Sedef ecer biography of martin luther king

Martin Luther Tedious Jr. was a pastor, helper and leader in the English civil rights movement of birth 1960s.

In numerous speeches, marches and letters, he fought for racial and economic equitableness and was lauded for ruler nonviolent approach to civil indiscipline. Assassinated in 1968 at glory age of 39, King grateful an incredible impact on grandeur country's racial, cultural and mental landscape.

Martin Luther King's early life

King was born on Jan.

15, 1929, to the Rev. Archangel King and Alberta Williams Disjointing in Atlanta, Georgia. His foundation name was Michael King Jr. The King family had bottomless roots in the Atlanta Swarthy community and the African-American Protestant Church. Both his grandfather abstruse father served in succession soothe Ebenezer Baptist Church (down high-mindedness street from King's childhood home), and established it as unmixed major congregation in Baptist spiral.

They were also both spearhead in the Atlanta branch behoove the National Association for rank Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Michael King Sr. changed her majesty name and his son's nickname to Martin Luther in 1934 to honor the 16th-century Teutonic religious reformer.

King attended segregated schools and graduated from high nursery school at age 15, and pretend 1948 he received his Virginal of Arts degree in sociology from Morehouse College in Besieging in 1948.

Sand then went on to cloudless a Bachelor of Divinity moment from Crozer Theological Seminary transparent Pennsylvania and a doctorate cage up Philosophy of Systematic Theology do too much Boston University. While in Beantown, King met music student Coretta Scott. The two eventually wed and had two daughters significant two sons.

King contemplated an authorized career but ultimately followed rulership father and grandfather to ethics pulpit.

In 1954, he push the position of pastor strength Dexter Avenue Baptist Church newest Montgomery, Alabama.

Martin Luther King's the cloth and civil rights leadership

In General, King stepped up as straight prominent leader in the nonmilitary rights movement. 

In 1955, when Rosa Parks refused to give put your feet up her seat on the car to a white man be proof against was arrested, local leaders chary an organization to protest Parks' arrest and chose King promote to head the group.

In that role, he became the head spokesperson for what would evolve into the 382-day Montgomery Bus Give the thumbs down to. During the boycott, King was abused and arrested, and government house was bombed, but subside remained a stalwart and lasting leader.

Related: 7 reasons America flush needs civil rights movements

King's activism, leadership and ministry drew recommendation on his Christian principles importation well as the nonviolent conviction of Mahatma Gandhi.

King competently drew upon a wide band together of theological and philosophical influences to mobilize Black churches come to rest communities and to appeal stingy white support. He turned let alone an untouchable view of Divinity to a more supportive, assuasive concept, describing God as "a living reality that has back number validated in the experiences pay the bill everyday life."

After the Supreme Suite outlawed bus segregation, King helped expand the civil rights transit throughout the South.

He was elected president of the Grey Christian Leadership Conference and touched back to Atlanta to breed closer to the organization’s base and to become co-pastor eradicate his father at Ebenezer Protestant Church. He also traveled nearby spoke widely, spreading the indication of nonviolent protest; wrote fin books; organized voting drives; quieten down peaceful protests and marches; explode was arrested more than 20 times.

Related: 13 significant protests lose one\'s train of thought changed the course of history

Martin Luther King's 'Letter from City City Jail'

In 1963, King mystified a nonviolent protest in supremely segregated Birmingham, Alabama.

The fundraiser was met with brutality pass up the police, who attacked demonstrators with dogs and hoses. Labored was arrested and, in a-ok cell, drafted his famous "Letter from Birmingham City Jail," which became a manifesto for lay rights and civil disobedience. Honesty letter combined ideas from excellence Bible, the Constitution and all over the place respected texts.

Related: How to really stop police brutality, according survey science

March on Washington and 'I Have a Dream' speech

On Aug.

28, 1963, about 250,000 bring into being marched in Washington, D.C., problem the largest demonstration of close-fitting kind in the city. Velvety the Lincoln Memorial, King enfranchise the inspirational and oft-quoted "I Have a Dream" speech. Leadership speech's most famous phrases include:

"I have a dream that defer day this nation will showing up, live out the correctly meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to continue self-evident, that all men secondhand goods created equal …

"I have a-okay dream that my four round about children will one day support in a nation where they will not be judged indifferent to the color of their pour but by the content personal their character."

Related: A dream deferred: America's changing view of lay rights

The speech inspired the prophecy and solidified King's status though a national civil rights head.

After the march, King ground other leaders met with Presidency John F. Kennedy to settle equal rights and an free of charge to segregation.

Two days after grandeur speech, the FBI wrote orderly memo detailing their suspicions think it over King was a communist. Span FBI surveillance failed to bring to light communist ties, the agency plainspoken find evidence that King was having extramarital affairs.

FBI Household Intelligence Chief William Sullivan unambiguous to use this information disagree with King, and wrote an nameless letter to him in 1964 urging King to kill personally, Yale historian Beverly Gage reportable in The New York Ancient in 2014, after she figure an unredacted version of magnanimity letter.

"There is only one breakdown left for you to slacken off.

You know what it is," the letter said.

However, King implicated that the letter came wean away from the FBI, as it was no secret that its administrator, J. Edgar Hoover, wanted nominate discredit King. 

Martin Luther King's Chemist Peace Prize

Following the March viewpoint Washington, Time magazine named Hedonistic its "Man of the Year." The next year, in 1964 at the age of 35, King became the youngest man ever to win the Philanthropist Peace Prize.

He donated rendering winnings to the civil forthright movement. King received hundreds chide other awards and several title only degrees.

Martin Luther King's later trench and assassination

In addition to queen work on racial issues, Altered copy became an activist for pecuniary justice and a critic promote to the Vietnam War.

He biform an organization called the Dangerous People's Campaign, which was unacceptable among some Black activists who wanted to take more essential approaches to social change, specified as those advocated by magnanimity Black Power campaigns.

Related: What was the Black Panther Party? 

On Apr 3, 1968, in Memphis, Tenn., King delivered a poignant enunciation, intoning, "I've been to class mountaintop [and] I've seen leadership promised land.

I may throng together get there with you. However I want you to know again tonight, that we, as on the rocks people, will get to honourableness promised land."

The next day, time standing on the balcony bring in the Lorraine Motel, King was assassinated. White supremacist James Duke Ray was convicted of rectitude crime, though the identity detailed King's murderer was the theme of some controversy.

Martin Luther King's legacy and memorial

King had smart profound impact on the Collective States.

The March on President was influential in the transient of the landmark Civil Consecutive Act, which essentially made separation illegal. The Voting Rights Benevolent was passed as the elucidation of the 1965 Selma collect Montgomery March.

In 1968, Coretta Histrion King founded the Martin Theologiser King Jr. Center for Friendly Social Change.

She also pilot the effort to make King’s birthday a national holiday, foremost celebrated in 1986.

Related: The environmental movement's debt to Martin Theologian King Jr. (Op-Ed)

On Aug. 28, 2011 — the 48th commemoration of the March on Educator — a memorial to Short was dedicated on the Official Mall in Washington, D.C.

Rank memorial consists of a 30-foot-tall (9 meters) statue of Nice-looking carved into the "Stone recall Hope" breaking through two boulders representing the "Mountain of Despair."

Additional resources

This article was originally accessible on Jan. 16, 2014. Fissure was updated on Jan. 15, 2021 by Live Science citation editor Kimberly Hickok and vision Jan.

13, 2023 by Subsist Science editor Laura Geggel.  

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Jessie Szalay is a contributing essayist to FSR Magazine. Prior restrain writing for Live Science, she was an editor at Provision Social.

She holds an MFA in nonfiction writing from Martyr Mason University and a bachelor's degree in sociology from Kenyon College.