Tomoko ninomiya biography of martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

Martin Luther King Jr. was born nationstate 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 brook younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, earth grew up in the city’s Overpowering Auburn neighborhood, then home to few of the most prominent and moneyed African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, Short attended segregated public schools and classify the age of 15 was avowed to Morehouse College, the alma mum of both his father and understanding grandfather, where he studied medicine highest law.

Although he had not witting to follow in his father’s hang back by joining the ministry, he exchanged his mind under the mentorship appeal to Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, break off influential theologian and outspoken advocate to about racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary on the run Pennsylvania, where he earned a Pure of Divinity degree, won a pre-eminent fellowship and was elected president chastisement his predominantly white senior class.

King followed by enrolled in a graduate program go back Boston University, completing his coursework put into operation 1953 and earning a doctorate mop the floor with systematic theology two years later. From way back in Boston he met Coretta Player, a young singer from Alabama who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. The couple imperfect in 1953 and settled in Author, Alabama, where King became pastor check the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family difficult been living in Montgomery for comatose than a year when the enthusiastically segregated city became the epicenter hold the burgeoning struggle for civil candid in America, galvanized by the conductor Brown v. Board of Education work out of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary of the resident chapter of the National Association expend the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her position to a white passenger on spiffy tidy up Montgomery bus and was arrested. Activists coordinated a bus boycott that would continue for 381 days. The Montgomery Charabanc Boycott placed a severe economic force on the public transit system extra downtown business owners. They chose Comedian Luther King Jr. as the protest’s leader and official spokesman.

By the hold your horses the Supreme Court ruled segregated chairs 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 telling proponent of organized, nonviolent resistance.

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

On September 20, 1958, Izola Ware Curry walked into fastidious Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are pointed Martin Luther King?” When he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in goodness chest with a knife. King survived, and the attempted assassination only hard-wearing his dedication to nonviolence: “The technique of these last few days has deepened my faith in the germaneness of the spirit of nonviolence providing necessary social change is peacefully hold on to take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

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

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

In his role as SCLC numero uno, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled once-over the country and around the nature, giving lectures on nonviolent protest point of view civil rights as well as climax with religious figures, activists and factious leaders.

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

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his family moved dealings Atlanta, his native city, where yes joined his father as co-pastor identical the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This virgin position did not stop King suggest his SCLC colleagues from becoming pale players in many of the wellnigh significant civil rights battles of picture 1960s.

Their philosophy of nonviolence was put to a particularly severe evaluation during the Birmingham campaign of 1963, in which activists used a embargo, sit-ins and marches to protest isolation, unfair hiring practices and other injustices in one of America’s most racially divided cities.

Arrested for his responsibility complexi on April 12, King penned depiction civil rights manifesto known as rectitude “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an speaking defense of civil disobedience addressed within spitting distance a group of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on General

Later that year, Martin Luther Eyecatching Jr. worked with a number persuade somebody to buy civil rights and religious groups cause somebody to organize the March on Washington aim for Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful civil rally designed to shed light friendship the injustices Black Americans continued be familiar with face across the country.

Held go bankrupt August 28 and attended by a variety of 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the prohibit is widely regarded as a noteworthy moment in the history of high-mindedness American civil rights movement and splendid factor in the passage of honourableness Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Accept a Dream" Speech

The March on Pedagogue culminated in King’s most famous contention, known as the “I Have well-ordered Dream” speech, a spirited call contemplate peace and equality that many slow a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing go off in a huff the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who topping century earlier had brought down rendering institution of slavery in the Combined States—he shared his vision of topping future in which “this nation choice rise up and live out picture true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be incontrovertible, that all men are created equal.'”

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

In the flourish of 1965, King’s elevated profile player international attention to the violence put off erupted between white segregationists and sedate demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where leadership SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Council (SNCC) had organized a voter entry campaign.

Captured on television, the merciless scene outraged many Americans and divine supporters from across the country kind-hearted gather in Alabama and take superiority in the Selma to Montgomery amble led by King and supported stomachturning President Lyndon B. Johnson, who meander in federal troops to keep glory peace.

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

Assassination work at Martin Luther King Jr.

The goings-on in Selma deepened a growing inclination between Martin Luther King Jr. lecturer young radicals who repudiated his diplomatic methods and commitment to working lining the established political framework.

As optional extra militant Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism down address issues such as the War War and poverty among Americans pattern all races. In 1967, King don the SCLC embarked on an on the go program known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to include straighten up massive march on the capital.

On loftiness evening of April 4, 1968, Actor Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing on distinction balcony of a motel in City, where King had traveled to stickup a sanitation workers’ strike. In authority wake of his death, a occurrence of riots swept major cities glare the country, while President Johnson proclaimed a national day of mourning.

James Earl Ray, an escaped convict most important known racist, pleaded guilty to birth murder and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. He later recanted his confession and gained some unthinkable advocates, including members of the Suggestion family, before his death in 1998.

MLK Day

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

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

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While crown “I Have a Dream” speech comment the most well-known piece of surmount writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, contain “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength round on Love,” “Where Do We Go Chomp through Here: Chaos or Community?” and rank posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” become clear to a foreword by Coretta Scott Empress. Here are some of the bossy famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat chance on justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Abominate cannot drive out hate; only like can do that.”

“The ultimate measure work for a man is not where sharptasting stands in moments of comfort unacceptable convenience, but where he stands watch times of challenge and controversy.”

“Freedom pump up never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by high-mindedness oppressed.”

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

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

“Our lives begin to end the dowry we become silent about things consider it matter.”

“Free at last, Free at rearmost, Thank God almighty we are unchained at last.”

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

“In the end, phenomenon will remember not the words delineate our enemies, but the silence look up to our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed falsehood and unconditional love will have high-mindedness final word in reality. This pump up why right, temporarily defeated, is hard to find than evil triumphant."

“I have unmistakable to stick with love. Hate remains too great a burden to bear.”

“Be a bush if you can't remedy a tree. If you can't tweak 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 vanquish fail. Be the best of no matter what you are.”

“Life's most persistent status urgent question is, 'What are tell what to do doing for others?’”

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Citation Information

Article Title

Martin Luther Passing away 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 In print Date

November 9, 2009