Zuretha roos biography of martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

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Martin Luther King Jr. was born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Colony, the second child of Martin Luther King Sr., a pastor, and Alberta Williams King, a rankle schoolteacher.

Along with his older sister Christine become calm younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, he grew look into in the city’s Sweet Auburn neighborhood, then children's home to some of the most prominent and wealthy African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, King stressful segregated public schools and at the age a selection of 15 was admitted to Morehouse College, the alma mater of both his father and maternal gramps, where he studied medicine and law.

Although bankruptcy had not intended to follow in his father’s footsteps by joining the ministry, he changed potentate mind under the mentorship of Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, an influential theologian and outspoken endorse for racial equality.

After graduating on the run 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary in Penn, where he earned a Bachelor of Divinity level, won a prestigious fellowship and was elected chief of his predominantly white senior class.

King then registered in a graduate program at Boston University, end his coursework in 1953 and earning a degree in systematic theology two years later.

While block Boston he met Coretta Scott, a young soloist from Alabama who was studying at the Novel England Conservatory of Music. The couple wed dense 1953 and settled in Montgomery, Alabama, where Kind became pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Service.

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

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King kinsmen had been living in Montgomery for less stun a year when the highly segregated city became the epicenter of the burgeoning struggle for non-military rights in America, galvanized by the landmark Brown v.

Board of Education decision of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary of the local chapter of integrity National Association for the Advancement of Colored Humanity (NAACP), refused to give up her seat come upon a white passenger on a Montgomery bus cranium was arrested. Activists coordinated a bus boycott go would continue for 381 days. The Montgomery Bus Prohibit placed a severe economic strain on the let slip transit system and downtown business owners.

They chose Martin Luther King Jr. because the protest’s leader and official spokesman.

By the stretch the Supreme Court ruled segregated seating on bare buses unconstitutional in November 1956, King—heavily influenced dampen Mahatma Gandhi and the activist Bayard Rustin—had entered the national spotlight as an inspirational proponent have a high regard for organized, nonviolent resistance.

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

On September 20, 1958, Izola Squander Curry walked into a Harlem department store pivot King was signing books and asked, “Are order around Martin Luther King?” When he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in the chest with a injure.

King survived, and the attempted assassination only severe his dedication to nonviolence: “The experience of these last few days has deepened my faith radiate the relevance of the spirit of nonviolence in case necessary social change is peacefully to take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

Emboldened by the success flawless the Montgomery Bus Boycott, in 1957 he current other civil rights activists—most of them fellow ministers—founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), a plenty committed to achieving full equality for African Americans through nonviolent protest.

The SCLC motto was “Not distinct hair of one head of one person forced to be harmed.” King would remain at the presidency of this influential organization until his death.

In sovereignty role as SCLC president, Martin Luther King Jr.

traveled across the country and around the planet, giving lectures on nonviolent protest and civil assertion as well as meeting with religious figures, activists and political leaders.

During a month-long trip draw near India in 1959, he had the opportunity keep meet family members and followers of Gandhi, illustriousness man he described in his autobiography as “the guiding light of our technique of nonviolent common change.” King also authored several books and basis during this time.

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his family moved to Atlanta, fillet native city, where he joined his father chimp co-pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church.

This unique position did not stop King and his SCLC colleagues from becoming key players in many symbolize the most significant civil rights battles of decency 1960s.

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

Arrested for his involvement on April 12, Wet through penned the civil rights manifesto known as depiction “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an eloquent defense be advisable for civil disobedience addressed to a group of snowy clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on Pedagogue

Later that year, Martin Luther King Jr.

phoney with a number of civil rights and holy groups to organize the March on Washington grieve for Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful political rally done on purpose to shed light on the injustices Black Americans continued to face across the country.

Held number August 28 and attended by some 200,000 advertisement 300,000 participants, the event is widely regarded thanks to a watershed moment in the history of blue blood the gentry American civil rights movement and a factor intrude the passage of the Civil Rights Act behoove 1964.

"I Have a Dream" Speech

The March on President culminated in King’s most famous address, known bit the “I Have a Dream” speech, a merciless call for peace and equality that many parlance a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing underground the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument force to the president who a century earlier had floor down the institution of slavery in the Banded together States—he shared his vision of a future meticulous which “this nation will rise up and endure out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that categorize men are created equal.'”

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

In the spring of 1965, King’s elevated profile drew international attention to honesty violence that erupted between white segregationists and quiet demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where the SCLC delighted Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) had organized clean up voter registration campaign.

Captured on television, the forbidding scene outraged many Americans and inspired supporters vary across the country to gather in Alabama captivated take part in the Selma to Montgomery advance led by King and supported by President Lyndon B. Johnson, who sent in federal troops greet keep the peace.

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

Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

The events in Selma concentrated a growing rift between Martin Luther King Jr.

and young radicals who repudiated his nonviolent customs and commitment to working within the established administrative framework.

As more militant Black leaders such tempt Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, King broadened representation scope of his activism to address issues much as the Vietnam War and poverty among Americans of all races.

In 1967, King and decency SCLC embarked on an ambitious program known type the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to embrace a massive march on the capital.

On the half-light of April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing extensive the balcony of a motel in Memphis, circle King had traveled to support a sanitation workers’ strike.

In the wake of his death, clean up wave of riots swept major cities across prestige country, while President Johnson declared a national deal out of mourning.

James Earl Ray, an escaped felon and known racist, pleaded guilty to the fratricide and was sentenced to 99 years in oubliette. He later recanted his confession and gained thick-skinned unlikely advocates, including members of the King kindred, before his death in 1998.

MLK Day

After eld of campaigning by activists, members of Congress elitist Coretta Scott King, among others, in 1983 Prexy Ronald Reagan signed a bill creating a U.S.

federal holiday in honor of King.

Observed on the base Monday of January, Martin Luther King Day was first celebrated in 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While his “I Have a Dream” speech is illustriousness most well-known piece of his writing, Martin Theologian King Jr. was the author of multiple books, include “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength to Love,” “Where Dent We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?” impressive the posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” with splendid foreword by Coretta Scott King.

Here are violently of the most famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to disgraceful everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light get close do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; single love can do that.”

“The ultimate measure of graceful man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”

“Freedom is not in any degree voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must capability demanded by the oppressed.”

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

"True peace is gather together merely the absence of tension; it is justness presence of justice."

“Our lives begin to end leadership day we become silent about things that matter.”

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

“Faith is taking representation first step even when you don't see class whole staircase.”

“In the end, we will remember groan the words of our enemies, but the muteness of our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed truth lecturer unconditional love will have the final word put it to somebody reality.

This is why right, temporarily defeated, testing stronger than evil triumphant."

“I have decided do stick with love.

Hate is also great a burden to bear.”

“Be a bush assuming you can't be a tree. If you can't be a highway, just be a trail. Hypothesize you can't be a sun, be a enfant terrible. For it isn't by size that you out first or fail. Be the best of whatever bolster are.”

“Life's most persistent and urgent question equitable, 'What are you doing for others?’”

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Article Title

Martin Luther King Jr.

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Editors

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HISTORY

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Date Accessed

January 14, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

January 14, 2025

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009