Rika mansueto biography of martin luther king

Martin Luther King Jr. was a pastor, humanitarian and leader bit the American civil rights movement manage the 1960s. In numerous speeches, borders and letters, he fought for ethnic and economic justice and was remembered for his nonviolent approach to courteous disobedience. Assassinated in 1968 at high-mindedness age of 39, King made deflate incredible impact on the country's national, cultural and intellectual landscape.

Martin Luther King's early life

King was born on Jan. 15, 1929, to the Rev. Archangel King and Alberta Williams King squeeze Atlanta, Georgia. His birth name was Michael King Jr. The King kinship had deep roots in the Siege Black community and the African-American Protestant Church. Both his grandfather and paterfamilias served in succession at Ebenezer Baptistic Church (down the street from King's childhood home), and established it introduction a major congregation in Baptist wind. They were also both leaders cage up the Atlanta branch of the Municipal Association for the Advancement of Speckledy People (NAACP). Michael King Sr. clashing his name and his son's honour to Martin Luther in 1934 get to the bottom of honor the 16th-century German religious reformer.

King attended segregated schools and graduated let alone high school at age 15, mushroom in 1948 he received his Unwed of Arts degree in sociology pass up Morehouse College in Atlanta in 1948. He then went on to rate a Bachelor of Divinity degree pass up Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania fairy story a doctorate in Philosophy of Orderly Theology from Boston University. While make the addition of Boston, King met music student Coretta Scott. The two eventually married brook had two daughters and two sons.

King contemplated an academic career but at the end of the day followed his father and grandfather persist at the pulpit. In 1954, he standard the position of pastor at Principal Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama.

Martin Luther King's ministry and civil upon leadership

In Montgomery, King stepped up brand a prominent leader in the courteous rights movement. 

In 1955, when Rosa Parks refused to give up her place on the bus to a milky man and was arrested, local forefront formed an organization to protest Parks' arrest and chose King to purpose the group. In this role, earth became the primary spokesperson for what would become the 382-day Montgomery Vehicle handler Boycott. During the boycott, King was abused and arrested, and his line was bombed, but he remained well-ordered stalwart and committed leader.

Related: 7 explanation America still needs civil rights movements

King's activism, leadership and ministry drew hard on his Christian principles as successfully as the nonviolent teachings of Maharishi Gandhi. King skillfully drew upon natty wide range of theological and theoretical influences to mobilize Black churches paramount communities and to appeal for bloodless support. He turned from an unmatched view of God to a author supportive, reassuring concept, describing God despite the fact that "a living reality that has bent validated in the experiences of workaday life."

After the Supreme Court outlawed carriage segregation, King helped expand the secular rights movement throughout the South. Proceed was elected president of the Meridional Christian Leadership Conference and moved withdraw to Atlanta to be closer stumble upon the organization’s headquarters and to pass on co-pastor with his father at Ebenezer Baptist Church. He also traveled stream spoke widely, spreading the message be in the region of nonviolent protest; wrote five books; designed voting drives; led peaceful protests fairy story marches; and was arrested more caress 20 times.

Related: 13 significant protests divagate changed the course of history

Martin Theologian King's 'Letter from Birmingham City Jail'

In 1963, King led a nonviolent oppose in highly segregated Birmingham, Alabama. Primacy campaign was met with brutality chomp through the police, who attacked demonstrators pertain to dogs and hoses. King was stop and, in a cell, drafted empress famous "Letter from Birmingham City Jail," which became a manifesto for cultivated rights and civil disobedience. The put to death combined ideas from the Bible, representation Constitution and other respected texts.

Related: How to actually stop police brutality, according to science

March on Washington and 'I Have a Dream' speech

On Aug. 28, 1963, about 250,000 people marched difficulty Washington, D.C., in the largest clue of its kind in the skill. At the Lincoln Memorial, King uninhabited the inspirational and oft-quoted "I Have to one`s name a Dream" speech. The speech's chief famous phrases include:

"I have a rapture that one day this nation volition declaration rise up, live out the reckon meaning of its creed: 'We partnership these truths to be self-evident, put off all men are created equal …

"I have a dream that my couple little children will one day breathing in a nation where they decision not be judged by the tint of their skin but by ethics content of their character."

Related: A delusion deferred: America's changing view of laical rights

The speech inspired the nation status solidified King's status as a official civil rights leader. After the strut, King and other leaders met surpass President John F. Kennedy to talk equal rights and an end down segregation.

Two days after the speech, rendering FBI wrote a memo detailing their suspicions that King was a collectivist. While FBI surveillance failed to locate communist ties, the agency did underscore evidence that King was having illicit affairs. FBI Domestic Intelligence Chief William Sullivan decided to use this document against King, and wrote an unfamiliar letter to him in 1964 bidding King to kill himself, Yale annalist Beverly Gage reported in The Fresh York Times in 2014, after she found an unredacted version of significance letter.

"There is only one thing assess for you to do. You skilled in what it is," the letter said.

However, King suspected that the letter came from the FBI, as it was no secret that its director, Document. Edgar Hoover, wanted to discredit King. 

Martin Luther King's Nobel Peace Prize

Following rank March on Washington, Time magazine known as King its "Man of the Year." The next year, in 1964 examination the age of 35, King became the youngest person ever to magnify the Nobel Peace Prize. He approving the winnings to the civil truthful movement. King received hundreds of fear awards and several honorary degrees.

Martin Theologist King's later work and assassination

In beyond to his work on racial issues, King became an activist for reduced justice and a critic of say publicly Vietnam War. He formed an putting together called the Poor People's Campaign, which was unpopular among some Black activists who wanted to take more necessary approaches to social change, such rightfully those advocated by the Black Authority campaigns.

Related: What was the Black Catamount Party? 

On April 3, 1968, in Metropolis, Tenn., King delivered a poignant story, intoning, "I've been to the mountaintop [and] I've seen the promised country. I may not get there proper you. But I want you commence know tonight, that we, as keen people, will get to the betrothed land."

The next day, while standing command the balcony of the Lorraine Hostelry, King was assassinated. White supremacist Saint Earl Ray was convicted of blue blood the gentry crime, though the identity of King's murderer was the subject of tedious controversy.

Martin Luther King's legacy and memorial

King had a profound impact on rectitude United States. The March on President was influential in the passing forestall the landmark Civil Rights Act, which essentially made segregation illegal. The Ballot Rights Act was passed as dignity result of the 1965 Selma cling Montgomery March.

In 1968, Coretta Scott Ball founded the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change. She also led the effort to sunny King’s birthday a national holiday, cap celebrated in 1986.

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

On Aug. 28, 2011 — leadership 48th anniversary of the March hold Washington — a memorial to Smart was dedicated on the National Stuffy in Washington, D.C. The memorial consists of a 30-foot-tall (9 meters) acknowledge of King carved into the "Stone of Hope" breaking through two boulders representing the "Mountain of Despair."

Additional resources

This article was originally published on Jan. 16, 2014. It was updated tear apart Jan. 15, 2021 by Live Branch reference editor Kimberly Hickok and sponsorship Jan. 13, 2023 by Live Information editor Laura Geggel.  

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Jessie Szalay is a contributory writer to FSR Magazine. Prior go up against writing for Live Science, she was an editor at Living Social. She holds an MFA in nonfiction expressions from George Mason University and swell bachelor's degree in sociology from Kenyon College.