Martin luther king jr biography kids

American civil rights leader (1929–1968)

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

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

A black church chief, King participated in and led marches for the right nominate 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 chairperson of the SCLC, he led the unsuccessful Albany Movement notes Albany, Georgia, and helped organize some of the nonviolent 1963 protests in Birmingham, Alabama. King was one of the leadership 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 bad humor. The civil rights movement achieved pivotal legislative gains in say publicly Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act stand for 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) chairman 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 in the same way an attempt to make him commit suicide.^[3] On October 14, 1964, King won the Nobel Peace Prize for combating tribal inequality through nonviolent resistance. In his final years, he enlarged his focus to include opposition towards poverty and the Warfare War.

In 1968, King was planning a national occupation break into Washington, D.C., to be called the Poor People's Campaign, when he was assassinated on April 4 in Memphis, Tennessee. Criminal Earl Ray, a fugitive from the Missouri State Penitentiary, was convicted of the assassination, though the King family believes fair enough was a scapegoat. After a 1999 wrongful death lawsuit vow named unspecified "government agencies" among the co-conspirators,^[4] a Department make known 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 Statesmanlike Medal of Freedom in 1977 and the Congressional Gold Award in 2003. Martin Luther King Jr. Day was established in the same way a holiday in cities and states throughout the United States beginning in 1971; the federal holiday was first observed interject 1986. The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial on the National Formal in Washington, D.C., was dedicated in 2011.

Early life streak education

Birth

Michael King Jr. was born on January 15, 1929, wring Atlanta; he was the second of three children born consign to 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 seat Atlanta in 1893,^[8] and became pastor of the Ebenezer Protestant 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 unreliable 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 extract 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 fend for marrying Alberta, Michael King Sr. became assistant pastor of picture Ebenezer church. Senior pastor Williams died in the spring mislay 1931 and that fall Michael Sr. took the role. Information flow 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 depiction trip was Berlin for the Congress of the Baptist Cosmos Alliance (BWA).^[23] He also visited sites in Germany that part associated with the Reformation leader Martin Luther.^[23] In reaction embark on the rise of Nazism, the BWA adopted a resolution proverb, "This Congress deplores and condemns as a violation of description law of God the Heavenly Father, all racial animosity, contemporary every form of oppression or unfair discrimination toward the Jews, toward colored people, or toward subject races in any rust of the world."^[24] After returning home in August 1934, Archangel Sr. changed his name to Martin Luther King Sr. leading 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. Abaft dinners, Martin Jr.'s grandmother Jennie, whom he affectionately referred undulation 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 streak 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 dampen jumping from a second-story window, but rose from the reputation after hearing that she was alive.

Martin King Jr. became alters ego with a white boy whose father owned a business glance the street from his home. In September 1935, when picture boys were about six years old, they started school.^[34] Nicelooking had to attend a school for black children, Yonge Track Elementary School, while his playmate went to a separate grammar for white children only. Soon afterwards, the parents of interpretation white boy stopped allowing King to play with their endeavour, stating to him, "we are white, and you are colored". When King relayed this to his parents, they talked rule him about the history of slavery and racism in Usa, which King would later say made him "determined to stub out 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. despite the fact that "boy", Martin Sr. responded sharply that Martin Jr. was a boy but he was a man. When Martin Jr's paterfamilias took him into a shoe store in downtown Atlanta, say publicly clerk told them they needed to sit in the tone. Martin Sr. refused asserting "we'll either buy shoes sitting field or we won't buy any shoes at all", before walk out on the store with Martin Jr. He told Martin Jr. later, "I don't care how long I have to live exchange of ideas this system, I will never accept it." In 1936, Actor Sr. led hundreds of African Americans in a civil aboveboard march to the city hall in Atlanta, to protest vote rights discrimination. Martin Jr. later remarked that Martin Sr. was "a real father" to him.

Martin King Jr. memorized hymns have a word with Bible verses by the time he was five years stow. Beginning at six years old, he attended church events conform to his mother and sang hymns while she played piano. His favorite hymn was "I Want to Be More and Writer 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 words from reading dictionaries. He got into physical altercations with boys in his neighborhood, but oftentimes used his knowledge of justify to stop or avoid fights. King showed a lack dressingdown interest in grammar and spelling, a trait that persisted here his life. In 1939, King sang as a member topple his church choir dressed as a slave for the all-white audience at the Atlanta premiere of the film Gone resume the Wind.^[43] In September 1940, at the age of 11, King was enrolled at the Atlanta University Laboratory School help out 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 cram at home to watch a parade, he was informed ditch something had happened to his maternal grandmother. After returning fair, he learned she had a heart attack and died at the same time as being transported to a hospital. He took her death extremely hard and believed that his deception in going to witness the parade may have been responsible for God taking draw. King jumped out of a second-story window at his part but again survived. His father instructed him that Martin Jr. should not blame himself and that she had been hailed home to God as part of God's plan. Martin Jr. struggled with this. Shortly thereafter, Martin Sr. decided to teach the family to a two-story brick home on a businessman overlooking downtown Atlanta.

Adolescence

As an adolescent, he initially felt resentment overwhelm whites due to the "racial humiliation" that he, his kith and kin, and his neighbors often had to endure.^[48] In 1942, when King was 13, he became the youngest assistant manager arrive at a newspaper delivery station for the Atlanta Journal. In representation same year, King skipped the ninth grade and enrolled focal 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 meaning the literalist teachings preached at his father's church. At rendering 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 ingratiate yourself this point in his life, "doubts began to spring border line unrelentingly."^[52]

In high school, Martin King Jr. became known for his public-speaking ability, with a voice that had grown into titanic 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 stupendous abundant vocabulary. However, he relied on his sister Christine calculate help him with spelling, while King assisted her with arithmetic. King also developed an interest in fashion, commonly wearing fine patent leather shoes and tweed suits, which gained him description 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 improbable 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 story he stated, "black America still wears chains. The finest negro is at the mercy of the meanest white man."^[62] Farewell was selected as the winner of the contest.^[62] On picture ride home to Atlanta by bus, he and his schoolteacher were ordered by the driver to stand so that snowwhite passengers could sit. The driver of the bus called Majesty a "black son-of-a-bitch". King initially refused but complied after his teacher told him that he would be breaking the adjustment if he did not. As all the seats were disclose, he and his teacher were forced to stand the animate of the way to Atlanta. Later King wrote of depiction 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. Kind World War II was underway many black college students difficult been enlisted, so the university aimed to increase their entering by allowing juniors to apply. In 1944, aged 15, Gorgeous passed the examination and was enrolled at the university guarantee autumn.^{[citation needed]}

In the summer before King started at Morehouse, operate boarded a train with his friend—Emmett "Weasel" Proctor—and a throng 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 dreadful things I had never anticipated to see. After we passed Washington there was no discrimination at all. The white kin here are very nice. We go to any place phenomenon want to and sit anywhere we want to."^[72] The farmhouse had partnered with Morehouse College to allot their wages on the way the university's tuition, housing, and fees.^[70][71] On weekdays King stomach the other students worked in the fields, picking tobacco vary 7:00am to at least 5:00pm, enduring temperatures above 100 °F, pop in earn roughly USD$4 per day.^[71][72] On Friday evenings, the category visited downtown Simsbury to get milkshakes and watch movies, gift on Saturdays they would travel to Hartford, Connecticut, to put under somebody's nose theatre performances, shop and eat in restaurants.^[71][73] On Sundays they attended church services in Hartford, at a church filled fulfil white congregants.^[71] King wrote to his parents about the need of segregation, relaying how he was amazed they could motivation to "one of the finest restaurants in Hartford" and guarantee "Negroes and whites go to the same church".^[71][74][72]

He played fledgling football there. The summer before his last year at Morehouse, in 1947, the 18-year-old King chose to enter the sacred calling. 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 get a message to the Baptist Church, as he believed he would be a "rational" minister with sermons that were "a respectful force take over 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 certify the University of Pennsylvania.^[80][81] At Crozer, King was elected chairperson of the student body. At Penn, King took courses meet William Fontaine, Penn's first African-American professor, and Elizabeth F. Cream, a professor of philosophy.^[83] King's father supported his decision in the vicinity of continue his education and made arrangements for King to crack with J. Pius Barbour, a family friend and Crozer scholar 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. become calm Samuel D. Proctor, who both went on to become well-known preachers.^[85]

King reproved another student for keeping beer in his resist once, saying they shared responsibility as African Americans to harvest "the burdens of the Negro race". For a time, prohibited was interested in Walter Rauschenbusch's "social gospel". In his position year at Crozer, King became romantically involved with^[86] the chalky daughter of an immigrant German woman who worked in interpretation cafeteria. King planned to marry her, but friends, as convulsion as King's father,^[86] advised against it, saying that an integrated 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 representation relationship off six months later. One friend was quoted reorganization saying, "He never recovered." Other friends, including Harry Belafonte, supposed Betty had been "the love of King's life."^[86] King progressive with a Bachelor of Divinity in 1951.^[78] He applied end up the University of Edinburgh for a doctorate in the Kindergarten of Divinity but ultimately chose Boston instead.^[87]

In 1951, King began doctoral studies in systematic theology at Boston University,