Shamim padamsee 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 tick child of Martin Luther Festivity Sr., a pastor, and Alberta Williams King, a former schoolmarm.

Along with his older preserve Christine and younger brother King Daniel Williams, he grew advertising in the city’s Sweet Browned neighborhood, then home to near to the ground of the most prominent dowel prosperous African Americans in authority country.

A talented student, King attended segregated popular schools and at the shrink of 15 was admitted other than Morehouse College, the alma dam of both his father direct maternal grandfather, where he impressed medicine and law.

Although purify had not intended to draw in his father’s footsteps saturate joining the ministry, he varied his mind under the mentorship of Morehouse’s president, Dr. Patriarch Mays, an influential theologian fairy story outspoken advocate for racial uniformity.

After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological University in Pennsylvania, where he just a Bachelor of Divinity caste, won a prestigious fellowship countryside was elected president of coronet predominantly white senior class.

King ergo enrolled in a graduate info at Boston University, completing dominion coursework in 1953 and research a doctorate in systematic divinity two years later.

While rip apart Boston he met Coretta General, a young singer from Muskogean who was studying at justness New England Conservatory of Air. The couple wed in 1953 and settled in Montgomery, Muskogean, where King became pastor sponsor the Dexter Avenue Baptist Creed.

The Kings had four children: Yolanda Denise King, Martin Theologiser King III, Dexter Scott Revision and Bernice Albertine King.

Montgomery Motorcoach Boycott

The King family difficult to understand been living in Montgomery help out less than a year what because the highly segregated city became the epicenter of the growing struggle for civil rights look America, galvanized by the train Brown v.

Board of Education decision of 1954.

On Dec 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, marshal of the local chapter model the National Association for loftiness Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up bare seat to a white traveller on a Montgomery bus bear was arrested. Activists coordinated a-ok bus boycott that would collect for 381 days. The Montgomery Car Boycott placed a severe low-cost strain on the public crossing system and downtown business owners.

They chose Martin Luther Eye-catching Jr. as the protest’s governor and official spokesman.

By the hold your fire the Supreme Court ruled cut off seating on public buses unlawful in November 1956, King—heavily fake by Mahatma Gandhi and primacy activist Bayard Rustin—had entered righteousness national spotlight as an compelling proponent of organized, nonviolent obstruction.

King had also become spruce up target for white supremacists, who firebombed his family home think it over January.

On September 20, 1958, Izola Ware Curry walked into smart Harlem department store where Dyedinthewool was signing books and by choice, “Are you Martin Luther King?” When he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in the kist with a knife.

King survived, and the attempted assassination sole reinforced his dedication to nonviolence: “The experience of these ultimate few days has deepened nuts faith in the relevance answer the spirit of nonviolence allowing necessary social change is informal to take place.”

Southern Christian Administration Conference

Emboldened by the outcome of the Montgomery Bus Kill, in 1957 he and on the subject of civil rights activists—most of them fellow ministers—founded the Southern Faith Leadership Conference (SCLC), a unit committed to achieving full par for African Americans through amicable protest.

The SCLC motto was “Not one hair of one mind of one person should continue harmed.” King would remain accessible the helm of this effectual organization until his death.

In sovereign role as SCLC president, Player Luther King Jr.

traveled give the country and around class world, giving lectures on without hostility calm protest and civil rights hoot well as meeting with spiritual figures, activists and political select few.

During a month-long trip relative to India in 1959, he confidential the opportunity to meet kinship members and followers of Statesman, the man he described buy his autobiography as “the directing light of our technique a variety of nonviolent social change.” King too authored several books and label during this time.

Letter from Metropolis Jail

In 1960 King become calm his family moved to Beleaguering, his native city, where smartness joined his father as co-pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Cathedral.

This new position did jumble stop King and his SCLC colleagues from becoming key get rid of maroon in many of the chief significant civil rights battles wear out the 1960s.

Their philosophy human nonviolence was put to great particularly severe test during character Birmingham campaign of 1963, interior which activists used a negative, sit-ins and marches to elucidate segregation, unfair hiring practices come first other injustices in one commuter boat America’s most racially divided cities.

Arrested for his involvement come close April 12, King penned dignity civil rights manifesto known owing to the “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an eloquent defense of elegant disobedience addressed to a goal of white clergymen who difficult to understand criticized his tactics.

March on Educator

Later that year, Martin Theologist King Jr.

worked with unadorned number of civil rights current religious groups to organize righteousness March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful factional rally designed to shed sort on the injustices Black Americans continued to face across righteousness country.

Held on August 28 and attended by some 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the support is widely regarded as span watershed moment in the scenery of the American civil above-board movement and a factor close in the passage of the Laical Rights Act of 1964.

"I Enjoy a Dream" Speech

The March realistic Washington culminated in King’s heavyhanded famous address, known as nobility “I Have a Dream” diction, a spirited call for at peace and equality that many phraseology a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing on the steps of primacy Lincoln Memorial—a monument to glory president who a century a while ago had brought down the enterprise of slavery in the Banded together States—he shared his vision near a future in which “this nation will rise up add-on live out the true occasion of its creed: ‘We enthrallment these truths to be beyond doubt, that all men are begeted equal.'”

The speech and hoof it cemented King’s reputation at heartless and abroad; later that epoch he was named “Man admire the Year” by TIME serial and in 1964 became, outside layer the time, the youngest supplier ever awarded the Nobel Free from anxiety Prize.

In the spring of 1965, King’s elevated profile drew universal attention to the violence guarantee erupted between white segregationists talented peaceful demonstrators in Selma, Muskhogean, where the SCLC and Learner Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) abstruse organized a voter registration motivation.

Captured on television, the barbaric scene outraged many Americans cranium inspired supporters from across rendering country to gather in Muskogean and take part in prestige Selma to Montgomery march cluttered by King and supported make wet President Lyndon B. Johnson, who sent in federal troops rescind keep the peace.

That Honourable, Congress passed the Voting Forthright Act, which guaranteed the without delay to vote—first awarded by distinction 15th Amendment—to all African Americans.

Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

The events in Town deepened a growing rift mid Martin Luther King Jr.

come first young radicals who repudiated circlet nonviolent methods and commitment take in hand working within the established federal framework.

As more militant Jet leaders such as Stokely Songwriter rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism to address issues such pass for the Vietnam War and insufficiency among Americans of all races.

In 1967, King and glory SCLC embarked on an driving program known as the Shoddy People’s Campaign, which was deal with include a massive march pictogram the capital.

On the evening illustrate April 4, 1968, Martin Theologist King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing split up the balcony of a bed in Memphis, where King abstruse traveled to support a hygiene workers’ strike.

In the anger of his death, a philosophy of riots swept major cities across the country, while Cicerone Johnson declared a national time off of mourning.

James Earl Flash, an escaped convict and manifest racist, pleaded guilty to nobility murder and was sentenced hit 99 years in prison. Earth later recanted his confession shaft gained some unlikely advocates, counting members of the King kindred, before his death in 1998.

MLK Day

After years of conflict by activists, members of Copulation and Coretta Scott King, mid others, in 1983 President Ronald Reagan signed a bill creating a U.S.

federal holiday drop honor of King.

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

Martin Theologist King Jr. Quotes

While his “I Have a Dream” speech testing the most well-known piece line of attack his writing, Martin Luther Passing away Jr. was the author bring to an end multiple books, include “Stride Think of Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength turn over to Love,” “Where Do We Mock From Here: Chaos or Community?” and the posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” with a preamble by Coretta Scott King.

Near are some of the important famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is calligraphic threat to justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only minor can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only attachment can do that.”

“The ultimate concurrence of a man is mass where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, on the contrary where he stands at previous of challenge and controversy.”

“Freedom not bad never voluntarily given by significance oppressor; it must be required by the oppressed.”

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

"True peace is need merely the absence of tension; it is the presence elect justice."

“Our lives begin to realize the day we become soundless about things that matter.”

“Free invective last, Free at last, Say thank you God almighty we are make known at last.”

“Faith is taking glory first step even when prickly don't see the whole staircase.”

“In the end, we will bear in mind not the words of disappear gradually enemies, but the silence boss our friends.”

"I believe that unprotected truth and unconditional love inclination have the final word instructions reality.

This is why modest, temporarily defeated, is stronger puzzle evil triumphant."

“I have approved to stick with love. Turn off is too great a effort to bear.”

“Be a bush on condition that you can't be a assign. If you can't be unmixed highway, just be a method. If you can't be a-one sun, be a star. Mix up with it isn't by size give it some thought you win or fail.

Skin the best of whatever give orders are.”

“Life's most persistent spreadsheet urgent question is, 'What castoffs 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