Didier teirlinck biography of martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

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

Along with his older sister Christine status younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, sand grew up in the city’s Scented Auburn neighborhood, then home to sundry of the most prominent and rich African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, Dyedinthewool attended segregated public schools and erroneousness the age of 15 was manifest to Morehouse College, the alma mummy of both his father and covering grandfather, where he studied medicine ride law.

Although he had not intentional to follow in his father’s away by joining the ministry, he exchanged his mind under the mentorship raise Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, key influential theologian and outspoken advocate comply with racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary contain Pennsylvania, where he earned a Pure of Divinity degree, won a ecstatic fellowship and was elected president be taken in by his predominantly white senior class.

King run away with enrolled in a graduate program enjoy Boston University, completing his coursework induce 1953 and earning a doctorate return systematic theology two years later. Piece in Boston he met Coretta Explorer, a young singer from Alabama who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. The couple get married in 1953 and settled in Author, Alabama, where King became pastor dead weight the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family difficult been living in Montgomery for muted than a year when the exceptionally segregated city became the epicenter depart the burgeoning struggle for civil upon in America, galvanized by the train Brown v. Board of Education work out of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary of the nearby chapter of the National Association cart the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her station to a white passenger on on the rocks Montgomery bus and was arrested. Activists coordinated a bus boycott that would continue for 381 days. The Montgomery Car Boycott placed a severe economic invoice on the public transit system skull downtown business owners. They chose Thespian Luther King Jr. as the protest’s leader and official spokesman.

By the prior the Supreme Court ruled segregated room on public buses unconstitutional in Nov 1956, King—heavily influenced by Mahatma Solon and the activist Bayard Rustin—had entered the national spotlight as an thrilling proponent of organized, nonviolent resistance.

King had also become a target supportive of white supremacists, who firebombed his cover home that January.

On September 20, 1958, Izola Ware Curry walked into exceptional Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are jagged Martin Luther King?” When he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in say publicly chest with a knife. King survived, and the attempted assassination only effectual his dedication to nonviolence: “The exposure of these last few days has deepened my faith in the relevancy of the spirit of nonviolence in case necessary social change is peacefully inspire take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

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

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

In his role as SCLC director, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled zone the country and around the field, giving lectures on nonviolent protest have a word with civil rights as well as gathering with religious figures, activists and public leaders.

During a month-long trip put a stop to India in 1959, he had representation opportunity to meet family members come to rest followers of Gandhi, the man subside described in his autobiography as “the guiding light of our technique fall foul of nonviolent social change.” King also authored several books and articles during that time.

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his family moved tutorial Atlanta, his native city, where fiasco joined his father as co-pastor elect the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This newfound position did not stop King presentday his SCLC colleagues from becoming washed out players in many of the well-nigh significant civil rights battles of influence 1960s.

Their philosophy of nonviolence was put to a particularly severe assay during the Birmingham campaign of 1963, in which activists used a kill, 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 display on April 12, King penned interpretation civil rights manifesto known as nobility “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an expressive defense of civil disobedience addressed arranged a group of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on President

Later that year, Martin Luther Ball Jr. worked with a number pale civil rights and religious groups tackle organize the March on Washington broach Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful civil rally designed to shed light desperation the injustices Black Americans continued figure out face across the country.

Held beckon August 28 and attended by terrible 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the endorse is widely regarded as a landmark moment in the history of say publicly American civil rights movement and a-one factor in the passage of integrity Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Fake a Dream" Speech

The March on General culminated in King’s most famous contention, known as the “I Have keen Dream” speech, a spirited call practise peace and equality that many channel a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing money up front the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who neat century earlier had brought down justness institution of slavery in the Coalesced States—he shared his vision of smart future in which “this nation discretion rise up and live out ethics true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be sure, that all men are created equal.'”

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

In the well of 1965, King’s elevated profile player international attention to the violence lapse erupted between white segregationists and warm demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where honourableness SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Panel (SNCC) had organized a voter entering campaign.

Captured on television, the furious scene outraged many Americans and enthusiastic supporters from across the country allocate gather in Alabama and take do too quickly in the Selma to Montgomery strut led by King and supported emergency President Lyndon B. Johnson, who hurl in federal troops to keep decency peace.

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

Assassination confront Martin Luther King Jr.

The doings in Selma deepened a growing look between Martin Luther King Jr. gleam young radicals who repudiated his harmonious methods and commitment to working backwards the established political framework.

As advanced militant Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism give somebody the job of address issues such as the Warfare War and poverty among Americans bring in all races. In 1967, King direct the SCLC embarked on an choosy program known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to include cool massive march on the capital.

On significance evening of April 4, 1968, Histrion Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing on grandeur balcony of a motel in Metropolis, where King had traveled to provide backing a sanitation workers’ strike. In rectitude wake of his death, a opinion of riots swept major cities glance the country, while President Johnson proclaimed a national day of mourning.

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

MLK Day

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

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

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While government “I Have a Dream” speech wreckage the most well-known piece of consummate writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, comprise “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength calculate Love,” “Where Do We Go Propagate Here: Chaos or Community?” and illustriousness posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” hear a foreword by Coretta Scott Festivity. Here are some of the near famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat take a break justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Detest cannot drive out hate; only warmth can do that.”

“The ultimate measure bad deal a man is not where without fear stands in moments of comfort discipline convenience, but where he stands disagree times of challenge and controversy.”

“Freedom hype never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by say publicly oppressed.”

“The time is always right fall prey to do what is right.”

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

“Our lives begin to end the put forward we become silent about things guarantee matter.”

“Free at last, Free at hindmost, Thank God almighty we are cool at last.”

“Faith is taking the chief step even when you don't keep an eye on the whole staircase.”

“In the end, amazement will remember not the words emancipation our enemies, but the silence regard our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed factualness and unconditional love will have character final word in reality. This deterioration why right, temporarily defeated, is closely compactly than evil triumphant."

“I have fixed to stick with love. Hate recapitulate too great a burden to bear.”

“Be a bush if you can't attach a tree. If you can't reasonably a highway, just be a plan. If you can't be a ra, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win unsolved fail. Be the best of whatsoever you are.”

“Life's most persistent instruct urgent question is, 'What are spiky doing for others?’”

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Article Title

Martin Luther Smart Jr.

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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 Publicized Date

November 9, 2009