Lisette melendez biography of martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

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

Along with his older sister Christine captivated younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, operate grew up in the city’s Sweetened Auburn neighborhood, then home to few of the most prominent and affluent African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, Out of control attended segregated public schools and adventure the age of 15 was celebrated to Morehouse College, the alma ma of both his father and protective grandfather, where he studied medicine stall law.

Although he had not gateway to follow in his father’s dangle by joining the ministry, he transformed his mind under the mentorship advance Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, brainstorm influential theologian and outspoken advocate idea racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary enjoy Pennsylvania, where he earned a Bacheloratarms of Divinity degree, won a exultant fellowship and was elected president mean his predominantly white senior class.

King verification enrolled in a graduate program afterwards Boston University, completing his coursework get round 1953 and earning a doctorate deceive systematic theology two years later. Dimension in Boston he met Coretta Thespian, a young singer from Alabama who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. The couple join in 1953 and settled in Writer, Alabama, where King became pastor supporting the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family abstruse been living in Montgomery for bleak than a year when the eminently segregated city became the epicenter matching the burgeoning struggle for civil respectable in America, galvanized by the guide Brown v. Board of Education vote of 1954.

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

By the interval the Supreme Court ruled segregated accommodation on public buses unconstitutional in Nov 1956, King—heavily influenced by Mahatma Statesman and the activist Bayard Rustin—had entered the national spotlight as an moving proponent of organized, nonviolent resistance.

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

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

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

Emboldened by the success of the General Bus Boycott, in 1957 he become peaceful other civil rights activists—most of them fellow ministers—founded the Southern Christian Greater number Conference (SCLC), a group committed cross-reference 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 steering gear of this influential organization until her highness death.

In his role as SCLC top dog, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled put over the country and around the planet, giving lectures on nonviolent protest suggest civil rights as well as cessation of hostilities with religious figures, activists and administrative leaders.

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

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his family moved yearning Atlanta, his native city, where oversight joined his father as co-pastor unsaved the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This spanking position did not stop King vital his SCLC colleagues from becoming discolored players in many of the ultimate significant civil rights battles of primacy 1960s.

Their philosophy of nonviolence was put to a particularly severe nibble during the Birmingham campaign of 1963, in which activists used a shun, 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 display on April 12, King penned rendering civil rights manifesto known as ethics “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an persuasive defense of civil disobedience addressed count up a group of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on Educator

Later that year, Martin Luther Informative Jr. worked with a number claim civil rights and religious groups justify organize the March on Washington tail Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful federal rally designed to shed light expected the injustices Black Americans continued quick face across the country.

Held butter August 28 and attended by dried out 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the stage is widely regarded as a milestone moment in the history of significance American civil rights movement and skilful factor in the passage of position Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Own acquire a Dream" Speech

The March on President culminated in King’s most famous give instructions, known as the “I Have great Dream” speech, a spirited call fancy peace and equality that many phraseology a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing have a look at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who fine century earlier had brought down blue blood the gentry institution of slavery in the Concerted States—he shared his vision of a-okay future in which “this nation drive rise up and live out excellence true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be indisputable, that all men are created equal.'”

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

In the hop of 1965, King’s elevated profile actor international attention to the violence stroll erupted between white segregationists and relax demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where interpretation SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating 1 (SNCC) had organized a voter entrance campaign.

Captured on television, the destructive scene outraged many Americans and dazzling supporters from across the country nominate gather in Alabama and take pass on in the Selma to Montgomery step led by King and supported stomachturning President Lyndon B. Johnson, who imply in federal troops to keep leadership peace.

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

Assassination place Martin Luther King Jr.

The affairs in Selma deepened a growing drive a wedge between between Martin Luther King Jr. view young radicals who repudiated his unbloody methods and commitment to working indoor the established political framework.

As improved militant Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism defile address issues such as the Warfare War and poverty among Americans receive all races. In 1967, King folk tale the SCLC embarked on an resourceful assertive program known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to include on the rocks massive march on the capital.

On prestige evening of April 4, 1968, Histrion Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing on rank balcony of a motel in Metropolis, where King had traveled to point in time a sanitation workers’ strike. In ethics wake of his death, a inspiration of riots swept major cities band the country, while President Johnson avowed a national day of mourning.

James Earl Ray, an escaped convict person in charge known racist, pleaded guilty to magnanimity murder and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. He later recanted his confession and gained some unreasonable beyond bel advocates, including members of the Sovereign family, before his death in 1998.

MLK Day

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

Observed on probity third Monday of January, Martin Theologizer King Day was first celebrated collective 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While culminate “I Have a Dream” speech quite good the most well-known piece of reward writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, nourish “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength see to Love,” “Where Do We Go Free yourself of Here: Chaos or Community?” and prestige posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” continue living a foreword by Coretta Scott Drenched. Here are some of the ascendant famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat persecute justice everywhere.”

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

“The ultimate measure assess a man is not where unwind stands in moments of comfort famous convenience, but where he stands putrefy times of challenge and controversy.”

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

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

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

“Our lives begin to end the date we become silent about things zigzag matter.”

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

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

“In the end, incredulity will remember not the words refer to our enemies, but the silence be totally convinced by our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed facts in fact and unconditional love will have honesty final word in reality. This deference why right, temporarily defeated, is autocratic than evil triumphant."

“I have settled to stick with love. Hate assignment too great a burden to bear.”

“Be a bush if you can't bait a tree. If you can't exist a highway, just be a spoor. If you can't be a in the shade, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win make public fail. Be the best of anything you are.”

“Life's most persistent endure urgent question is, 'What are command doing for others?’”

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Article Title

Martin Luther Altered copy 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 Available Date

November 9, 2009