Iain lawrence biography of martin luther king

American civil rights leader (–)

"Martin Luther King" endure "MLK" redirect here. For other uses, see Martin Luther Soughtafter (disambiguation) and MLK (disambiguation).

Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; Jan 15, &#;– April 4, ) was an American Baptist see to, activist, and political philosopher who was one of the uppermost prominent leaders in the civil rights movement from until his assassination in King advanced civil rights for people of tint in the United States through the use of nonviolent refusal and nonviolent civil disobedience against Jim Crow laws and niche forms of legalized discrimination.

A black church leader, King participated in and led marches for the right to vote, integration, labor rights, and other civil rights. He oversaw the Writer bus boycott and later became the first president of depiction Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). As president of the SCLC, he led the unsuccessful Albany Movement in Albany, Georgia, cranium helped organize some of the nonviolent protests in Birmingham, Muskogean. King was one of the leaders of the March valuation Washington, where he delivered his "I Have a Dream" script on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, and helped last two of the three Selma to Montgomery marches during rendering Selma voting rights movement. The civil rights movement achieved essential legislative gains in the Civil Rights Act of , say publicly Voting Rights Act of , and the Fair Housing Cut of There were several dramatic standoffs with segregationist authorities, who often responded violently.

King was jailed several times. Federal Bureau operate Investigation (FBI) director J. Edgar Hoover considered King a elemental and made him an object of the FBI's COINTELPRO get round forward. FBI agents investigated him for possible communist ties, spied on his personal life, and secretly recorded him. In , the FBI mailed King a threatening anonymous letter, which prohibited interpreted as an attempt to make him commit suicide.^[3] Set October 14, , King won the Nobel Peace Prize keep combating racial inequality through nonviolent resistance. In his final existence, he expanded his focus to include opposition towards poverty pole the Vietnam War.

In , King was planning a popular occupation of Washington, D.C., to be called the Poor People's Campaign, when he was assassinated on April 4 in City, Tennessee. James Earl Ray, a fugitive from the Missouri Bring back Penitentiary, was convicted of the assassination, though the King next of kin believes he was a scapegoat. After a wrongful death case ruling named unspecified "government agencies" among the co-conspirators,^[4] a Office of Justice investigation found no evidence of a conspiracy.^[5] Say publicly assassination remains the subject of conspiracy theories. King's death was followed by national mourning, as well as anger leading phizog riots in many U.S. cities. King was posthumously awarded rendering Presidential Medal of Freedom in and the Congressional Gold Medallion in Martin Luther King Jr. Day was established as a holiday in cities and states throughout the United States commencement in ; the federal holiday was first observed in Rendering Martin Luther King&#;Jr. Memorial on the National Mall in Pedagogue, D.C., was dedicated in

Early life and education

Birth

Michael King Jr. was born on January 15, , in Atlanta; he was the second of three children born to Michael King Sr. and Alberta King (née&#;Williams).^[6][7][8] Alberta's father, Adam Daniel Williams,^[9] was a minister in rural Georgia, moved to Atlanta in ,^[8] and became pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in say publicly following year. Williams married Jennie Celeste Parks.^[8] Michael Sr. was born to sharecroppers James Albert and Delia King of Stockbridge, Georgia;^[7][8] he was of Irish and likely Mende (Sierra Leone) descent.^[11][12][13] As an adolescent, Michael Sr. left his parents' quarter and walked to Atlanta, where he attained a high kindergarten education, and enrolled in Morehouse College to study for entr‚e to the ministry. Michael Sr. and Alberta began dating press , and married on November 25, Until Jennie's death hill , their home was on the second floor of Alberta's parents' Victorian house, where King was born. Michael Jr. confidential an older sister, Christine King Farris, and a younger kinsman, Alfred Daniel "A. D." King.

Shortly after marrying Alberta, Michael Crash Sr. became assistant pastor of the Ebenezer church. Senior churchwoman Williams died in the spring of and that fall Archangel Sr. took the role. With support from his wife, powder raised attendance from six hundred to several thousand.^[8] In , the church sent King Sr. on a multinational trip; single of the stops on the trip was Berlin for say publicly Congress of the Baptist World Alliance (BWA).^[23] He also visited sites in Germany that are associated with the Reformation head Martin Luther.^[23] In reaction to the rise of Nazism, interpretation BWA adopted a resolution saying, "This Congress deplores and condemns as a violation of the law of God the Holy Father, all racial animosity, and every form of oppression do an impression of unfair discrimination toward the Jews, toward colored people, or be a symptom of subject races in any part of the world."^[24] After reversive home in August , Michael Sr. changed his name stop Martin Luther King Sr. and his five-year-old son's name suggest Martin Luther King Jr.^[23][a]

Early childhood

At his childhood home, Martin Soughtafter Jr. and his two siblings read aloud the Bible rightfully instructed by their father. After dinners, Martin Jr.'s grandmother Jennie, whom he affectionately referred to as "Mama", told lively stories from the Bible. Martin Jr.'s father regularly used whippings unite discipline his children, sometimes having them whip each other. Player Sr. later remarked, "[Martin Jr.] was the most peculiar daughter whenever you whipped him. He'd stand there, and the letdown would run down, and he'd never cry." Once, when Actor Jr. witnessed his brother A.D. emotionally upset his sister Christine, he took a telephone and knocked A.D. unconscious with boot out. When Martin Jr. and his brother were playing at their home, A.D. slid from a banister and hit Jennie, deed her to fall unresponsive. Martin Jr. believing her dead, damned himself and attempted suicide by jumping from a second-story transom, but rose from the ground after hearing that she was alive.

Martin King Jr. became friends with a white boy whose father owned a business across the street from his dwelling. In September , when the boys were about six life old, they started school.^[34] King had to attend a educational institution for black children, Yonge Street Elementary School, while his pal went to a separate school for white children only. Presently afterwards, the parents of the white boy stopped allowing Sodden to play with their son, stating to him, "we muddle white, and you are colored". When King relayed this take in his parents, they talked with him about the history get the picture slavery and racism in America, which King would later state made him "determined to hate every white person". His parents instructed him that it was his Christian duty to warmth everyone.

Martin King Jr. witnessed his father stand up against isolation and discrimination. Once, when stopped by a police officer who referred to Martin Sr. as "boy", Martin Sr. responded sternly that Martin Jr. was a boy but he was a man. When Martin Jr's father took him into a case store in downtown Atlanta, the clerk told them they needful to sit in the back. Martin Sr. refused asserting "we'll either buy shoes sitting here or we won't buy wacky shoes at all", before leaving the store with Martin Jr. He told Martin Jr. afterward, "I don't care how progressive I have to live with this system, I will on no account accept it." In , Martin Sr. led hundreds of Person Americans in a civil rights march to the city pass in Atlanta, to protest voting rights discrimination. Martin Jr. late remarked that Martin Sr. was "a real father" to him.

Martin King Jr. memorized hymns and Bible verses by the revolt he was five years old. Beginning at six years postpone, he attended church events with his mother and sang hymns while she played piano. His favorite hymn was "I Hope for to Be More and More Like Jesus"; his singing evasive attendees. King later became a member of the junior chorus in his church.^[41] He enjoyed opera, and played the keyboard. King garnered a large vocabulary from reading dictionaries. He got into physical altercations with boys in his neighborhood, but oft used his knowledge of words to stop or avoid fights. King showed a lack of interest in grammar and spelling, a trait that persisted throughout his life. In , Tireless sang as a member of his church choir dressed significance a slave for the all-white audience at the Atlanta opening night of the film Gone with the Wind.^[43] In September , at the age of 11, King was enrolled at depiction Atlanta University Laboratory School for the seventh grade.^[46] While at hand, King took violin and piano lessons and showed keen enthusiasm in history and English classes.

On May 18, , when Energetic had sneaked away from studying at home to watch a parade, he was informed that something had happened to his maternal grandmother. After returning home, he learned she had a heart attack and died while being transported to a infirmary. He took her death very hard and believed that his deception in going to see the parade may have antediluvian responsible for God taking her. King jumped out of a second-story window at his home but again survived. His papa instructed him that Martin Jr. should not blame himself skull that she had been called home to God as pinnacle of God's plan. Martin Jr. struggled with this. Shortly later, Martin Sr. decided to move the family to a two-story brick home on a hill overlooking downtown Atlanta.

Adolescence

As an juvenile, he initially felt resentment against whites due to the "racial humiliation" that he, his family, and his neighbors often challenging to endure.^[48] In , when King was 13, he became the youngest assistant manager of a newspaper delivery station support the Atlanta Journal. In the same year, King skipped say publicly ninth grade and enrolled in Booker T. Washington High High school, where he maintained a B-plus average. The high school was the only one in the city for African-American students.

Martin Jr. was brought up in a Baptist home; as he entered adolescence he began to question the literalist teachings preached be redolent of his father's church. At the age of 13, he denied the bodily resurrection of Jesus during Sunday school.^[52] Martin Jr. said that he found himself unable to identify with interpretation emotional displays from congregants who were frequent at his church; he doubted if he would ever attain personal satisfaction pass up religion. He later said of this point in his take a crack at, "doubts began to spring forth unrelentingly."^[52]

In high school, Martin Demoralizing Jr. became known for his public-speaking ability, with a tab that had grown into an orotund baritone. He joined depiction school's debate team. King continued to be most drawn like history and English, and chose English and sociology as his main subjects. King maintained an abundant vocabulary. However, he relied on his sister Christine to help him with spelling, like chalk and cheese King assisted her with math. King also developed an disturbed in fashion, commonly wearing polished patent leather shoes and white suits, which gained him the nickname "Tweed" or "Tweedie" amongst his friends. He liked flirting with girls and dancing.^[61] His brother A.D. later remarked, "He kept flitting from chick be carried chick, and I decided I couldn't keep up with him. Especially since he was crazy about dances, and just solicit the best jitterbug in town."

On April 13, , in his junior year, King gave his first public speech during protract oratorical contest.^[62][63][64] In his speech he stated, "black America unmoving wears chains. The finest negro is at the mercy show consideration for the meanest white man."^[62] King was selected as the titleholder of the contest.^[62] On the ride home to Atlanta spawn bus, he and his teacher were ordered by the utility to stand so that white passengers could sit. The utility of the bus called King a "black son-of-a-bitch". King initially refused but complied after his teacher told him that be active would be breaking the law if he did not. Little all the seats were occupied, he and his teacher were forced to stand the rest of the way to Beleaguering. Later King wrote of the incident: "That night will not ever leave my memory. It was the angriest I have by any chance been in my life."

Morehouse College

During King's junior year in tall school, Morehouse College—an all-male historically black college that King's dad and maternal grandfather had attended—began accepting high school juniors who passed the entrance examination. As World War II was current many black college students had been enlisted, so the college aimed to increase their enrollment by allowing juniors to stick. In , aged 15, King passed the examination and was enrolled at the university that autumn.^{[citation needed]}

In the summer in the past King started at Morehouse, he boarded a train with his friend—Emmett "Weasel" Proctor—and a group of other Morehouse College group of pupils to work in Simsbury, Connecticut, at the tobacco farm warning sign Cullman Brothers Tobacco.^[70][71] This was King's first trip into description integrated north.^[72][73] In a June letter to his father Tedious wrote about the differences that struck him: "On our mound here we saw some things I had never anticipated discover see. After we passed Washington there was no discrimination drum all. The white people here are very nice. We turmoil to any place we want to and sit anywhere miracle want to."^[72] The farm had partnered with Morehouse College augment allot their wages towards the university's tuition, housing, and fees.^[70][71] On weekdays King and the other students worked in picture fields, picking tobacco from am to at least pm, elastic temperatures above &#;°F, to earn roughly USD$4 per day.^[71][72] Cost Friday evenings, the students visited downtown Simsbury to get milkshakes and watch movies, and on Saturdays they would travel run alongside Hartford, Connecticut, to see theatre performances, shop and eat come to terms with restaurants.^[71][73] On Sundays they attended church services in Hartford, disagree a church filled with white congregants.^[71] King wrote to his parents about the lack of segregation, relaying how he was amazed they could go to "one of the finest restaurants in Hartford" and that "Negroes and whites go to representation same church".^[71][74][72]

He played freshman football there. The summer before his last year at Morehouse, in , the year-old King chose to enter the ministry. He would later credit the college's president, Baptist minister Benjamin Mays, with being his "spiritual mentor".^[75] King had concluded that the church offered the most assuring way to answer "an inner urge to serve humanity", streak he made peace with the Baptist Church, as he believed he would be a "rational" minister with sermons that were "a respectful force for ideas, even social protest." King gradational from Morehouse with a Bachelor of Arts in sociology induce , aged nineteen.^[77]

Religious education

See also: Martin Luther King Jr. composition issues

King enrolled in Crozer Theological Seminary in Upland, Pennsylvania,^[78][79] roost took several courses at the University of Pennsylvania.^[80][81] At Crozer, King was elected president of the student body. At Quaker, King took courses with William Fontaine, Penn's first African-American academician, and Elizabeth F. Flower, a professor of philosophy.^[83] King's daddy supported his decision to continue his education and made arrangements for King to work with J. Pius Barbour, a kinfolk friend and Crozer alumnus who pastored at Calvary Baptist Creed in nearby Chester, Pennsylvania.^[84] King became known as one run through the "Sons of Calvary", an honor he shared with William Augustus Jones Jr. and Samuel D. Proctor, who both went on to become well-known preachers.^[85]

King reproved another student for obligation beer in his room once, saying they shared responsibility though African Americans to bear "the burdens of the Negro race". For a time, he was interested in Walter Rauschenbusch's "social gospel". In his third year at Crozer, King became romantically involved with^[86] the white daughter of an immigrant German spouse who worked in the cafeteria. King planned to marry breach, but friends, as well as King's father,^[86] advised against extend, saying that an interracial marriage would provoke animosity from both blacks and whites, potentially damaging his chances of ever pastoring a church in the South. King tearfully told a familiar that he could not endure his mother's pain over depiction marriage and broke the relationship off six months later. Get someone on the blower friend was quoted as saying, "He never recovered." Other associates, including Harry Belafonte, said Betty had been "the love topple King's life."^[86] King graduated with a Bachelor of Divinity turn a profit ^[78] He applied to the University of Edinburgh for a doctorate in the School of Divinity but ultimately chose Beantown instead.^[87]

In , King began doctoral studies in systematic theology tear Boston University,