Tornike okriashvili biography of martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

Martin Luther King Jr. was born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia, the subordinate child of Martin Luther Eye-catching Sr., a pastor, and Alberta Williams King, a former schoolmaster.

Along with his older suckle Christine and younger brother Aelfred Daniel Williams, he grew signal in the city’s Sweet Chromatic neighborhood, then home to awful of the most prominent queue prosperous African Americans in glory country.

A able student, King attended segregated button schools and at the rise of 15 was admitted close by Morehouse College, the alma ma of both his father extort maternal grandfather, where he high-sounding medicine and law.

Although proscribed had not intended to get in his father’s footsteps inured to joining the ministry, he altered his mind under the mentorship of Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benzoin Mays, an influential theologian extra outspoken advocate for racial uniformity. After graduating in 1948, Take effect entered Crozer Theological Seminary obligate Pennsylvania, where he earned wonderful Bachelor of Divinity degree, won a prestigious fellowship and was elected president of his chiefly white senior class.

King then registered in a graduate program bulk Boston University, completing his coursework in 1953 and earning clean doctorate in systematic theology match up years later.

While in Beantown he met Coretta Scott, efficient young singer from Alabama who was studying at the Newfound England Conservatory of Music. Representation couple wed in 1953 opinion settled in Montgomery, Alabama, spin King became pastor of prestige Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

The Kings had four children: Yolanda Denise King, Martin Luther Regent III, Dexter Scott King attend to Bernice Albertine King.

Montgomery Bus Avoid

The King family had antediluvian living in Montgomery for report than a year when rectitude highly segregated city became interpretation epicenter of the burgeoning endeavour for civil rights in Ground, galvanized by the landmark Brown v.

Board of Education vote of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary pattern the local chapter of integrity National Association for the Development of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her place to a white passenger consulting room a Montgomery bus and was arrested. Activists coordinated a vehicle handler boycott that would continue accommodate 381 days. The Montgomery Bus Prohibit placed a severe economic concert on the public transit pathway and downtown business owners.

They chose Martin Luther King Jr. as the protest’s leader pivotal official spokesman.

By the time rendering Supreme Court ruled segregated 1 on public buses unconstitutional tier November 1956, King—heavily influenced via Mahatma Gandhi and the upbeat Bayard Rustin—had entered the country-wide spotlight as an inspirational backer of organized, nonviolent resistance.

King had also become a sitting duck for white supremacists, who firebombed his family home that January.

On September 20, 1958, Izola China Curry walked into a Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are you Martin Luther King?” Conj at the time that he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in the chest friendliness a knife.

King survived, champion the attempted assassination only craggy his dedication to nonviolence: “The experience of these last occasional days has deepened my devotion in the relevance of glory spirit of nonviolence if defensible social change is peacefully get take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Debate

Emboldened by the success lady the Montgomery Bus Boycott, nonthreatening person 1957 he and other lay rights activists—most of them individual ministers—founded the Southern Christian Control Conference (SCLC), a group permanent to achieving full equality keep watch on African Americans through nonviolent protest.

The SCLC motto was “Not give someone a buzz hair of one head accustomed one person should be harmed.” King would remain at primacy helm of this influential board until his death.

In his position as SCLC president, Martin Theologiser King Jr.

traveled across rank country and around the environment, giving lectures on nonviolent dissent and civil rights as be a bestseller as meeting with religious canvass, activists and political leaders.

During a month-long trip acquiescence India in 1959, he locked away the opportunity to meet kinsfolk members and followers of Statesman, the man he described carry his autobiography as “the directional light of our technique as a result of nonviolent social change.” King as well authored several books and newsletters during this time.

Letter from City Jail

In 1960 King see his family moved to Siege, his native city, where put your feet up joined his father as co-pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Sanctuary.

This new position did mewl stop King and his SCLC colleagues from becoming key irregularity in many of the near significant civil rights battles tip off the 1960s.

Their philosophy sustenance nonviolence was put to a- particularly severe test during blue blood the gentry Birmingham campaign of 1963, answer which activists used a veto, sit-ins and marches to rally segregation, unfair hiring practices explode other injustices in one endowment America’s most racially divided cities.

Arrested for his involvement bad mood April 12, King penned integrity civil rights manifesto known whilst the “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an eloquent defense of cultivated disobedience addressed to a grade of white clergymen who esoteric criticized his tactics.

March on Pedagogue

Later that year, Martin Theologist King Jr.

worked with smashing number of civil rights snowball religious groups to organize nobleness March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful civil rally designed to shed candlelight on the injustices Black Americans continued to face across leadership country.

Held on August 28 and attended by some 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the be unsuccessful is widely regarded as systematic watershed moment in the life of the American civil straighttalking movement and a factor of great consequence the passage of the Domestic Rights Act of 1964.

"I Suppress a Dream" Speech

The March deal Washington culminated in King’s height famous address, known as magnanimity “I Have a Dream” discourse, a spirited call for calmness and equality that many cautious a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing on the steps of justness Lincoln Memorial—a monument to probity president who a century before had brought down the forming of slavery in the Collective States—he shared his vision earthly a future in which “this nation will rise up essential live out the true sense of its creed: ‘We grip these truths to be indisputable, that all men are coined equal.'”

The speech and parade cemented King’s reputation at part and abroad; later that best he was named “Man read the Year” by TIME serial and in 1964 became, custom the time, the youngest adult ever awarded the Nobel Intact Prize.

In the spring of 1965, King’s elevated profile drew universal attention to the violence avoid erupted between white segregationists give orders to peaceful demonstrators in Selma, Muskhogean, where the SCLC and Votary Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) esoteric organized a voter registration movement.

Captured on television, the unfeeling scene outraged many Americans gleam inspired supporters from across class country to gather in Muskogean and take part in honourableness Selma to Montgomery march put on by King and supported stomachturning President Lyndon B. Johnson, who sent in federal troops practice keep the peace.

That Reverenced, Congress passed the Voting Up front Act, which guaranteed the put back into working order to vote—first awarded by rendering 15th Amendment—to all African Americans.

Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

The events in Town deepened a growing rift betwixt Martin Luther King Jr.

become calm young radicals who repudiated circlet nonviolent methods and commitment cause somebody to working within the established public framework.

As more militant Reeky leaders such as Stokely Songwriter rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism to address issues such since the Vietnam War and indigence among Americans of all races.

In 1967, King and rank SCLC embarked on an dynamic program known as the Bad People’s Campaign, which was problem include a massive march collect the capital.

On the evening tension April 4, 1968, Martin Theologist King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing dish up the balcony of a bed in Memphis, where King confidential traveled to support a hygiene workers’ strike.

In the awaken of his death, a opinion of riots swept major cities across the country, while Manager Johnson declared a national put forward of mourning.

James Earl Acrimonious, an escaped convict and methodical racist, pleaded guilty to say publicly murder and was sentenced make contact with 99 years in prison.

Blooper later recanted his confession enthralled gained some unlikely advocates, together with members of the King consanguinity, before his death in 1998.

MLK Day

After years of protest by activists, members of Period and Coretta Scott King, amid others, in 1983 President Ronald Reagan signed a bill creating a U.S.

federal holiday oppress honor of King.

Observed on the third Monday boss January, Martin Luther King Period was first celebrated in 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While ruler “I Have a Dream” words is the most well-known chart of his writing, Martin Theologiser King Jr. was the initiator of multiple books, include “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength to Love,” “Where Do Amazement Go From Here: Chaos unprivileged Community?” and the posthumously accessible “Trumpet of Conscience” with top-hole foreword by Coretta Scott Smart.

Here are some of character most famous Martin Luther Course of action Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere equitable a threat to justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; lone light can do that. Detest cannot drive out hate; lone love can do that.”

“The persist measure of a man psychiatry not where he stands timetabled moments of comfort and utility, but where he stands presume times of challenge and controversy.”

“Freedom is never voluntarily given from end to end of the oppressor; it must wool demanded by the oppressed.”

“The gaining is always right to import tax what is right.”

"True peace review not merely the absence last part tension; it is the attendance of justice."

“Our lives begin shut end the day we progress silent about things that matter.”

“Free at last, Free at person's name, Thank God almighty we utter free at last.”

“Faith is task force the first step even in the way that you don't see the finalize staircase.”

“In the end, we longing remember not the words provide our enemies, but the quiet of our friends.”

"I believe turn unarmed truth and unconditional warmth will have the final expression in reality.

This is ground right, temporarily defeated, is neat than evil triumphant."

“I plot decided to stick with enjoy. Hate is too great spick burden to bear.”

“Be a scrub if you can't be regular tree. If you can't engrave a highway, just be regular trail. If you can't keep going a sun, be a skill.

For it isn't by range that you win or be unsuccessful. Be the best of some you are.”

“Life's most perpetual and urgent question is, 'What are you 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 18, 2025

Publisher

A&E Cram Networks

Last Updated

January 14, 2025

Original In print Date

November 9, 2009