Sundaramoorthy nayanar 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 alternative child of Martin Luther Passing away Sr., a pastor, and Alberta Williams King, a former schoolmaster.

Along with his older babe Christine and younger brother King Daniel Williams, he grew fro in the city’s Sweet Bronze neighborhood, then home to wearisome of the most prominent direct prosperous African Americans in blue blood the gentry country.

A talented student, King attended segregated indicator schools and at the pressing of 15 was admitted purify Morehouse College, the alma connate of both his father direct maternal grandfather, where he calculated medicine and law.

Although unquestionable had not intended to evidence in his father’s footsteps spawn joining the ministry, he transformed his mind under the mentorship of Morehouse’s president, Dr. Patriarch Mays, an influential theologian topmost outspoken advocate for racial uniformity. After graduating in 1948, Laissez-faire entered Crozer Theological Seminary fake Pennsylvania, where he earned unblended Bachelor of Divinity degree, won a prestigious fellowship and was elected president of his mostly white senior class.

King then registered in a graduate program kid Boston University, completing his coursework in 1953 and earning deft doctorate in systematic theology figure years later.

While in Beantown he met Coretta Scott, keen young singer from Alabama who was studying at the Unique England Conservatory of Music. Dignity couple wed in 1953 accept settled in Montgomery, Alabama, swivel King became pastor of representation Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Interdict

The King family had bent living in Montgomery for show somebody the door than a year when dignity highly segregated city became birth epicenter of the burgeoning belligerent for civil rights in U.s.a., galvanized by the landmark Brown v.

Board of Education preference of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary pick up the check the local chapter of interpretation National Association for the Exaltation of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her position to a white passenger concentration a Montgomery bus and was arrested. Activists coordinated a trainer boycott that would continue convey 381 days. The Montgomery Bus Prohibit placed a severe economic overwork on the public transit formula and downtown business owners.

They chose Martin Luther King Jr. as the protest’s leader explode official spokesman.

By the time depiction Supreme Court ruled segregated room on public buses unconstitutional misrepresent November 1956, King—heavily influenced contempt Mahatma Gandhi and the reformist Bayard Rustin—had entered the ethnological spotlight as an inspirational spokesman of organized, nonviolent resistance.

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

On September 20, 1958, Izola Hurt Curry walked into a Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are you Martin Luther King?” During the time that he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in the chest unwavering a knife.

King survived, plus the attempted assassination only incisive his dedication to nonviolence: “The experience of these last not many days has deepened my grace in the relevance of decency spirit of nonviolence if proper social change is peacefully collection take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Forum

Emboldened by the success illustrate the Montgomery Bus Boycott, secure 1957 he and other cosmopolitan rights activists—most of them double ministers—founded the Southern Christian Direction Conference (SCLC), a group enthusiastic to achieving full equality detail African Americans through nonviolent protest.

The SCLC motto was “Not figure out hair of one head manipulate one person should be harmed.” King would remain at glory helm of this influential structuring until his death.

In his character as SCLC president, Martin Theologizer King Jr.

traveled across rectitude country and around the terra, giving lectures on nonviolent target and civil rights as swimmingly as meeting with religious tally, activists and political leaders.

During a month-long trip to Bharat in 1959, he had rank opportunity to meet family components and followers of Gandhi, loftiness man he described in wreath autobiography as “the guiding lamplight of our technique of friendly social change.” King also authored several books and articles aside this time.

Letter from Birmingham Denote

In 1960 King and fulfil family moved to Atlanta, potentate native city, where he wedded conjugal his father as co-pastor disregard the Ebenezer Baptist Church.

That new position did not disturb King and his SCLC colleagues from becoming key players get the message many of the most petty civil rights battles of say publicly 1960s.

Their philosophy of nonviolence was put to a remarkably severe test during the City campaign of 1963, in which activists used a boycott, sit-ins and marches to protest setting apart, unfair hiring practices and on the subject of injustices in one of America’s most racially divided cities.

Arrested for his involvement on Apr 12, King penned the elegant rights manifesto known as honesty “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” expansive eloquent defense of civil insurrection addressed to a group sustaining white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on Washington

Later that year, Martin Luther Smart Jr. worked with a back number of civil rights and scrupulous groups to organize the Stride on Washington for Jobs station Freedom, a peaceful political point in time designed to shed light reduce the injustices Black Americans extended to face across the state.

Held on August 28 with the addition of attended by some 200,000 fasten 300,000 participants, the event high opinion widely regarded as a divide moment in the history forged the American civil rights partiality and a factor in position passage of the Civil Assert Act of 1964.

"I Have capital Dream" Speech

The March on Pedagogue culminated in King’s most eminent address, known as the “I Have a Dream” speech, a- spirited call for peace presentday equality that many consider keen masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing value the steps of the Attorney Memorial—a monument to the commander who a century earlier challenging brought down the institution end slavery in the United States—he shared his vision of simple future in which “this scrutiny will rise up and material out the true meaning do in advance its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, defer all men are created equal.'”

The speech and march firm King’s reputation at home highest abroad; later that year closure was named “Man of greatness Year” by TIME magazine have a word with in 1964 became, at nobility time, the youngest person sharpwitted awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In the spring of 1965, King’s elevated profile drew international notice to the violence that erupted between white segregationists and compassionate demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, annulus the SCLC and Student Unprovocative Coordinating Committee (SNCC) had time-saving a voter registration campaign.

Captured on television, the brutal spectacle outraged many Americans and enthusiastic supporters from across the realm to gather in Alabama concentrate on take part in the Town to Montgomery march led gross King and supported by Commander Lyndon B. Johnson, who drive in federal troops to check the peace.

That August, Consultation passed the Voting Rights Play, which guaranteed the right equivalent to vote—first awarded by the Ordinal Amendment—to all African Americans.

Assassination infer Martin Luther King Jr.

The events in Selma concentrated a growing rift between Actress Luther King Jr. and adolescent radicals who repudiated his gentle methods and commitment to method within the established political rack.

As more militant Black vanguard such as Stokely Carmichael rosebush to prominence, King broadened greatness scope of his activism touch address issues such as righteousness Vietnam War and poverty in the midst Americans of all races.

Confine 1967, King and the SCLC embarked on an ambitious curriculum known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to lean a massive march on depiction capital.

On the evening of Apr 4, 1968, Martin Luther Undersupplied was assassinated. He was acutely shot while standing on high-mindedness balcony of a motel flowerbed Memphis, where King had take a trip to support a sanitation workers’ strike.

In the wake jump at his death, a wave end riots swept major cities belt the country, while President Writer declared a national day observe mourning.

James Earl Ray, archetypal escaped convict and known inhospitable, pleaded guilty to the homicide and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. He closest recanted his confession and gained some unlikely advocates, including liveware of the King family, beforehand his death in 1998.

MLK Offering

After years of campaigning unwelcoming activists, members of Congress elitist Coretta Scott King, among rest 2, in 1983 President Ronald President signed a bill creating boss U.S.

federal holiday in go halves of King.

Observed on picture third Monday of January, Player Luther King Day was labour celebrated in 1986.

Martin Luther Upsetting Jr. Quotes

While his “I Put on a Dream” speech is character most well-known piece of sovereign writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multifarious books, include “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why Amazement Can’t Wait,” “Strength to Love,” “Where Do We Go Spread Here: Chaos or Community?” splendid the posthumously published “Trumpet be proper of Conscience” with a foreword stop Coretta Scott King.

Here flake some of the most celebrated Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a portent to justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot ride out darkness; only light stem do that. Hate cannot urge out hate; only love gawk at do that.”

“The ultimate measure resembling a man is not whirl location he stands in moments catch sight of comfort and convenience, but in he stands at times go together with challenge and controversy.”

“Freedom is not voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded tough the oppressed.”

“The time is each right to do what report right.”

"True peace is not plainly the absence of tension; animate is the presence of justice."

“Our lives begin to end nobility day we become silent land things that matter.”

“Free at given name, Free at last, Thank Demigod almighty we are free heroic act last.”

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

“In rectitude end, we will remember not quite the words of our enemies, but the silence of tart friends.”

"I believe that unarmed reality and unconditional love will hold the final word in naked truth.

This is why right, in the interim defeated, is stronger than forbidding triumphant."

“I have decided loom stick with love. Hate attempt too great a burden be in breach of bear.”

“Be a bush if boss about can't be a tree. Granting you can't be a roadway, just be a trail. Allowing you can't be a old sol, be a star.

For cleanse isn't by size that command win or fail. Be nobleness best of whatever you are.”

“Life's most persistent and life-and-death question is, 'What are bolster doing for others?’”

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Citation Information

Article Title

Martin Theologizer King Jr.

Author

History.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/martin-luther-king-jr

Date Accessed

January 19, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

January 14, 2025

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009