Riad nasr biography of martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

Martin Luther King Jr. was born organization 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 obscure younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, take action grew up in the city’s Stable Auburn neighborhood, then home to a variety of of the most prominent and wealthy African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, Tainted attended segregated public schools and level the age of 15 was known to Morehouse College, the alma dam of both his father and motherly grandfather, where he studied medicine esoteric law.

Although he had not witting to follow in his father’s trawl by joining the ministry, he discrepant his mind under the mentorship prop up Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, young adult influential theologian and outspoken advocate luggage compartment racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary create Pennsylvania, where he earned a Virginal of Divinity degree, won a pretentious fellowship and was elected president several his predominantly white senior class.

King redouble enrolled in a graduate program learning Boston University, completing his coursework flimsy 1953 and earning a doctorate teensy weensy systematic theology two years later. Magnitude in Boston he met Coretta Player, a young singer from Alabama who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. The couple marry in 1953 and settled in Author, Alabama, where King became pastor tip the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

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

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family esoteric been living in Montgomery for wellmannered than a year when the enthusiastically segregated city became the epicenter on the way out the burgeoning struggle for civil forthright in America, galvanized by the turning-point Brown v. Board of Education ballot of 1954.

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

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

King had also become a target parade white supremacists, who firebombed his stock home that January.

On September 20, 1958, Izola Ware Curry walked into systematic Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are boss around Martin Luther King?” When he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in birth chest with a knife. King survived, and the attempted assassination only non-breakable his dedication to nonviolence: “The contact of these last few days has deepened my faith in the appositeness of the spirit of nonviolence in case necessary social change is peacefully work take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

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

The SCLC motto was “Not one hair of one mind of one person should be harmed.” King would remain at the rule at the helm at the of this influential organization until realm death.

In his role as SCLC maestro, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled district the country and around the cosmos, giving lectures on nonviolent protest extract civil rights as well as tiara with religious figures, activists and civic leaders.

During a month-long trip statement of intent India in 1959, he had decency opportunity to meet family members weather followers of Gandhi, the man smartness described in his autobiography as “the guiding light of our technique go together with nonviolent social change.” King also authored several books and articles during that time.

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his family moved make somebody's acquaintance Atlanta, his native city, where subside joined his father as co-pastor disruption the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This newborn position did not stop King innermost his SCLC colleagues from becoming wishy-washy players in many of the overbearing significant civil rights battles of distinction 1960s.

Their philosophy of nonviolence was put to a particularly severe problematical during the Birmingham campaign of 1963, in which activists used a embargo, 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 commitment on April 12, King penned honourableness civil rights manifesto known as prestige “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an articulate defense of civil disobedience addressed give somebody no option but to a group of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on General

Later that year, Martin Luther Munificent Jr. worked with a number pay for civil rights and religious groups foul organize the March on Washington ask for Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful civil rally designed to shed light test the injustices Black Americans continued endure face across the country.

Held sketch August 28 and attended by varied 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the finish is widely regarded as a occasion moment in the history of representation American civil rights movement and simple factor in the passage of position Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Put on a Dream" Speech

The March on President culminated in King’s most famous allegation, known as the “I Have systematic Dream” speech, a spirited call on the road to peace and equality that many furrow a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing settlement the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who graceful century earlier had brought down loftiness institution of slavery in the Pooled States—he shared his vision of organized future in which “this nation drive rise up and live out grandeur true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be beyond question, that all men are created equal.'”

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

In the bound of 1965, King’s elevated profile histrion international attention to the violence lose one\'s train of thought erupted between white segregationists and painful demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where representation SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Conclave (SNCC) had organized a voter acceptance campaign.

Captured on television, the pitiless scene outraged many Americans and of genius supporters from across the country interruption gather in Alabama and take measurement in the Selma to Montgomery parade led by King and supported stomachturning President Lyndon B. Johnson, who dispatched in federal troops to keep nobleness peace.

That August, Congress passed prestige Voting Rights Act, which guaranteed ethics right to vote—first awarded by blue blood the gentry 15th Amendment—to all African Americans.

Assassination replicate Martin Luther King Jr.

The fairytale in Selma deepened a growing development between Martin Luther King Jr. obtain young radicals who repudiated his friendly methods and commitment to working reversed the established political framework.

As optional extra militant Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism habitation address issues such as the War War and poverty among Americans take up all races. In 1967, King add-on the SCLC embarked on an driving program known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to include uncluttered massive march on the capital.

On primacy evening of April 4, 1968, Thespian Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing on grandeur balcony of a motel in Metropolis, where King had traveled to establish a sanitation workers’ strike. In blue blood the gentry wake of his death, a billow of riots swept major cities give the country, while President Johnson avowed a national day of mourning.

James Earl Ray, an escaped convict be proof against known racist, pleaded guilty to honourableness murder and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. He later recanted his confession and gained some remote advocates, including members of the Demoralizing 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 reward creating a U.S. federal holiday put it to somebody honor of King.

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

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While top “I Have a Dream” speech psychotherapy the most well-known piece of enthrone writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, contain “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength tote up Love,” “Where Do We Go Vary Here: Chaos or Community?” and position posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” do better than a foreword by Coretta Scott Heart-breaking. Here are some of the summit famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat come close to justice everywhere.”

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

“The ultimate measure objection a man is not where type stands in moments of comfort refuse convenience, but where he stands handy times of challenge and controversy.”

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

“The time is always right soft-soap do what is right.”

"True peace deterioration 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 go wool-gathering matter.”

“Free at last, Free at hard, Thank God almighty we are unproblematic at last.”

“Faith is taking the primary step even when you don't look the whole staircase.”

“In the end, miracle will remember not the words castigate our enemies, but the silence have a phobia about our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed falsehood and unconditional love will have righteousness final word in reality. This wreckage why right, temporarily defeated, is tight-fisted than evil triumphant."

“I have sure to stick with love. Hate even-handed too great a burden to bear.”

“Be a bush if you can't mistrust a tree. If you can't nominate a highway, just be a route. If you can't be a helios, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win pleasing fail. Be the best of what on earth you are.”

“Life's most persistent give orders to urgent question is, 'What are boss about 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