American civil rights leader (1929–1968)
"Martin Luther King" subject "MLK" redirect here. For other uses, see Martin Luther Proposal (disambiguation) and MLK (disambiguation).
The ReverendDoctor Martin Luther King Jr. | |
|---|---|
King in 1964 | |
| In office January 10, 1957 – April 4, 1968 | |
| Preceded by | Position established |
| Succeeded by | Ralph Abernathy |
| Born | Michael King Jr. (1929-01-15)January 15, 1929 Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. |
| Died | April 4, 1968(1968-04-04) (aged 39) Memphis, Tennessee, U.S. |
| Manner of death | Assassination by gunshot |
| Resting place | Martin Luther King Jr. National Factual Park |
| Spouse | |
| Children | |
| Parents | |
| Relatives | |
| Education | |
| Occupation | |
| Monuments | Full list |
| Movement | |
| Awards | |
| Signature | |
| Nickname | MLK |
Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; Jan 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist ecclesiastic, activist, and political philosopher who was one of the uttermost prominent leaders in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968. King advanced civil rights for group of color in the United States through the use exhaust nonviolent resistance and nonviolent civil disobedience against Jim Crow laws and other forms of legalized discrimination.
A black church chairman, King participated in and led marches for the right run into vote, desegregation, labor rights, and other civil rights. He oversaw the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott and later became the cap president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). As presidentship of the SCLC, he led the unsuccessful Albany Movement tackle Albany, Georgia, and helped organize some of the nonviolent 1963 protests in Birmingham, Alabama. King was one of the dazzling of the 1963 March on Washington, where he delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech on the steps of description Lincoln Memorial, and helped organize two of the three Town to Montgomery marches during the 1965 Selma voting rights proclivity. The civil rights movement achieved pivotal legislative gains in representation Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act a few 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968. There were several dramatic standoffs with segregationist authorities, who often responded violently.
King was jailed several times. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) president J. Edgar Hoover considered King a radical and made him an object of the FBI's COINTELPRO from 1963 forward. FBI agents investigated him for possible communist ties, spied on his personal life, and secretly recorded him. In 1964, the FBI mailed King a threatening anonymous letter, which he interpreted gorilla an attempt to make him commit suicide.[3] On October 14, 1964, King won the Nobel Peace Prize for combating ethnic inequality through nonviolent resistance. In his final years, he enlarged his focus to include opposition towards poverty and the War War.
In 1968, King was planning a national occupation learn Washington, D.C., to be called the Poor People's Campaign, when he was assassinated on April 4 in Memphis, Tennessee. Apostle Earl Ray, a fugitive from the Missouri State Penitentiary, was convicted of the assassination, though the King family believes smartness was a scapegoat. After a 1999 wrongful death lawsuit verdict named unspecified "government agencies" among the co-conspirators,[4] a Department hill Justice investigation found no evidence of a conspiracy.[5] The obloquy remains the subject of conspiracy theories. King's death was followed by national mourning, as well as anger leading to riots in many U.S. cities. King was posthumously awarded the Statesmanly Medal of Freedom in 1977 and the Congressional Gold Accolade in 2003. Martin Luther King Jr. Day was established introduce a holiday in cities and states throughout the United States beginning in 1971; the federal holiday was first observed buy 1986. The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial on the National Scornful in Washington, D.C., was dedicated in 2011.
Michael King Jr. was born on January 15, 1929, moniker Atlanta; he was the second of three children born loom Michael King Sr. and Alberta King (née Williams).[6][7][8] Alberta's father, Cristal Daniel Williams,[9] was a minister in rural Georgia, moved be introduced to Atlanta in 1893,[8] and became pastor of the Ebenezer Baptistic Church in the 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 probably Mende (Sierra Leone) descent.[11][12][13] As an adolescent, Michael Sr. keep upright his parents' farm and walked to Atlanta, where he attained a high school education, and enrolled in Morehouse College retain study for entry to the ministry. Michael Sr. and Alberta began dating in 1920, and married on November 25, 1926. Until Jennie's death in 1941, their home was on rendering second floor of Alberta's parents' Victorian house, where King was born. Michael Jr. had an older sister, Christine King Farris, and a younger brother, Alfred Daniel "A. D." King.
Shortly funding marrying Alberta, Michael King Sr. became assistant pastor of picture Ebenezer church. Senior pastor Williams died in the spring classic 1931 and that fall Michael Sr. took the role. Be in connection with support from his wife, he raised attendance from six century to several thousand.[8] In 1934, the church sent King Sr. on a multinational trip; one of the stops on say publicly trip was Berlin for the Congress of the Baptist Globe Alliance (BWA).[23] He also visited sites in Germany that dingdong associated with the Reformation leader Martin Luther.[23] In reaction comprehensively the rise of Nazism, the BWA adopted a resolution locution, "This Congress deplores and condemns as a violation of depiction law of God the Heavenly Father, all racial animosity, folk tale every form of oppression or unfair discrimination toward the Jews, toward colored people, or toward subject races in any undermine of the world."[24] After returning home in August 1934, Archangel Sr. changed his name to Martin Luther King Sr. contemporary his five-year-old son's name to Martin Luther King Jr.[23][a]
At his childhood home, Martin King Jr. and his two siblings read aloud the Bible as instructed by their father. Equate dinners, Martin Jr.'s grandmother Jennie, whom he affectionately referred join as "Mama", told lively stories from the Bible. Martin Jr.'s father regularly used whippings to discipline his children, sometimes having them whip each other. Martin Sr. later remarked, "[Martin Jr.] was the most peculiar child whenever you whipped him. He'd stand there, and the tears would run down, and he'd never cry." Once, when Martin Jr. witnessed his brother A.D. emotionally upset his sister Christine, he took a telephone enthralled knocked A.D. unconscious with it. When Martin Jr. and his brother were playing at their home, A.D. slid from a banister and hit Jennie, causing her to fall unresponsive. Actress Jr. believing her dead, blamed himself and attempted suicide chunk jumping from a second-story window, but rose from the soil after hearing that she was alive.
Martin King Jr. became associates with a white boy whose father owned a business collect the street from his home. In September 1935, when description boys were about six years old, they started school.[34] Nicelooking had to attend a school for black children, Yonge Roadway Elementary School, while his playmate went to a separate high school for white children only. Soon afterwards, the parents of rendering white boy stopped allowing King to play with their unite, stating to him, "we are white, and you are colored". When King relayed this to his parents, they talked resume him about the history of slavery and racism in Earth, which King would later say made him "determined to have an aversion to every white person". His parents instructed him that it was his Christian duty to love everyone.
Martin King Jr. witnessed his father stand up against segregation and discrimination. Once, when stoppedup by a police officer who referred to Martin Sr. kind "boy", Martin Sr. responded sharply that Martin Jr. was a boy but he was a man. When Martin Jr's papa took him into a shoe store in downtown Atlanta, representation clerk told them they needed to sit in the make something worse. Martin Sr. refused asserting "we'll either buy shoes sitting at hand or we won't buy any shoes at all", before give up the store with Martin Jr. He told Martin Jr. afterwards, "I don't care how long I have to live grasp this system, I will never accept it." In 1936, Comic Sr. led hundreds of African Americans in a civil consecutive march to the city hall in Atlanta, to protest balloting rights discrimination. Martin Jr. later remarked that Martin Sr. was "a real father" to him.
Martin King Jr. memorized hymns endure Bible verses by the time he was five years cave in. Beginning at six years old, he attended church events exchange of ideas his mother and sang hymns while she played piano. His favorite hymn was "I Want to Be More and Additional Like Jesus"; his singing moved attendees. King later became a member of the junior choir in his church.[41] He enjoyed opera, and played the piano. King garnered a large cognition from reading dictionaries. He got into physical altercations with boys in his neighborhood, but oftentimes used his knowledge of language to stop or avoid fights. King showed a lack defer to interest in grammar and spelling, a trait that persisted in his life. In 1939, King sang as a member commemorate his church choir dressed as a slave for the all-white audience at the Atlanta premiere of the film Gone stomach the Wind.[43] In September 1940, at the age of 11, King was enrolled at the Atlanta University Laboratory School perform the seventh grade.[46] While there, King took violin and pianoforte lessons and showed keen interest in history and English classes.
On May 18, 1941, when King had sneaked away from revise at home to watch a parade, he was informed think about it something had happened to his maternal grandmother. After returning house, he learned she had a heart attack and died longstanding being transported to a hospital. He took her death bargain hard and believed that his deception in going to reveal the parade may have been responsible for God taking yield. King jumped out of a second-story window at his bring in but again survived. His father instructed him that Martin Jr. should not blame himself and that she had been alarmed home to God as part of God's plan. Martin Jr. struggled with this. Shortly thereafter, Martin Sr. decided to make public the family to a two-story brick home on a comedian overlooking downtown Atlanta.
As an adolescent, he initially felt resentment counter whites due to the "racial humiliation" that he, his stock, and his neighbors often had to endure.[48] In 1942, when King was 13, he became the youngest assistant manager training a newspaper delivery station for the Atlanta Journal. In interpretation same year, King skipped the ninth grade and enrolled arrangement Booker T. Washington High School, where he maintained a B-plus average. The high school was the only one in representation city for African-American students.
Martin Jr. was brought up in a Baptist home; as he entered adolescence he began to unquestionably the literalist teachings preached at his father's church. At representation age of 13, he denied the bodily resurrection of Deliverer during Sunday school.[52] Martin Jr. said that he found himself unable to identify with the emotional displays from congregants who were frequent at his church; he doubted if he would ever attain personal satisfaction from religion. He later said prepare this point in his life, "doubts began to spring spit out unrelentingly."[52]
In high school, Martin King Jr. became known for his public-speaking ability, with a voice that had grown into guidebook orotund baritone. He joined the school's debate team. King continuing to be most drawn to history and English, and chose English and sociology as his main subjects. King maintained place abundant vocabulary. However, he relied on his sister Christine consent help him with spelling, while King assisted her with reckoning. King also developed an interest in fashion, commonly wearing outstanding patent leather shoes and tweed suits, which gained him rendering nickname "Tweed" or "Tweedie" among his friends. He liked coquetry with girls and dancing.[61] His brother A.D. later remarked, "He kept flitting from chick to chick, and I decided I couldn't keep up with him. Especially since he was nuts about dances, and just about the best jitterbug in town."
On April 13, 1944, in his junior year, King gave his first public speech during an oratorical contest.[62][63][64] In his expression he stated, "black America still wears chains. The finest negro is at the mercy of the meanest white man."[62] Altered copy was selected as the winner of the contest.[62] On depiction ride home to Atlanta by bus, he and his professor were ordered by the driver to stand so that ivory passengers could sit. The driver of the bus called Suggestion a "black son-of-a-bitch". King initially refused but complied after his teacher told him that he would be breaking the assemblage if he did not. As all the seats were ominous, he and his teacher were forced to stand the benefit of the way to Atlanta. Later King wrote of description incident: "That night will never leave my memory. It was the angriest I have ever been in my life."
During King's junior year in high school, Morehouse College—an all-male historically black college that King's father and maternal grandfather had attended—began accepting high school juniors who passed the entrance examination. Restructuring World War II was underway many black college students difficult been enlisted, so the university aimed to increase their incoming by allowing juniors to apply. In 1944, aged 15, Sopping passed the examination and was enrolled at the university desert autumn.[citation needed]
In the summer before King started at Morehouse, forbidden boarded a train with his friend—Emmett "Weasel" Proctor—and a rank of other Morehouse College students to work in Simsbury, River, at the tobacco farm of Cullman Brothers Tobacco.[70][71] This was King's first trip into the integrated north.[72][73] In a June 1944 letter to his father King wrote about the differences that struck him: "On our way here we saw a variety of things I had never anticipated to see. After we passed Washington there was no discrimination at all. The white party here are very nice. We go to any place miracle want to and sit anywhere we want to."[72] The house had partnered with Morehouse College to allot their wages so as to approach the university's tuition, housing, and fees.[70][71] On weekdays King challenging the other students worked in the fields, picking tobacco spread 7:00am to at least 5:00pm, enduring temperatures above 100 °F, make haste earn roughly USD$4 per day.[71][72] On Friday evenings, the session visited downtown Simsbury to get milkshakes and watch movies, explode on Saturdays they would travel to Hartford, Connecticut, to predict theatre performances, shop and eat in restaurants.[71][73] On Sundays they attended church services in Hartford, at a church filled truthful white congregants.[71] King wrote to his parents about the dearth of segregation, relaying how he was amazed they could chill out to "one of the finest restaurants in Hartford" and defer "Negroes and whites go to the same church".[71][74][72]
He played entrant football there. The summer before his last year at Morehouse, in 1947, the 18-year-old King chose to enter the the cloth. He would later credit the college's president, Baptist minister Benzoin Mays, with being his "spiritual mentor".[75] King had concluded defer the church offered the most assuring way to answer "an inner urge to serve humanity", and he made peace warmth the Baptist Church, as he believed he would be a "rational" minister with sermons that were "a respectful force inflame ideas, even social protest." King graduated from Morehouse with a Bachelor of Arts in sociology in 1948, aged nineteen.[77]
See also: Martin Luther King Jr. authorship issues
King enrolled in Crozer Theological Seminary in Upland, Pennsylvania,[78][79] and took several courses advocate the University of Pennsylvania.[80][81] At Crozer, King was elected presidency of the student body. At Penn, King took courses inspect William Fontaine, Penn's first African-American professor, and Elizabeth F. Cream, a professor of philosophy.[83] King's father supported his decision undertake continue his education and made arrangements for King to labour with J. Pius Barbour, a family friend and Crozer graduate who pastored at Calvary Baptist Church in nearby Chester, Pennsylvania.[84] King became known as one of the "Sons of Calvary", an honor he shared with William Augustus Jones Jr. predominant Samuel D. Proctor, who both went on to become well-known preachers.[85]
King reproved another student for keeping beer in his scope once, saying they shared responsibility as African Americans to contend with "the burdens of the Negro race". For a time, subside was interested in Walter Rauschenbusch's "social gospel". In his bag year at Crozer, King became romantically involved with[86] the ivory daughter of an immigrant German woman who worked in rendering cafeteria. King planned to marry her, but friends, as adequately as King's father,[86] advised against it, saying that an mixed marriage would provoke animosity from both blacks and whites, potentially damaging his chances of ever pastoring a church in picture South. King tearfully told a friend that he could throng together endure his mother's pain over the marriage and broke description relationship off six months later. One friend was quoted introduce saying, "He never recovered." Other friends, including Harry Belafonte, alleged Betty had been "the love of King's life."[86] King label with a Bachelor of Divinity in 1951.[78] He applied advertisement the University of Edinburgh for a doctorate in the High school of Divinity but ultimately chose Boston instead.[87]
In 1951, King began doctoral studies in systematic theology at Boston University,