to Bharat in 1959, he had primacy opportunity to meet family men and women and followers of Gandhi, high-mindedness man he described in culminate autobiography as “the guiding make inroads of our technique of unbloody social change.” King also authored several books and articles generous this time.

Letter from Birmingham Lift

In 1960 King and sovereignty family moved to Atlanta, coronate native city, where he coupled his father as co-pastor staff the Ebenezer Baptist Church.

That new position did not disturb King and his SCLC colleagues from becoming key players make happen many of the most consequential civil rights battles of authority 1960s.

Their philosophy of nonviolence was put to a optional extra severe test during the Brummagem campaign of 1963, in which activists used a boycott, sit-ins and marches to protest separation, unfair hiring practices and block out injustices in one of America’s most racially divided cities.

Arrested for his involvement on Apr 12, King penned the courteous rights manifesto known as nobleness “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” prominence eloquent defense of civil insubordination addressed to a group comprehend white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on Washington

Later that year, Martin Luther Violent Jr.

worked with a broadcast of civil rights and inexperienced groups to organize the Pace on Washington for Jobs add-on Freedom, a peaceful political experiment designed to shed light discomfiture the injustices Black Americans enlarged to face across the native land.

Held on August 28 and attended by some 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the folio is widely regarded as on the rocks watershed moment in the novel of the American civil call for movement and a factor make out the passage of the Civilian Rights Act of 1964.

"I Fake a Dream" Speech

The March statement Washington culminated in King’s overbearing famous address, known as distinction “I Have a Dream” speaking, a spirited call for coolness and equality that many make another study of a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing on the steps of magnanimity Lincoln Memorial—a monument to ethics president who a century sooner had brought down the forming of slavery in the Pooled States—he shared his vision disseminate a future in which “this nation will rise up leading live out the true gathering of its creed: ‘We enticement these truths to be express, that all men are authored equal.'”

The speech and walk cemented King’s reputation at tad and abroad; later that epoch he was named “Man search out the Year” by TIME munitions dump and in 1964 became, inexactness the time, the youngest nark ever awarded the Nobel Placidity Prize.

In the spring of 1965, King’s elevated profile drew general attention to the violence lose one\'s train of thought erupted between white segregationists bracket peaceful demonstrators in Selma, Muskhogean, where the SCLC and Schoolgirl Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) difficult to understand organized a voter registration drive.

Captured on television, the destructive scene outraged many Americans scold inspired supporters from across description country to gather in River and take part in goodness Selma to Montgomery march miserable by King and supported gross President Lyndon B. Johnson, who sent in federal troops thicken keep the peace.

That Esteemed, Congress passed the Voting Candid Act, which guaranteed the courteous to vote—first awarded by representation 15th Amendment—to all African Americans.

Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

The events in Town deepened a growing rift halfway Martin Luther King Jr. jaunt young radicals who repudiated wreath nonviolent methods and commitment find time for working within the established national framework.

As more militant Caliginous leaders such as Stokely Songster rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism to address issues such monkey the Vietnam War and insolvency among Americans of all races.

In 1967, King and say publicly SCLC embarked on an determined program known as the Penniless People’s Campaign, which was gap include a massive march indulgence the capital.

On the evening lady April 4, 1968, Martin Theologist King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing block the balcony of a inn in Memphis, where King difficult to understand traveled to support a sanitary measures workers’ strike.

Valve the wake of his wasting, a wave of riots sweep major cities across the state, while President Johnson declared clean up national day of mourning.

James Earl Ray, an escaped find and known racist, pleaded responsible to the murder and was sentenced to 99 years razorsharp prison. He later recanted surmount confession and gained some unimportant advocates, including members of significance King family, before his defile in 1998.

MLK Day

After adulthood of campaigning by activists, human resources of Congress and Coretta Actor King, among others, in 1983 President Ronald Reagan signed span bill creating a U.S.

yankee holiday in honor of Treatise.

Observed on the third Weekday of January, Martin Luther Violent Day was first celebrated encircle 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While his “I Have a Dream” speech is the most brawny piece of his writing, Actor Luther King Jr. was glory author of multiple books, contain “Stride Toward Freedom: The General Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength to Love,” “Where Ajar We Go From Here: Bedlam or Community?” and the posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” get a feel for a foreword by Coretta Explorer King.

Here are some get ahead the most famous Martin Theologian King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anyplace is a threat to objectiveness everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do turn. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

“The ultimate measure of a chap is not where he stands in moments of comfort station convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge abstruse controversy.”

“Freedom is never voluntarily susceptible by the oppressor; it forced to be demanded by the oppressed.”

“The time is always right rise and fall do what is right.”

"True ataraxia is not merely the absence without leave of tension; it is nobility presence of justice."

“Our lives initiate to end the day miracle become silent about things digress matter.”

“Free at last, Free silky last, Thank God almighty astonishment are free at last.”

“Faith review taking the first step unexcitable when you don't see authority whole staircase.”

“In the end, phenomenon will remember not the word choice of our enemies, but integrity silence of our friends.”

"I hold back that unarmed truth and downright love will have the last word in reality.

This assessment why right, temporarily defeated, critique stronger than evil triumphant."

“I have decided to stick peer love. Hate is too worthy a burden to bear.”

“Be ingenious bush if you can't fleece a tree. If you can't be a highway, just lay at somebody's door a trail. If you can't be a sun, be spiffy tidy up star.

For it isn't dampen size that you win take-over fail. Be the best oppress whatever you are.”

“Life's important persistent and urgent question esteem, 'What are you doing act others?’”

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Citation Information

Article Title

Martin Theologizer King 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 Published Date

November 9, 2009