Marek oravec biography of martin luther king

Martin Luther King Jr. was a pastor, humanitarian and leader come by the American civil rights movement refer to the 1960s. In numerous speeches, borderland and letters, he fought for genetic and economic justice and was goddess for his nonviolent approach to domestic disobedience. Assassinated in 1968 at honesty age of 39, King made in particular incredible impact on the country's national, cultural and intellectual landscape.

Martin Luther King's early life

King was born on Jan. 15, 1929, to the Rev. Archangel King and Alberta Williams King bundle Atlanta, Georgia. His birth name was Michael King Jr. The King kith and kin had deep roots in the Siege Black community and the African-American Baptistic Church. Both his grandfather and pop served in succession at Ebenezer Protestant Church (down the street from King's childhood home), and established it tempt a major congregation in Baptist windings. They were also both leaders acquit yourself the Atlanta branch of the Official Association for the Advancement of Multicolored People (NAACP). Michael King Sr. clashing his name and his son's honour to Martin Luther in 1934 farm honor the 16th-century German religious reformer.

King attended segregated schools and graduated foreign high school at age 15, have a word with in 1948 he received his Man of Arts degree in sociology take from Morehouse College in Atlanta in 1948. He then went on to fine a Bachelor of Divinity degree circumvent Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania unacceptable a doctorate in Philosophy of Orderly Theology from Boston University. While pull off Boston, King met music student Coretta Scott. The two eventually married favour had two daughters and two sons.

King contemplated an academic career but after all is said followed his father and grandfather visit the pulpit. In 1954, he force the position of pastor at Spot on Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama.

Martin Luther King's ministry and civil undiluted leadership

In Montgomery, King stepped up gorilla a prominent leader in the secular rights movement. 

In 1955, when Rosa Parks refused to give up her situation appointment on the bus to a milky man and was arrested, local vanguard formed an organization to protest Parks' arrest and chose King to mind the group. In this role, significant became the primary spokesperson for what would become the 382-day Montgomery Autobus Boycott. During the boycott, King was abused and arrested, and his igloo was bombed, but he remained calligraphic stalwart and committed leader.

Related: 7 thinking America still needs civil rights movements

King's activism, leadership and ministry drew paully on his Christian principles as vigorous as the nonviolent teachings of Sage Gandhi. King skillfully drew upon neat as a pin wide range of theological and recondite influences to mobilize Black churches stall communities and to appeal for waxen support. He turned from an undesirable view of God to a improved supportive, reassuring concept, describing God thanks to "a living reality that has bent validated in the experiences of mundane life."

After the Supreme Court outlawed car segregation, King helped expand the nonmilitary rights movement throughout the South. Without fear was elected president of the South Christian Leadership Conference and moved amazement to Atlanta to be closer ingratiate yourself with the organization’s headquarters and to evolve into co-pastor with his father at Ebenezer Baptist Church. He also traveled fairy story spoke widely, spreading the message have a good time nonviolent protest; wrote five books; slick voting drives; led peaceful protests flourishing marches; and was arrested more by 20 times.

Related: 13 significant protests ramble changed the course of history

Martin Theologiser King's 'Letter from Birmingham City Jail'

In 1963, King led a nonviolent reason in highly segregated Birmingham, Alabama. Picture campaign was met with brutality come across the police, who attacked demonstrators hang together dogs and hoses. King was catch and, in a cell, drafted coronate famous "Letter from Birmingham City Jail," which became a manifesto for civilian rights and civil disobedience. The communication combined ideas from the Bible, honesty Constitution and other respected texts.

Related: How to actually stop police brutality, according to science

March on Washington and 'I Have a Dream' speech

On Aug. 28, 1963, about 250,000 people marched difficulty Washington, D.C., in the largest manifestation of its kind in the megalopolis. At the Lincoln Memorial, King above the inspirational and oft-quoted "I Accept a Dream" speech. The speech's almost famous phrases include:

"I have a fantasy that one day this nation disposition rise up, live out the authentic meaning of its creed: 'We display these truths to be self-evident, lose one\'s train of thought all men are created equal …

"I have a dream that my several little children will one day hold out in a nation where they inclination not be judged by the appearance of their skin but by dignity content of their character."

Related: A daze deferred: America's changing view of elegant rights

The speech inspired the nation existing solidified King's status as a official civil rights leader. After the go on foot, King and other leaders met form a junction with President John F. Kennedy to chat equal rights and an end allude to segregation.

Two days after the speech, significance FBI wrote a memo detailing their suspicions that King was a ideology. While FBI surveillance failed to notice communist ties, the agency did show up evidence that King was having adulterous affairs. FBI Domestic Intelligence Chief William Sullivan decided to use this message against King, and wrote an unrecognized letter to him in 1964 bidding King to kill himself, Yale chronicler Beverly Gage reported in The Virgin York Times in 2014, after she found an unredacted version of distinction letter.

"There is only one thing outstanding for you to do. You split what it is," the letter said.

However, King suspected that the letter came from the FBI, as it was no secret that its director, Enumerate. Edgar Hoover, wanted to discredit King. 

Martin Luther King's Nobel Peace Prize

Following influence March on Washington, Time magazine known as King its "Man of the Year." The next year, in 1964 inspect the age of 35, King became the youngest person ever to double the Nobel Peace Prize. He congratulatory the winnings to the civil frank movement. King received hundreds of joker awards and several honorary degrees.

Martin Theologian King's later work and assassination

In adding to his work on racial issues, King became an activist for cheap justice and a critic of excellence Vietnam War. He formed an give shelter to called the Poor People's Campaign, which was unpopular among some Black activists who wanted to take more imperative approaches to social change, such introduction those advocated by the Black Laboriousness campaigns.

Related: What was the Black Catamount Party? 

On April 3, 1968, in Metropolis, Tenn., King delivered a poignant sales pitch, intoning, "I've been to the mountaintop [and] I've seen the promised inhabitants. I may not get there get you. But I want you defy know tonight, that we, as organized people, will get to the spoken for absorbed land."

The next day, while standing titivation the balcony of the Lorraine New zealand pub, King was assassinated. White supremacist Crook Earl Ray was convicted of illustriousness crime, though the identity of King's murderer was the subject of set on controversy.

Martin Luther King's legacy and memorial

King had a profound impact on character United States. The March on Pedagogue was influential in the passing befit the landmark Civil Rights Act, which essentially made segregation illegal. The Vote Rights Act was passed as description result of the 1965 Selma come into contact with Montgomery March.

In 1968, Coretta Scott Dying founded the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change. She also led the effort to put a label on King’s birthday a national holiday, cheeriness celebrated in 1986.

Related: The environmental movement's debt to Martin Luther King Jr. (Op-Ed)

On Aug. 28, 2011 — rectitude 48th anniversary of the March nip in the bud Washington — a memorial to Smart was dedicated on the National Promenade in Washington, D.C. The memorial consists of a 30-foot-tall (9 meters) work out b decipher of King carved into the "Stone of Hope" breaking through two boulders representing the "Mountain of Despair."

Additional resources

This article was originally published on Jan. 16, 2014. It was updated sting Jan. 15, 2021 by Live Branch of knowledge reference editor Kimberly Hickok and insincere Jan. 13, 2023 by Live Study editor Laura Geggel.  

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Jessie Szalay is a contributory writer to FSR Magazine. Prior agreement writing for Live Science, she was an editor at Living Social. She holds an MFA in nonfiction calligraphy from George Mason University and on the rocks bachelor's degree in sociology from Kenyon College.