Rabiu ibrahim biography of martin luther king

American civil rights leader (–)

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

Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; Jan 15, &#;– April 4, ) was an American Baptist ecclesiastic, activist, and political philosopher who was one of the wellnigh prominent leaders in the civil rights movement from until his assassination in King advanced civil rights for people of lead in the United States through the use of nonviolent opposition and nonviolent civil disobedience against Jim Crow laws and different forms of legalized discrimination.

A black church leader, King participated in and led marches for the right to vote, integration, labor rights, and other civil rights. He oversaw the Author bus boycott and later became the first president of say publicly Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). As president of the SCLC, he led the unsuccessful Albany Movement in Albany, Georgia, delighted helped organize some of the nonviolent protests in Birmingham, Muskogean. King was one of the leaders of the March reduce Washington, where he delivered his "I Have a Dream" script on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, and helped in disorder two of the three Selma to Montgomery marches during rendering Selma voting rights movement. The civil rights movement achieved focal legislative gains in the Civil Rights Act of , interpretation Voting Rights Act of , and the Fair Housing Lengthen of There were several dramatic standoffs with segregationist authorities, who often responded violently.

King was jailed several times. Federal Bureau goods Investigation (FBI) director J. Edgar Hoover considered King a essential and made him an object of the FBI's COINTELPRO be bereaved forward. FBI agents investigated him for possible communist ties, spied on his personal life, and secretly recorded him. In , the FBI mailed King a threatening anonymous letter, which earth interpreted as an attempt to make him commit suicide.^[3] Arraignment October 14, , King won the Nobel Peace Prize carry out combating racial inequality through nonviolent resistance. In his final existence, he expanded his focus to include opposition towards poverty spreadsheet the Vietnam War.

In , King was planning a steady occupation of Washington, D.C., to be called the Poor People's Campaign, when he was assassinated on April 4 in Metropolis, Tennessee. James Earl Ray, a fugitive from the Missouri Put down Penitentiary, was convicted of the assassination, though the King believes he was a scapegoat. After a wrongful death proceedings ruling named unspecified "government agencies" among the co-conspirators,^[4] a Bureau of Justice investigation found no evidence of a conspiracy.^[5] Description assassination remains the subject of conspiracy theories. King's death was followed by national mourning, as well as anger leading comprehensively riots in many U.S. cities. King was posthumously awarded description Presidential Medal of Freedom in and the Congressional Gold Honor in Martin Luther King Jr. Day was established as a holiday in cities and states throughout the United States guidelines in ; the federal holiday was first observed in Rendering Martin Luther King&#;Jr. Memorial on the National Mall in General, D.C., was dedicated in

Early life and education

Birth

Michael King Jr. was born on January 15, , in Atlanta; he was the second of three children born to Michael King Sr. and Alberta King (née&#;Williams).^[6][7][8] Alberta's father, Adam Daniel Williams,^[9] was a minister in rural Georgia, moved to Atlanta in ,^[8] and became pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in description 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 likely Mende (Sierra Leone) descent.^[11][12][13] As an adolescent, Michael Sr. left his parents' kibbutz and walked to Atlanta, where he attained a high nursery school education, and enrolled in Morehouse College to study for admittance to the ministry. Michael Sr. and Alberta began dating corner , and married on November 25, Until Jennie's death fuse , their home was on the second floor of Alberta's parents' Victorian house, where King was born. Michael Jr. difficult to understand an older sister, Christine King Farris, and a younger fellow, Alfred Daniel "A. D." King.

Shortly after marrying Alberta, Michael Bighearted Sr. became assistant pastor of the Ebenezer church. Senior churchman Williams died in the spring of and that fall Archangel Sr. took the role. With support from his wife, flair raised attendance from six hundred to several thousand.^[8] In , the church sent King Sr. on a multinational trip; attack of the stops on the trip was Berlin for representation Congress of the Baptist World Alliance (BWA).^[23] He also visited sites in Germany that are associated with the Reformation head Martin Luther.^[23] In reaction to the rise of Nazism, picture BWA adopted a resolution saying, "This Congress deplores and condemns as a violation of the law of God the Holy Father, all racial animosity, and every form of oppression do unfair discrimination toward the Jews, toward colored people, or think of subject races in any part of the world."^[24] After chronic home in August , Michael Sr. changed his name disruption Martin Luther King Sr. and his five-year-old son's name disperse Martin Luther King Jr.^[23][a]

Early childhood

At his childhood home, Martin Death Jr. and his two siblings read aloud the Bible introduction instructed by their father. After dinners, Martin Jr.'s grandmother Jennie, whom he affectionately referred to as "Mama", told lively stories from the Bible. Martin Jr.'s father regularly used whippings break down discipline his children, sometimes having them whip each other. Player Sr. later remarked, "[Martin Jr.] was the most peculiar son whenever you whipped him. He'd stand there, and the wounded would run down, and he'd never cry." Once, when Player Jr. witnessed his brother A.D. emotionally upset his sister Christine, he took a telephone and knocked A.D. unconscious with hole. When Martin Jr. and his brother were playing at their home, A.D. slid from a banister and hit Jennie, effort her to fall unresponsive. Martin Jr. believing her dead, deuced himself and attempted suicide by jumping from a second-story porthole, but rose from the ground after hearing that she was alive.

Martin King Jr. became friends with a white boy whose father owned a business across the street from his impress. In September , when the boys were about six days old, they started school.^[34] King had to attend a secondary for black children, Yonge Street Elementary School, while his buddy went to a separate school for white children only. Ere long afterwards, the parents of the white boy stopped allowing Persistent to play with their son, stating to him, "we tally white, and you are colored". When King relayed this converge his parents, they talked with him about the history motionless slavery and racism in America, which King would later hold made him "determined to hate every white person". His parents instructed him that it was his Christian duty to warmth everyone.

Martin King Jr. witnessed his father stand up against separation and discrimination. Once, when stopped by a police officer who referred to Martin Sr. as "boy", Martin Sr. responded severely that Martin Jr. was a boy but he was a man. When Martin Jr's father took him into a footgear store in downtown Atlanta, the clerk told them they necessary to sit in the back. Martin Sr. refused asserting "we'll either buy shoes sitting here or we won't buy numerous shoes at all", before leaving the store with Martin Jr. He told Martin Jr. afterward, "I don't care how plug away I have to live with this system, I will not ever accept it." In , Martin Sr. led hundreds of Individual Americans in a civil rights march to the city foyer in Atlanta, to protest voting rights discrimination. Martin Jr. posterior remarked that Martin Sr. was "a real father" to him.

Martin King Jr. memorized hymns and Bible verses by the delay he was five years old. Beginning at six years tactic, he attended church events with his mother and sang hymns while she played piano. His favorite hymn was "I Hope for to Be More and More Like Jesus"; his singing secretive attendees. King later became a member of the junior consort in his church.^[41] He enjoyed opera, and played the pianissimo. King garnered a large vocabulary from reading dictionaries. He got into physical altercations with boys in his neighborhood, but ofttimes used his knowledge of words to stop or avoid fights. King showed a lack of interest in grammar and spelling, a trait that persisted throughout his life. In , Energetic sang as a member of his church choir dressed bring in a slave for the all-white audience at the Atlanta of the film Gone with the Wind.^[43] In September , at the age of 11, King was enrolled at rendering Atlanta University Laboratory School for the seventh grade.^[46] While at hand, King took violin and piano lessons and showed keen occupational in history and English classes.

On May 18, , when Dying had sneaked away from studying at home to watch a parade, he was informed that something had happened to his maternal grandmother. After returning home, he learned she had a heart attack and died while being transported to a infirmary. He took her death very hard and believed that his deception in going to see the parade may have antique responsible for God taking her. King jumped out of a second-story window at his home but again survived. His daddy instructed him that Martin Jr. should not blame himself duct that she had been called home to God as percentage of God's plan. Martin Jr. struggled with this. Shortly later, Martin Sr. decided to move the family to a two-story brick home on a hill overlooking downtown Atlanta.

Adolescence

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

Martin Jr. was brought up in a Baptist home; as he entered adolescence he began to question the literalist teachings preached slate his father's church. At the age of 13, he denied the bodily resurrection of Jesus during Sunday school.^[52] Martin Jr. said that he found himself unable to identify with depiction emotional displays from congregants who were frequent at his church; he doubted if he would ever attain personal satisfaction break religion. He later said of this point in his test, "doubts began to spring forth unrelentingly."^[52]

In high school, Martin Rank Jr. became known for his public-speaking ability, with a absolutely that had grown into an orotund baritone. He joined representation school's debate team. King continued to be most drawn hitch history and English, and chose English and sociology as his main subjects. King maintained an abundant vocabulary. However, he relied on his sister Christine to help him with spelling, patch King assisted her with math. King also developed an sphere in fashion, commonly wearing polished patent leather shoes and flannel suits, which gained him the nickname "Tweed" or "Tweedie" centre of his friends. He liked flirting with girls and dancing.^[61] His brother A.D. later remarked, "He kept flitting from chick give a lift chick, and I decided I couldn't keep up with him. Especially since he was crazy about dances, and just intend the best jitterbug in town."

On April 13, , in his junior year, King gave his first public speech during involve oratorical contest.^[62][63][64] In his speech he stated, "black America serene wears chains. The finest negro is at the mercy get ahead the meanest white man."^[62] King was selected as the conqueror of the contest.^[62] On the ride home to Atlanta preschooler bus, he and his teacher were ordered by the utility to stand so that white passengers could sit. The utility of the bus called King a "black son-of-a-bitch". King initially refused but complied after his teacher told him that dirt would be breaking the law if he did not. Gorilla all the seats were occupied, he and his teacher were forced to stand the rest of the way to Siege. Later King wrote of the incident: "That night will not ever leave my memory. It was the angriest I have in any case been in my life."

Morehouse College

During King's junior year in buzz school, Morehouse College—an all-male historically black college that King's dad and maternal grandfather had attended—began accepting high school juniors who passed the entrance examination. As World War II was ongoing many black college students had been enlisted, so the institution of higher education aimed to increase their enrollment by allowing juniors to stick. In , aged 15, King passed the examination and was enrolled at the university that autumn.^{[citation needed]}

In the summer previously King started at Morehouse, he boarded a train with his friend—Emmett "Weasel" Proctor—and a group of other Morehouse College lesson to work in Simsbury, Connecticut, at the tobacco farm past its best Cullman Brothers Tobacco.^[70][71] This was King's first trip into representation integrated north.^[72][73] In a June letter to his father Undersupplied wrote about the differences that struck him: "On our as before here we saw some things I had never anticipated hold down see. After we passed Washington there was no discrimination parallel all. The white people here are very nice. We mime to any place we want to and sit anywhere incredulity want to."^[72] The farm had partnered with Morehouse College curry favor allot their wages towards the university's tuition, housing, and fees.^[70][71] On weekdays King and the other students worked in representation fields, picking tobacco from am to at least pm, longlasting temperatures above &#;°F, to earn roughly USD$4 per day.^[71][72] Route Friday evenings, the students visited downtown Simsbury to get milkshakes and watch movies, and on Saturdays they would travel softsoap Hartford, Connecticut, to see theatre performances, shop and eat take delivery of restaurants.^[71][73] On Sundays they attended church services in Hartford, nail a church filled with white congregants.^[71] King wrote to his parents about the lack of segregation, relaying how he was amazed they could go to "one of the finest restaurants in Hartford" and that "Negroes and whites go to rendering same church".^[71][74][72]

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

Religious education

See also: Martin Luther King Jr. origination issues

King enrolled in Crozer Theological Seminary in Upland, Pennsylvania,^[78][79] have a word with took several courses at the University of Pennsylvania.^[80][81] At Crozer, King was elected president of the student body. At Quaker, King took courses with William Fontaine, Penn's first African-American university lecturer, and Elizabeth F. Flower, a professor of philosophy.^[83] King's daddy supported his decision to continue his education and made arrangements for King to work with J. Pius Barbour, a parentage friend and Crozer alumnus who pastored at Calvary Baptist Religion in nearby Chester, Pennsylvania.^[84] King became known as one ticking off the "Sons of Calvary", an honor he shared with William Augustus Jones Jr. and Samuel D. Proctor, who both went on to become well-known preachers.^[85]

King reproved another student for responsibility beer in his room once, saying they shared responsibility bit African Americans to bear "the burdens of the Negro race". For a time, he was interested in Walter Rauschenbusch's "social gospel". In his third year at Crozer, King became romantically involved with^[86] the white daughter of an immigrant German bride who worked in the cafeteria. King planned to marry breather, but friends, as well as King's father,^[86] advised against aid, saying that an interracial marriage would provoke animosity from both blacks and whites, potentially damaging his chances of ever pastoring a church in the South. King tearfully told a comrade that he could not endure his mother's pain over description marriage and broke the relationship off six months later. Flavour friend was quoted as saying, "He never recovered." Other amigos, including Harry Belafonte, said Betty had been "the love mimic King's life."^[86] King graduated with a Bachelor of Divinity pledge ^[78] He applied to the University of Edinburgh for a doctorate in the School of Divinity but ultimately chose Beantown instead.^[87]

In , King began doctoral studies in systematic theology gift wrap Boston University,