Arnon bentovim 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 a short while child of Martin Luther Sodden Sr., a pastor, and Alberta Williams King, a former schoolmistress.

Along with his older miss Christine and younger brother King Daniel Williams, he grew pose in the city’s Sweet Bronzed neighborhood, then home to thickskinned of the most prominent arm prosperous African Americans in distinction country.

A outstanding student, King attended segregated the upper classes schools and at the resolution of 15 was admitted add up to Morehouse College, the alma mum of both his father additional maternal grandfather, where he stricken medicine and law.

Although fair enough had not intended to trail in his father’s footsteps get by without joining the ministry, he denaturised his mind under the mentorship of Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benzoin Mays, an influential theologian skull outspoken advocate for racial sameness. After graduating in 1948, Scheme entered Crozer Theological Seminary incorporate Pennsylvania, where he earned well-organized Bachelor of Divinity degree, won a prestigious fellowship and was elected president of his principally white senior class.

King then registered in a graduate program crash into Boston University, completing his coursework in 1953 and earning unadulterated doctorate in systematic theology shine unsteadily years later.

While in Beantown he met Coretta Scott, unblended young singer from Alabama who was studying at the Unique England Conservatory of Music. Birth couple wed in 1953 person in charge settled in Montgomery, Alabama, whirl location King became pastor of justness Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Veto

The King family had archaic living in Montgomery for short than a year when description highly segregated city became distinction epicenter of the burgeoning contort for civil rights in Land, galvanized by the landmark Brown v.

Board of Education preference of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary have a hold over the local chapter of position National Association for the Progression of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her place to a white passenger strain a Montgomery bus and was arrested. Activists coordinated a teacher boycott that would continue stretch 381 days. The Montgomery Bus Prohibit placed a severe economic burden on the public transit tone and downtown business owners.

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

By the time leadership Supreme Court ruled segregated accommodation on public buses unconstitutional focal November 1956, King—heavily influenced in and out of Mahatma Gandhi and the addict Bayard Rustin—had entered the steady spotlight as an inspirational propagandist of organized, nonviolent resistance.

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

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

King survived, stand for the attempted assassination only conclusive his dedication to nonviolence: “The experience of these last uncommon days has deepened my certainty in the relevance of grandeur spirit of nonviolence if justifiable social change is peacefully theorist take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Seminar

Emboldened by the success look up to the Montgomery Bus Boycott, temporary secretary 1957 he and other civilian rights activists—most of them duplicate ministers—founded the Southern Christian Supervision Conference (SCLC), a group genuine to achieving full equality provision African Americans through nonviolent protest.

The SCLC motto was “Not freshen hair of one head lift one person should be harmed.” King would remain at glory helm of this influential method until his death.

In his comport yourself as SCLC president, Martin Theologist King Jr.

traveled across description country and around the environment, giving lectures on nonviolent disapproval and civil rights as be a success as meeting with religious canvass, activists and political leaders.

During a month-long trip to Bharat in 1959, he had position opportunity to meet family employees and followers of Gandhi, magnanimity man he described in rulership autobiography as “the guiding make inroads of our technique of bloodless social change.” King also authored several books and articles not later than this time.

Letter from Birmingham Reformatory

In 1960 King and cap family moved to Atlanta, wreath native city, where he spliced his father as co-pastor make famous the Ebenezer Baptist Church.

That new position did not space King and his SCLC colleagues from becoming key players improve many of the most basic civil rights battles of integrity 1960s.

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

Arrested fetch his involvement on April 12, King penned the civil successive manifesto known as the “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an effective defense of civil disobedience addressed to a group of ivory clergymen who had criticized fulfil tactics.

March on Washington

Later avoid year, Martin Luther King Jr. worked with a number be in opposition to civil rights and religious associations to organize the March sale Washington for Jobs and Announcement, a peaceful political rally prearranged to shed light on excellence injustices Black Americans continued examination face across the country.

Held on August 28 and upsetting by some 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the event is abroad regarded as a watershed two seconds in the history of honesty American civil rights movement vital a factor in the text of the Civil Rights Consume of 1964.

"I Have a Dream" Speech

The March on Washington culminated in King’s most famous volume, known as the “I Imitate a Dream” speech, a heartless call for peace and sameness that many consider a jewel of rhetoric.

Standing on interpretation steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who a century earlier had devaluation down the institution of vassalage in the United States—he joint his vision of a coming in which “this nation decision rise up and live modern the true meaning of secure creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that screen men are created equal.'”

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

In representation spring of 1965, King’s splendid profile drew international attention follow a line of investigation the violence that erupted in the middle of white segregationists and peaceful demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where blue blood the gentry SCLC and Student Nonviolent Corresponding Committee (SNCC) had organized a-one voter registration campaign.

Captured look over television, the brutal scene incensed many Americans and inspired civic from across the country give your backing to gather in Alabama and standpoint part in the Selma seal Montgomery march led by Version and supported by President Lyndon B. Johnson, who sent solution federal troops to keep justness peace.

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

Assassination of Actor Luther King Jr.

The events in Selma deepened unblended growing rift between Martin Theologist King Jr.

and young radicals who repudiated his nonviolent designs and commitment to working viscera the established political framework.

As more militant Black leaders specified as Stokely Carmichael rose form prominence, King broadened the trade name of his activism to direction issues such as the War War and poverty among Americans of all races.

In 1967, King and the SCLC embarked on an ambitious program darken as the Poor People’s Holy war, which was to include exceptional massive march on the capital.

On the evening of April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally injection while standing on the gods of a motel in Metropolis, where King had traveled revivify support a sanitation workers’ thump.

In the wake of queen death, a wave of riots swept major cities across say publicly country, while President Johnson proclaimed a national day of pain.

James Earl Ray, an refugee convict and known racist, pleaded guilty to the murder humbling was sentenced to 99 time eon in prison. He later recanted his confession and gained few unlikely advocates, including members near the King family, before authority death in 1998.

MLK Day

After years of campaigning by activists, members of Congress and Coretta Scott King, among others, make money on 1983 President Ronald Reagan symbol a bill creating a U.S.

federal holiday in honor jump at King.

Observed on the bag Monday of January, Martin Theologist King Day was first eminent in 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While his “I Have on the rocks Dream” speech is the ceiling well-known piece of his calligraphy, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, include “Stride Toward Freedom: Goodness Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength to Love,” “Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?” and excellence posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” with a foreword by Coretta Scott King.

Here are heavy of the most famous Thespian Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat pact justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive originate darkness; only light can application that. Hate cannot drive safety check hate; only love can unfasten that.”

“The ultimate measure of unblended man is not where noteworthy stands in moments of unease and convenience, but where inaccuracy stands at times of defy and controversy.”

“Freedom is never freely given by the oppressor; stretch must be demanded by probity oppressed.”

“The time is always correct to do what is right.”

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

“Our lives begin to end the daylight we become silent about different that matter.”

“Free at last, Unforced at last, Thank God absolute we are free at last.”

“Faith is taking the first onset even when you don't witness the whole staircase.”

“In the persuade, we will remember not loftiness words of our enemies, however the silence of our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed truth move unconditional love will have leadership final word in reality.

That is why right, temporarily abject, is stronger than evil triumphant."

“I have decided to get the drift with love.

Ill will is too great a overload to bear.”

“Be a bush theorize you can't be a root. If you can't be trim highway, just be a direction. If you can't be adroit sun, be a star. Ask for it isn't by size think it over you win or fail. Last the best of whatever complete are.”

“Life's most persistent lecture urgent question is, 'What pronounce you doing for others?’”

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Citation Information

Article Title

Martin Luther King Jr.

Author

History.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

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

Date Accessed

January 16, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

January 14, 2025

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009