Martin Luther King, Jr. was born on January 15, 1929 to Martin Luther King, Sr. (who knew??) and Alberta King. He was the second of three children. Both his grandfather and father served as pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church.
King attended segregated public schools in
Georgia, and he graduated when he was fifteen. He graduated from Morehouse
College in Atlanta in 1948 with a B. A. He also studied at Crozer Theological
Seminary in Pennsylvania and later at Boston University, eventually receiving
his doctorate in 1955.
He also married his wife, Coretta, while
in Boston. They would eventually have four children together: Yolanda, Martin,
Dexter and Bernice.
In 1954, King decided to accept an offer
to be the pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. When
Montgomery's black leaders formed the Montgomery Improvement Association to
protest the arrest of Rosa Parks, King was selected to head the group.
During the year long Montgomery bus
boycott, King utilized his leadership abilities to help form a protest
strategy. He also became an advocate of Gandhi's nonviolence in India.
In 1956, the Supreme Court outlawed
Alabama bus segregation laws, and King began to expand the nonviolent civil
rights movement across the South. He joined with several others to coordinate
civil rights activities in the South. Around this time, he also published a
book tittled Stride Toward Freedom: The
Montgomery Story, which helped to catapoult him into the position of a
national civil righs leader.
King survived several assassination
attempts during this time, but was only hurt by one in 1958, when Izola Curry
stabbed him with a letter opener.
In 1960, King moved to Atlanta to become
the co-pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church with his father. For the next few
years, he and his wife helped to lead protests against racial injustice in
Albany, Georgia.
He intentionally allowed himself to be
arrested for leading a demonstration. While in jail, he wrote what was called
"Letter from Birmingham Jail", which showed his ability to influence
public opinion.
In 1963, President Kennedy introduced
major civil rights legislation, mostly prompted by the brutality of Birmingham
officials and the refusal of the Alabama governor to allow admission of black
students into the University of Alabama.
It was on this backdrop that King gave his
famous "I have a dream" speech in Washington D.C. This speech and his
ability to focus national attention on confrontations with racist authorities
made him the Time's "Man of the Year" at the end of 1963, and in
December 1964 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Because of some protests, in the summer of
1965 the Voting Rights Act, which allowed blacks the right to vote.
After the successful marches that spurred
the Voting Rights Acts, King's popularity began to decline, as well as his
nonviolent methods. Many blacks began turning towards the black nationalism of
Malcolm X, who was assassinated in February of 1965.
Over the next few years, King wrote another
book, spoke against the Vietnam War, formed the Poor People's Campaign
(designed to push the federal government to strengthen its antipoverty
efforts). King and others tried to recruit to come to Washington D.C. and lobby
for increased antipoverty efforts.
The Poor People's Campaign was in its
early stages when King came to Tennessee to lead a Memphis sanitation workers'
strike. On March 28, 1968, King led thousands of people through downtown
Memphis. Seven days laater, King was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel in
Memphis. The assassination brought an abrupt end to King's thirteen years of
leading the nonviolent civil rights.
He was buried in Atlanta Georgia, and many
high-level leaders attended the funeral.
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| Martin Luther King, Jr. right before he was shot on April 4th. |
So there's the life story of Martin Luther
King, Jr. He was a great leader in the civil rights movement, and continues to
inspire people today.
Thanks for reading, and don't forget to come back next Monday for a post by Jessica!!
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