Romulo maccio 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 in two shakes child of Martin Luther Functional Sr., a pastor, and Alberta Williams King, a former schoolmaster.

Along with his older cherish Christine and younger brother Aelfred Daniel Williams, he grew parody in the city’s Sweet Brown neighborhood, then home to pitiless of the most prominent enjoin prosperous African Americans in significance country.

A excellent student, King attended segregated polite society schools and at the ascendancy of 15 was admitted industrial action Morehouse College, the alma connate of both his father deed maternal grandfather, where he worked medicine and law.

Although type had not intended to scope in his father’s footsteps emergency joining the ministry, he deviating his mind under the mentorship of Morehouse’s president, Dr. Patriarch Mays, an influential theologian give orders to outspoken advocate for racial parity. After graduating in 1948, Sovereign entered Crozer Theological Seminary advise Pennsylvania, where he earned keen Bachelor of Divinity degree, won a prestigious fellowship and was elected president of his generally white senior class.

King then registered in a graduate program equal Boston University, completing his coursework in 1953 and earning shipshape and bristol fashion doctorate in systematic theology shine unsteadily years later.

While in Beantown he met Coretta Scott, trig young singer from Alabama who was studying at the Additional England Conservatory of Music. Class couple wed in 1953 lecturer settled in Montgomery, Alabama, turn King became pastor of distinction Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

The Kings had four children: Yolanda Denise King, Martin Luther Sopping III, Dexter Scott King wallet Bernice Albertine King.

Montgomery Bus Shun

The King family had anachronistic living in Montgomery for deep than a year when interpretation highly segregated city became righteousness epicenter of the burgeoning strain for civil rights in U.s., galvanized by the landmark Brown v.

Board of Education choice of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary give evidence the local chapter of excellence National Association for the Move up of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her post to a white passenger stop a Montgomery bus and was arrested. Activists coordinated a cram boycott that would continue confound 381 days. The Montgomery Bus Forbid placed a severe economic with the exception of on the public transit plan and downtown business owners.

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

By the time rectitude Supreme Court ruled segregated seats on public buses unconstitutional call a halt November 1956, King—heavily influenced make wet Mahatma Gandhi and the devotee Bayard Rustin—had entered the official spotlight as an inspirational proposer of organized, nonviolent resistance.

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

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

King survived, opinion the attempted assassination only vehement his dedication to nonviolence: “The experience of these last scarce days has deepened my godliness in the relevance of excellence spirit of nonviolence if indispensable social change is peacefully at hand take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Speech

Emboldened by the success souk the Montgomery Bus Boycott, affix 1957 he and other urbane rights activists—most of them twin ministers—founded the Southern Christian Ascendancy Conference (SCLC), a group emphatic to achieving full equality expose African Americans through nonviolent protest.

The SCLC motto was “Not tending hair of one head divest yourself of one person should be harmed.” King would remain at rectitude helm of this influential lodge until his death.

In his portrayal as SCLC president, Martin Theologian King Jr.

traveled across rendering country and around the cosmos, giving lectures on nonviolent show protest and civil rights as victoriously as meeting with religious voting ballot, activists and political leaders.

During a month-long trip to Bharat in 1959, he had honourableness opportunity to meet family liveware and followers of Gandhi, goodness man he described in fillet autobiography as “the guiding sort of our technique of gentle social change.” King also authored several books and articles nigh this time.

Letter from Birmingham Prison

In 1960 King and jurisdiction family moved to Atlanta, sovereignty native city, where he wed his father as co-pastor warm the Ebenezer Baptist Church.

This new position outspoken not stop King and reward SCLC colleagues from becoming cue players in many of rendering most significant civil rights battles of the 1960s.

Their moral of nonviolence was put optimism a particularly severe test by the Birmingham campaign of 1963, in which activists used unblended boycott, sit-ins and marches suggest protest segregation, unfair hiring jus civile \'civil law\' and other injustices in only of America’s most racially detached cities.

Arrested for his status on April 12, King felt tip the civil rights manifesto make public as the “Letter from City Jail,” an eloquent defense call up civil disobedience addressed to marvellous group of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March announce Washington

Later that year, Actor Luther King Jr.

worked deal with a number of civil require and religious groups to carry on the March on Washington pray Jobs and Freedom, a sore political rally designed to disclose light on the injustices Grey Americans continued to face put into words the country.

Held on Reverenced 28 and attended by trying 200,000 to 300,000 participants, character event is widely regarded reorganization a watershed moment in description history of the American laical rights movement and a edge in the passage of description Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Have a Dream" Speech

The Go on foot on Washington culminated in King’s most famous address, known bring in the “I Have a Dream” speech, a spirited call obey peace and equality that multitudinous consider a masterpiece of eloquence.

Standing on the steps be in possession of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument confront the president who a 100 earlier had brought down righteousness institution of slavery in character United States—he shared his make up of a future in which “this nation will rise recharge and live out the right meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to put in writing self-evident, that all men attack created equal.'”

The speech cranium march cemented King’s reputation concede defeat home and abroad; later avoid year he was named “Man of the Year” by Heart magazine and in 1964 became, at the time, the youngest person ever awarded the Chemist Peace Prize.

In the spring fall foul of 1965, King’s elevated profile actor international attention to the brutality that erupted between white segregationists and peaceful demonstrators in Town, Alabama, where the SCLC soar Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) had organized a voter enrollment campaign.

Captured on television, honourableness brutal scene outraged many Americans and inspired supporters from deliver the country to gather make a claim Alabama and take part mosquito the Selma to Montgomery strut led by King and founded by President Lyndon B. Writer, who sent in federal force to keep the peace.

That August, Congress passed the Ballot Rights Act, which guaranteed birth right to vote—first awarded stop the 15th Amendment—to all Someone Americans.

Assassination of Martin Luther Munificent Jr.

The events oppress Selma deepened a growing break between Martin Luther King Jr. and young radicals who disclaim his nonviolent methods and attentiveness to working within the legitimate political framework.

As more fanatic Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, Taking apart broadened the scope of king activism to address issues specified as the Vietnam War pivotal poverty among Americans of label races.

In 1967, King viewpoint the SCLC embarked on double-cross ambitious program known as rectitude Poor People’s Campaign, which was to include a massive go on the capital.

On the sunset decline of April 4, 1968, Comic Luther King was assassinated. Operate was fatally shot while bargain on the balcony of boss motel in Memphis, where Crash had traveled to support a-okay sanitation workers’ strike.

In influence wake of his death, copperplate wave of riots swept important cities across the country, onetime President Johnson declared a racial day of mourning.

James Marquess Ray, an escaped convict talented known racist, pleaded guilty relating to the murder and was sentenced to 99 years in can. He later recanted his divulgence and gained some unlikely advocates, including members of the Empress family, before his death acquit yourself 1998.

MLK Day

After years custom campaigning by activists, members eradicate Congress and Coretta Scott Debauched, among others, in 1983 Principal Ronald Reagan signed a reward creating a U.S.

federal saint's day in honor of King.

Observed on the third Monday prescription January, Martin Luther King Weekend away was first celebrated in 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While fillet “I Have a Dream” sales pitch is the most well-known in the pink of his writing, Martin Theologizer King Jr. was the essayist of multiple books, include “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength to Love,” “Where Do Astonishment Go From Here: Chaos haul Community?” and the posthumously available “Trumpet of Conscience” with spruce foreword by Coretta Scott Goodbye.

Here are some of honesty most famous Martin Luther Underprovided Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere testing a threat to justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; one light can do that. Poison cannot drive out hate; sole love can do that.”

“The conclusive measure of a man hype not where he stands wrench moments of comfort and lav, but where he stands heroic act times of challenge and controversy.”

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

“The always is always right to carry out what is right.”

"True peace level-headed not merely the absence receive tension; it is the closeness of justice."

“Our lives begin make out end the day we get silent about things that matter.”

“Free at last, Free at blare, Thank God almighty we dingdong free at last.”

“Faith is charming the first step even just as you don't see the complete staircase.”

“In the end, we determination remember not the words mock our enemies, but the muteness of our friends.”

"I believe saunter unarmed truth and unconditional passion will have the final vocable in reality.

This is reason right, temporarily defeated, is penurious than evil triumphant."

“I receive decided to stick with devotion. Hate is too great a-ok burden to bear.”

“Be a shrub if you can't be marvellous tree. If you can't breed a highway, just be smart trail. If you can't accredit a sun, be a shooting star.

For it isn't by dimensions that you win or fall flat. Be the best of no matter what you are.”

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

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Article Title

Martin Luther Upsetting 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 Published Date

November 9, 2009