Martin Luther King Jr.
Biography
Martin Luther King, Jr., (January 15, 1929-April 4, 1968) was born Michael Luther King, Jr., but later had his name changed to Martin. His grandfather began the family's long tenure as pastors of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, serving from 1914 to 1931; his father has served from then until the present, and from 1960 until his death Martin Luther acted as co-pastor. Martin Luther attended segregated public schools in Georgia, graduating from high school at the age of fifteen; he received the B. A. degree in 1948 from Morehouse College, a distinguished Negro institution of Atlanta from which both his father and grandfather had graduated. After three years of theological study at Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania where he was elected president of a predominantly white senior class, he was awarded the B.D. in 1951. With a fellowship won at Crozer, he enrolled in graduate studies at Boston University, completing his residence for the doctorate in 1953 and receiving the degree in 1955. In Boston he met and married Coretta Scott, a young woman of uncommon intellectual and artistic attainments. Two sons and two daughters were born into the family.In 1954, Martin Luther King became pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. Always a strong worker for civil rights for members of his race, King was, by this time, a member of the executive committee of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the leading organization of its kind in the nation. He was ready, then, early in December, 1955, to accept the leadership of the first great Negro nonviolent demonstration of contemporary times in the United States, the bus boycott described by Gunnar Jahn in his presentation speech in honor of the laureate. The boycott lasted 382 days. On December 21, 1956, after the Supreme Court of the United States had declared unconstitutional the laws requiring segregation on buses, Negroes and whites rode the buses as equals. During these days of boycott, King was arrested, his home was bombed, he was subjected to personal abuse, but at the same time he emerged as a Negro leader of the first rank.
In 1957 he was elected president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization formed to provide new leadership for the now burgeoning civil rights movement. The ideals for this organization he took from Christianity; its operational techniques from Gandhi. In the eleven-year period between 1957 and 1968, King traveled over six million miles and spoke over twenty-five hundred times, appearing wherever there was injustice, protest, and action; and meanwhile he wrote five books as well as numerous articles. In these years, he led a massive protest in Birmingham, Alabama, that caught the attention of the entire world, providing what he called a coalition of conscience. and inspiring his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail", a manifesto of the Negro revolution; he planned the drives in Alabama for the registration of Negroes as voters; he directed the peaceful march on Washington, D.C., of 250,000 people to whom he delivered his address, "l Have a Dream", he conferred with President John F. Kennedy and campaigned for President Lyndon B. Johnson; he was arrested upwards of twenty times and assaulted at least four times; he was awarded five honorary degrees; was named Man of the Year by Time magazine in 1963; and became not only the symbolic leader of American blacks but also a world figure.
At the age of thirty-five, Martin Luther King, Jr., was the youngest man to have received the Nobel Peace Prize. When notified of his selection, he announced that he would turn over the prize money of $54,123 to the furtherance of the civil rights movement.
On the evening of April 4, 1968, while standing on the balcony of his motel room in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was to lead a protest march in sympathy with striking garbage workers of that city, he was assassinated.
Martin Timeline of Events
1929 Born at noon January 15,1929 - Parents: the Reverend and Mrs. Martin Luther King, Sr
1944 Graduated from Booker T. Washington High School and was admitted to Morehouse College at age 15
1948 Graduates fro Morehouse College and enters Crozer Theological Seminary. Ordained to the Baptist ministry, February 25, 1948, at age 19.
1951 Enter Boston University for graduate studies.
1953 Marries Coretta Scott and settles in Montgomery, Alabama.
1955 Receive Doctorate of Philosophy in Systematic theology from Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts on June 5, 1955. Dissertation Title: A Comparison of God in the Thinking of Paul Tillich and Henry Wiserman. Joins the bus boycott after Rosa Parks was arrested on "December 1. On December 5, he is elected president of the Montgomery Improvement Association, making him the official spokesman for the boycott.
1956 On November 13, the Supreme Court rules that bus segregation is illegal, ensuring victory for the boycott.
1957 King forms the southern Christian Leadership Conference to fight segregation and achieve civil right. On May 17, Dr. King speaks to a crowd of 15,000 in Washington, D.C.
1958 The U.S. Congress passed the first Civil Rights Act since reconstruction. King's first book, Stride Toward Freedom, is published. On a speaking tour, Martin Luther King, Jr. is nearly killed when stabbed by an assailant in Harlem. Met with President Dwight D. Eisenhower, along with Roy Wilkins, A. Philip Randolph, and Lester Grange on problems affecting black Americans.
1959 Visited India to study Mohandas Gandhi's philosophy of nonviolence. Resigns from pastoring the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church to concentrate on civil rights full time. He moved to Atlanta to direct the activities of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
1960 Becomes co-pastor with his father at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia. Lunch counter sit-ins began in Greensboro, North Carolina. In Atlanta, King is arrested during a sit-in waiting to be served at a restaurant. He is sentenced to four months in jail, but after intervention by John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy, he is released. Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee founded to coordinate protests at Shaw University, Raleigh, North Carolina.
1961 In November, the Interstate Commerce Commission bans segregation in interstate travel due to work of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Freedom Riders. Congress on Racial Equality (CORE) began first Freedom Ride through the South, in a Greyhound bus, after the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed segregation in interstate transportation.
1962 During the unsuccessful Albany, Georgia movement, King is arrested on July 27 and jailed.
1963 On Good Friday, April 12, King is arrested with Ralph Abernathy by Police Commissioner Eugene "Bull" Connor for demonstrating without a permit. On April 13, the Birmingham campaign is launched. This would prove to be the turning point in the war to end segregation in the South. During the eleven days he spent in jail, MLK writes his famous Letter from Birmingham Jail. On May 10, the Birmingham agreement is announced. The stores, restaurants, and schools will be desegregated, hiring of blacks implemented, and charges dropped. On June 23, MLK leads 125,000 people on a Freedom Walk in Detroit. The March on Washington held August 28 is the largest civil rights demonstration in history with nearly 250,000 people in attendance. At the march, King makes his famous I Have a Dream speech. On November 22,President Kennedy is assassinated.
1964 On January 3, King appears on the cover of Time magazine as its Man of the Year. King attends the signing ceremony of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 at the White House on July 2. During the summer, King experiences his first hurtful rejection by black people when he is stoned by Black Muslims in Harlem. King is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on December 10. Dr. King is the youngest person to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for Peace at age 35.
1966 On January 22, King moves into a Chicago slum tenement to attract attention to the living conditions of the poor. In June, King and others begin the March Against Fear through the South. On July 10, King initiates a campaign to end discrimination in housing, employment, and schools in Chicago.
1967 The Supreme Court upholds a conviction of MLK by a Birmingham court for demonstrating without a permit. King spends four days in Birmingham jail. On November 27, King announces the inception of the Poor People's Campaign focusing on jobs and freedom for the poor of all races.
1968 King announces that the Poor People's Campaign will culminate in a March on Washington demanding a $12 billion Economic Bill of Rights guaranteeing employment to the able-bodied, incomes to those unable to work, and an end to housing discrimination. Dr. King marches in support of sanitation workers on strike in Memphis, Tennessee. On March 28, King lead a march that turns violent. This was the first time one of his events had turned violent. Delivered I've Been to the Mountaintop speech. At sunset on April 4, Martin Luther King, Jr. is fatally shot while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. There are riots and disturbances in 130 American cities. There were twenty thousand arrests. King's funeral on April 9 is an international event. Within a week of the assassination, the Open Housing Act is passed by Congress.
1986 On November 2, a national holiday is proclaimed in King's honor.
PEACE LOVE AND LIGHT TO ALL!
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