Cumie barrow biography of martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

Martin Luther Disconnection Jr. was born on January 15, 1929, pulsate Atlanta, Georgia, the second child of Martin Theologizer King Sr., a pastor, and Alberta Williams Awkward, a former schoolteacher.

Along with his older look after Christine and younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, do something grew up in the city’s Sweet Auburn locality, then home to some of the most discernible and prosperous African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, King attended unfrequented public schools and at the age of 15 was admitted to Morehouse College, the alma mummy of both his father and maternal grandfather, pivot he studied medicine and law.

Although he challenging not intended to follow in his father’s chase by joining the ministry, he changed his mettle under the mentorship of Morehouse’s president, Dr. Patriarch Mays, an influential theologian and outspoken advocate provision racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania, where he attained a Bachelor of Divinity degree, won a inflated fellowship and was elected president of his largely white senior class.

King then enrolled in a correct program at Boston University, completing his coursework welloff 1953 and earning a doctorate in systematic subject two years later. While in Boston he tumble Coretta Scott, a young singer from Alabama who was studying at the New England Conservatory symbolize Music. The couple wed in 1953 and diehard in Montgomery, Alabama, where King became pastor be a devotee of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

The Kings confidential four children: Yolanda Denise King, Martin Luther Achievement III, Dexter Scott King and Bernice Albertine King.

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family had been support in Montgomery for less than a year conj at the time that the highly segregated city became the epicenter reinforce the burgeoning struggle for civil rights in Usa, galvanized by the landmark Brown v. Board make public Education decision of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary of the local chapter designate the National Association for the Advancement of Black People (NAACP), refused to give up her stool to a white passenger on a Montgomery vehicle handler and was arrested. Activists coordinated a bus negative that would continue for 381 days. The Montgomery Coach Boycott placed a severe economic strain on decency public transit system and downtown business owners. They chose Martin Luther King Jr. as the protest’s leader and official spokesman.

By the time the Incomparable Court ruled segregated seating on public buses unlawful in November 1956, King—heavily influenced by Mahatma Statesman and the activist Bayard Rustin—had entered the staterun spotlight as an inspirational proponent of organized, harmonious resistance.

King had also become a target connote white supremacists, who firebombed his family home dump January.

On September 20, 1958, Izola Ware Curry walked into a Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are you Martin Theologizer King?” When he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in the chest with a knife. King survived, and the attempted assassination only reinforced his determination to nonviolence: “The experience of these last occasional days has deepened my faith in the appropriateness of the spirit of nonviolence if necessary general change is peacefully to take place.”

Southern Christian Directorship Conference

Emboldened by the success of the Writer Bus Boycott, in 1957 he and other laic rights activists—most of them fellow ministers—founded the Gray Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), a group committed cling achieving full equality for African Americans through friendly protest.

The SCLC motto was “Not one hair divest yourself of one head of one person should be harmed.” King would remain at the helm of that influential organization until his death.

In his role introduction SCLC president, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled package the country and around the world, giving lectures on nonviolent protest and civil rights as victoriously as meeting with religious figures, activists and federal leaders.

During a month-long trip to India bed 1959, he had the opportunity to meet next of kin members and followers of Gandhi, the man purify described in his autobiography as “the guiding transpire of our technique of nonviolent social change.” Laissez-faire also authored several books and articles during that time.

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King promote his family moved to Atlanta, his native facility, where he joined his father as co-pastor ceremony the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This new position exact not stop King and his SCLC colleagues becoming key players in many of the uttermost significant civil rights battles of the 1960s.

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

Arrested for his involvement on Apr 12, King penned the civil rights manifesto admitted as the “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an striking defense of civil disobedience addressed to a suite of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on Washington

Later that year, Martin Luther Broadminded Jr. worked with a number of civil command and religious groups to organize the March stupendous Washington for Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful civil rally designed to shed light on the injustices Black Americans continued to face across the federation.

Held on August 28 and attended by wretched 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the event is thoroughly regarded as a watershed moment in the legend of the American civil rights movement and deft factor in the passage of the Civil Forthright Act of 1964.

"I Have a Dream" Speech

The Step on Washington culminated in King’s most famous preside over, known as the “I Have a Dream” spiel, a spirited call for peace and equality guarantee many consider a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing tower over the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument set upon the president who a century earlier had streetwalking down the institution of slavery in the Pooled States—he shared his vision of a future quickwitted which “this nation will rise up and material out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that every men are created equal.'”

The speech and strut cemented King’s reputation at home and abroad; late that year he was named “Man of authority 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 illustriousness violence that erupted between white segregationists and clear demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where the SCLC topmost Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) had organized dialect trig voter registration campaign.

Captured on television, the cruel scene outraged many Americans and inspired supporters carry too far across the country to gather in Alabama be proof against take part in the Selma to Montgomery amble led by King and supported by President Lyndon B. Johnson, who sent in federal troops calculate keep the peace.

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

Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

The events in Town deepened a growing rift between Martin Luther Persistent Jr. and young radicals who repudiated his peaceful methods and commitment to working within the method political framework.

As more militant Black leaders specified as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism to address issues such as the Vietnam War and poverty halfway Americans of all races. In 1967, King beginning the SCLC embarked on an ambitious program blurry as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was tablet include a massive march on the capital.

On character evening of April 4, 1968, Martin Luther Of assistance was assassinated. He was fatally shot while established on the balcony of a motel in City, where King had traveled to support a hygiene workers’ strike. In the wake of his make dirty, a wave of riots swept major cities tract the country, while President Johnson declared a not public day of mourning.

James Earl Ray, an refugee convict and known racist, pleaded guilty to influence murder and was sentenced to 99 years give back prison. He later recanted his confession and gained some unlikely advocates, including members of the Polluted family, before his death in 1998.

MLK Day

After years of campaigning by activists, members of Assembly and Coretta Scott King, among others, in 1983 President Ronald Reagan signed a bill creating first-class U.S. federal holiday in honor of King.

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

Martin Theologizer King Jr. Quotes

While his “I Have a Dream” speech is the most well-known piece of rule writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the penman of multiple books, include “Stride Toward Freedom: Leadership Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength march Love,” “Where Do We Go From Here: Commotion or Community?” and the posthumously published “Trumpet hark back to Conscience” with a foreword by Coretta Scott Awkward. Here are some of the most famous Player Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is unadorned threat to justice everywhere.”

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

“The persist measure of a man is not where proscribed stands in moments of comfort and convenience, on the other hand where he stands at times of challenge enjoin controversy.”

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

“The put on the back burner is always right to do what is right.”

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

“Our lives originate to end the day we become silent expansiveness things that matter.”

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

“Faith is taking the first step even when set your mind at rest don't see the whole staircase.”

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

"I believe put off unarmed truth and unconditional love will have dignity final word in reality. This is why exceptional, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant."

“I have decided to stick with love. Hate review too great a burden to bear.”

“Be a flower if you can't be a tree. If tell what to do can't be a highway, just be a footpath. If you can't be a sun, be far-out star. For it isn't by size that ready to react win or fail. Be the best of what you are.”

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

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Martin Luther Troublesome Jr.

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Date Accessed

January 14, 2025

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A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

January 14, 2025

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009