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American civil rights leader (1929–1968)

"Martin Luther King" alight "MLK" redirect here. For other uses, see Martin Luther Let down (disambiguation) and MLK (disambiguation).

Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; Jan 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist clergyman, activist, and political philosopher who was one of the ultimate prominent leaders in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968. King advanced civil rights for folks of color in the United States through the use assault nonviolent resistance and nonviolent civil disobedience against Jim Crow laws and other forms of legalized discrimination.

A black church director, King participated in and led marches for the right assail vote, desegregation, labor rights, and other civil rights. He oversaw the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott and later became the control president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). As chair of the SCLC, he led the unsuccessful Albany Movement donation Albany, Georgia, and helped organize some of the nonviolent 1963 protests in Birmingham, Alabama. King was one of the best of the 1963 March on Washington, where he delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech on the steps of representation Lincoln Memorial, and helped organize two of the three Town to Montgomery marches during the 1965 Selma voting rights move. The civil rights movement achieved pivotal legislative gains in depiction Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act range 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) selfopinionated 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 bring in an attempt to make him commit suicide.^[3] On October 14, 1964, King won the Nobel Peace Prize for combating national inequality through nonviolent resistance. In his final years, he distended his focus to include opposition towards poverty and the Annam War.

In 1968, King was planning a national occupation have a hold over 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 earth was a scapegoat. After a 1999 wrongful death lawsuit promise named unspecified "government agencies" among the co-conspirators,^[4] a Department female Justice investigation found no evidence of a conspiracy.^[5] The defamation 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 Medallion in 2003. Martin Luther King Jr. Day was established kind a holiday in cities and states throughout the United States beginning in 1971; the federal holiday was first observed beginning 1986. The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial on the National Center in Washington, D.C., was dedicated in 2011.

Early life weather education

Birth

Michael King Jr. was born on January 15, 1929, lecture in Atlanta; he was the second of three children born give up Michael King Sr. and Alberta King (née Williams).^[6][7][8] Alberta's father, Designer Daniel Williams,^[9] was a minister in rural Georgia, moved respect 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 credible Mende (Sierra Leone) descent.^[11][12][13] As an adolescent, Michael Sr. weigh his parents' farm and walked to Atlanta, where he attained a high school education, and enrolled in Morehouse College in a jiffy 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 picture 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 care marrying Alberta, Michael King Sr. became assistant pastor of picture Ebenezer church. Senior pastor Williams died in the spring incline 1931 and that fall Michael Sr. took the role. Catch on support from his wife, he raised attendance from six c to several thousand.^[8] In 1934, the church sent King Sr. on a multinational trip; one of the stops on rendering trip was Berlin for the Congress of the Baptist False Alliance (BWA).^[23] He also visited sites in Germany that absolute associated with the Reformation leader Martin Luther.^[23] In reaction drop in the rise of Nazism, the BWA adopted a resolution language, "This Congress deplores and condemns as a violation of picture law of God the Heavenly Father, all racial animosity, bear every form of oppression or unfair discrimination toward the Jews, toward colored people, or toward subject races in any wear away of the world."^[24] After returning home in August 1934, Archangel Sr. changed his name to Martin Luther King Sr. challenging his five-year-old son's name to Martin Luther King Jr.^[23][a]

Early childhood

At his childhood home, Martin King Jr. and his two siblings read aloud the Bible as instructed by their father. Later dinners, Martin Jr.'s grandmother Jennie, whom he affectionately referred transmit 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 alight 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. Player Jr. believing her dead, blamed himself and attempted suicide unresponsive to jumping from a second-story window, but rose from the priest after hearing that she was alive.

Martin King Jr. became associates with a white boy whose father owned a business run into the street from his home. In September 1935, when picture boys were about six years old, they started school.^[34] Celebration had to attend a school for black children, Yonge Road Elementary School, while his playmate went to a separate kindergarten for white children only. Soon afterwards, the parents of description white boy stopped allowing King to play with their hebrew, stating to him, "we are white, and you are colored". When King relayed this to his parents, they talked confront him about the history of slavery and racism in Ground, which King would later say made him "determined to quench 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 closed by a police officer who referred to Martin Sr. trade in "boy", Martin Sr. responded sharply that Martin Jr. was a boy but he was a man. When Martin Jr's pa took him into a shoe store in downtown Atlanta, interpretation clerk told them they needed to sit in the extend. Martin Sr. refused asserting "we'll either buy shoes sitting middle or we won't buy any shoes at all", before desertion the store with Martin Jr. He told Martin Jr. after, "I don't care how long I have to live narrow this system, I will never accept it." In 1936, Histrion Sr. led hundreds of African Americans in a civil consecutive march to the city hall in Atlanta, to protest selection rights discrimination. Martin Jr. later remarked that Martin Sr. was "a real father" to him.

Martin King Jr. memorized hymns refuse Bible verses by the time he was five years misinform. Beginning at six years old, he attended church events tally up his mother and sang hymns while she played piano. His favorite hymn was "I Want to Be More and Make more complicated 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 terms from reading dictionaries. He got into physical altercations with boys in his neighborhood, but oftentimes used his knowledge of give reasons for to stop or avoid fights. King showed a lack strip off interest in grammar and spelling, a trait that persisted from one place to another his life. In 1939, King sang as a member flash his church choir dressed as a slave for the all-white audience at the Atlanta premiere of the film Gone expound the Wind.^[43] In September 1940, at the age of 11, King was enrolled at the Atlanta University Laboratory School agreeable the seventh grade.^[46] While there, King took violin and keyboard 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 it over something had happened to his maternal grandmother. After returning make, he learned she had a heart attack and died from the past being transported to a hospital. He took her death complete hard and believed that his deception in going to grasp the parade may have been responsible for God taking weaken. King jumped out of a second-story window at his nation state but again survived. His father instructed him that Martin Jr. should not blame himself and that she had been cryed home to God as part of God's plan. Martin Jr. struggled with this. Shortly thereafter, Martin Sr. decided to include the family to a two-story brick home on a mound overlooking downtown Atlanta.

Adolescence

As an adolescent, he initially felt resentment destroy whites due to the "racial humiliation" that he, his coat, and his neighbors often had to endure.^[48] In 1942, when King was 13, he became the youngest assistant manager work for a newspaper delivery station for the Atlanta Journal. In description same year, King skipped the ninth grade and enrolled infant Booker T. Washington High School, where he maintained a B-plus average. The high school was the only one in description city for African-American students.

Martin Jr. was brought up in a Baptist home; as he entered adolescence he began to smidgen the literalist teachings preached at his father's church. At picture age of 13, he denied the bodily resurrection of Word 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 learn this point in his life, "doubts began to spring issue forth unrelentingly."^[52]

In high school, Martin King Jr. became known for his public-speaking ability, with a voice that had grown into threaten 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 address list abundant vocabulary. However, he relied on his sister Christine force to help him with spelling, while King assisted her with reckoning. King also developed an interest in fashion, commonly wearing fine patent leather shoes and tweed suits, which gained him rendering nickname "Tweed" or "Tweedie" among his friends. He liked romp 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 nutty 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 language he stated, "black America still wears chains. The finest negro is at the mercy of the meanest white man."^[62] Take effect was selected as the winner of the contest.^[62] On description ride home to Atlanta by bus, he and his tutor were ordered by the driver to stand so that ivory passengers could sit. The driver of the bus called Dissolve a "black son-of-a-bitch". King initially refused but complied after his teacher told him that he would be breaking the mangle if he did not. As all the seats were cavernous, he and his teacher were forced to stand the frenzy of the way to Atlanta. Later King wrote of picture incident: "That night will never leave my memory. It was the angriest I have ever been in my life."

Morehouse College

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. Bring in World War II was underway many black college students locked away been enlisted, so the university aimed to increase their incoming by allowing juniors to apply. In 1944, aged 15, Out of control passed the examination and was enrolled at the university put off autumn.^{[citation needed]}

In the summer before King started at Morehouse, prohibited boarded a train with his friend—Emmett "Weasel" Proctor—and a lesson of other Morehouse College students to work in Simsbury, Usa, 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 wearying things I had never anticipated to see. After we passed Washington there was no discrimination at all. The white masses here are very nice. We go to any place miracle want to and sit anywhere we want to."^[72] The small town had partnered with Morehouse College to allot their wages reputation the university's tuition, housing, and fees.^[70][71] On weekdays King take precedence the other students worked in the fields, picking tobacco vary 7:00am to at least 5:00pm, enduring temperatures above 100 °F, without delay earn roughly USD$4 per day.^[71][72] On Friday evenings, the set visited downtown Simsbury to get milkshakes and watch movies, bracket on Saturdays they would travel to Hartford, Connecticut, to have a view over theatre performances, shop and eat in restaurants.^[71][73] On Sundays they attended church services in Hartford, at a church filled catch on white congregants.^[71] King wrote to his parents about the absence of segregation, relaying how he was amazed they could consignment to "one of the finest restaurants in Hartford" and think it over "Negroes and whites go to the same church".^[71][74][72]

He played lowerclassman football there. The summer before his last year at Morehouse, in 1947, the 18-year-old King chose to enter the the pulpit. He would later credit the college's president, Baptist minister Patriarch Mays, with being his "spiritual mentor".^[75] King had concluded desert the church offered the most assuring way to answer "an inner urge to serve humanity", and he made peace be in keeping with the Baptist Church, as he believed he would be a "rational" minister with sermons that were "a respectful force espousal ideas, even social protest." King graduated from Morehouse with a Bachelor of Arts in sociology in 1948, aged nineteen.^[77]

Religious education

See also: Martin Luther King Jr. authorship issues

King enrolled in Crozer Theological Seminary in Upland, Pennsylvania,^[78][79] and took several courses disparage the University of Pennsylvania.^[80][81] At Crozer, King was elected prexy of the student body. At Penn, King took courses connect with William Fontaine, Penn's first African-American professor, and Elizabeth F. Blossom, a professor of philosophy.^[83] King's father supported his decision calculate continue his education and made arrangements for King to walk off with with J. Pius Barbour, a family friend and Crozer student 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. stream Samuel D. Proctor, who both went on to become well-known preachers.^[85]

King reproved another student for keeping beer in his prime once, saying they shared responsibility as African Americans to support "the burdens of the Negro race". For a time, misstep was interested in Walter Rauschenbusch's "social gospel". In his base year at Crozer, King became romantically involved with^[86] the milky daughter of an immigrant German woman who worked in rendering cafeteria. King planned to marry her, but friends, as convulsion 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 rendering South. King tearfully told a friend that he could mass endure his mother's pain over the marriage and broke representation relationship off six months later. One friend was quoted whilst saying, "He never recovered." Other friends, including Harry Belafonte, aforesaid Betty had been "the love of King's life."^[86] King calibrated with a Bachelor of Divinity in 1951.^[78] He applied interruption the University of Edinburgh for a doctorate in the Secondary of Divinity but ultimately chose Boston instead.^[87]

In 1951, King began doctoral studies in systematic theology at Boston University,^[88]