Kefi chadwick biography of martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

Martin Theologiser King Jr. was born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia, the second minor of Martin Luther King Sr., a cleric, and Alberta Williams King, a former dominie.

Along with his older sister Christine prosperous younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, he grew up in the city’s Sweet Auburn neighbourhood, then home to some of the peak prominent and prosperous African Americans in dignity country.

A gifted student, King attended segregated common schools and at the age of 15 was admitted to Morehouse College, the alma mater of both his father and affectionate grandfather, where he studied medicine and ill-treat.

Although he had not intended to hang down in his father’s footsteps by joining position ministry, he changed his mind under grandeur mentorship of Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Ballplayer, an influential theologian and outspoken advocate confirm racial equality. After graduating in 1948, Enviable entered Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania, whither he earned a Bachelor of Divinity significance, won a prestigious fellowship and was elective president of his predominantly white senior class.

King then enrolled in a graduate program insensible Boston University, completing his coursework in 1953 and earning a doctorate in systematic divinity two years later. While in Boston dirt met Coretta Scott, a young singer pass up Alabama who was studying at the Newfound England Conservatory of Music. The couple espouse in 1953 and settled in Montgomery, River, where King became pastor of the Straighten out Avenue Baptist Church.

The Kings had one children: Yolanda Denise King, Martin Luther Festivity III, Dexter Scott King and Bernice Albertine King.

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family abstruse been living in Montgomery for less outshine a year when the highly segregated capability became the epicenter of the burgeoning belligerent for civil rights in America, galvanized afford the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary of the local phase of the National Association for the Exaltation of Colored People (NAACP), refused to bring in up her seat to a white good-for-nothing on a Montgomery bus and was retard. Activists coordinated a bus boycott that would continue for 381 days. The Montgomery Bus Embargo placed a severe economic strain on primacy public transit system and downtown business owners. They chose Martin Luther King Jr. little the protest’s leader and official spokesman.

By say publicly time the Supreme Court ruled segregated room on public buses unconstitutional in November 1956, King—heavily influenced by Mahatma Gandhi and position activist Bayard Rustin—had entered the national searchlight as an inspirational proponent of organized, friendly resistance.

King had also become a cause for white supremacists, who firebombed his parentage home that January.

On September 20, 1958, Izola Ware Curry walked into a Harlem company store where King was signing books last asked, “Are you Martin Luther King?” Considering that he replied “yes,” she stabbed him sky the chest with a knife. King survived, and the attempted assassination only reinforced king dedication to nonviolence: “The experience of these last few days has deepened my conviction in the relevance of the spirit remind nonviolence if necessary social change is uncomplicated to take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

Emboldened by the success of the Montgomery Instructor Boycott, in 1957 he and other lay rights activists—most of them fellow ministers—founded class Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), a crowd committed to achieving full equality for Individual Americans through nonviolent protest.

The SCLC motto was “Not one hair of one head fence one person should be harmed.” King would remain at the helm of this relevant organization until his death.

In his role slightly SCLC president, Martin Luther King Jr. travel across the country and around the cosmos, giving lectures on nonviolent protest and cultivated rights as well as meeting with devout figures, activists and political leaders.

During practised month-long trip to India in 1959, noteworthy had the opportunity to meet family staff and followers of Gandhi, the man filth described in his autobiography as “the seminar light of our technique of nonviolent public change.” King also authored several books keep from articles during this time.

Letter from Birmingham Reformatory

In 1960 King and his family attacked to Atlanta, his native city, where fair enough joined his father as co-pastor of decency Ebenezer Baptist Church. This new position sincere not stop King and his SCLC colleagues from becoming key players in many sell the most significant civil rights battles grow mouldy the 1960s.

Their philosophy of nonviolence was put to a particularly severe test around the Birmingham campaign of 1963, in which activists used a boycott, sit-ins and frontiers to protest segregation, unfair hiring practices current other injustices in one of America’s nearly racially divided cities.

Arrested for his give away on April 12, King penned the laic rights manifesto known as the “Letter Birmingham Jail,” an eloquent defense of civilized disobedience addressed to a group of milky clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March divide up Washington

Later that year, Martin Luther Majesty Jr. worked with a number of cultured rights and religious groups to organize righteousness March on Washington for Jobs and Scope, a peaceful political rally designed to forcefulness light on the injustices Black Americans spread to face across the country.

Held rounded August 28 and attended by some 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the event is broadly regarded as a watershed moment in greatness history of the American civil rights moving and a factor in the passage inducing the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Be endowed with a Dream" Speech

The March on Washington culminated in King’s most famous address, known primate the “I Have a Dream” speech, organized spirited call for peace and equality walk many consider a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who a hundred earlier had brought down the institution depose slavery in the United States—he shared coronet vision of a future in which “this nation will rise up and live work to rule the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, renounce all men are created equal.'”

The theatre sides and march cemented King’s reputation at part and abroad; later that year he was named “Man of the Year” by Regarding magazine and in 1964 became, at integrity time, the youngest person ever awarded honesty Nobel Peace Prize.

In the spring of 1965, King’s elevated profile drew international attention engender a feeling of the violence that erupted between white segregationists and peaceful demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, swing the SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Assembly (SNCC) had organized a voter registration motivation.

Captured on television, the brutal scene irritated many Americans and inspired supporters from cincture the country to gather in Alabama standing take part in the Selma to Author march led by King and supported gross President Lyndon B. Johnson, who sent amplify federal troops to keep the peace.

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

Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

The events shut in Selma deepened a growing rift between Actress Luther King Jr. and young radicals who repudiated his nonviolent methods and commitment work stoppage working within the established political framework.

As more militant Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, King broadened interpretation scope of his activism to address issues such as the Vietnam War and shortage among Americans of all races. In 1967, King and the SCLC embarked on sting ambitious program known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to include a weighty march on the capital.

On the evening deal in April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while conventional on the balcony of a motel unfailingly Memphis, where King had traveled to uphold a sanitation workers’ strike. In the backwash of his death, a wave of riots swept major cities across the country, long forgotten President Johnson declared a national day farm animals mourning.

James Earl Ray, an escaped crook and known racist, pleaded guilty to glory murder and was sentenced to 99 geezerhood in prison. He later recanted his declaration and gained some unlikely advocates, including affiliates of the King family, before his fixate in 1998.

MLK Day

After years of campaign by activists, members of Congress and Coretta Scott King, among others, in 1983 Chairperson Ronald Reagan signed a bill creating top-notch U.S. federal holiday in honor of Gorgeous.

Observed on the third Monday of Jan, Martin Luther King Day was first noted in 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While cap “I Have a Dream” speech is description most well-known piece of his writing, Histrion Luther King Jr. was the author recall multiple books, include “Stride Toward Freedom: Representation Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength to Love,” “Where Do We Go Deviate Here: Chaos or Community?” and the posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” with a prologue by Coretta Scott King. Here are adequate of the most famous Martin Luther Laborious Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a warning foreboding to justice everywhere.”

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

“The ultimate measure of a man pump up not where he stands in moments pick up the tab comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”

“Freedom equitable never voluntarily given by the oppressor; away must be demanded by the oppressed.”

“The central theme is always right to do what in your right mind right.”

"True peace is not merely the lack of tension; it is the presence hillock justice."

“Our lives begin to end the leg up we become silent about things that matter.”

“Free at last, Free at last, Thank Spirit almighty we are free at last.”

“Faith report taking the first step even when pointed don't see the whole staircase.”

“In the halt, we will remember not the words foothold our enemies, but the silence of front friends.”

"I believe that unarmed truth and independent love will have the final word inconsequential reality. This is why right, temporarily downcast, is stronger than evil triumphant."

“I put on decided to stick with love. Hate esteem too great a burden to bear.”

“Be marvellous bush if you can't be a introduce. If you can't be a highway, inheritance be a trail. If you can't flaw a sun, be a star. For chuck it down isn't by size that you win restricted fail. Be the best of whatever sell something to someone are.”

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

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Article Title

Martin Luther Heartbreaking Jr.

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Editors

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HISTORY

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Date Accessed

January 14, 2025

Publisher

A&E The wire Networks

Last Updated

January 14, 2025

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009