Sym19 biography of martin luther king
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Martin Luther King Jr. will forever be remembered as a champion for civil rights and equality.
Martin Luther King Jr.
1929-1968
In Focus: Martin Luther King Jr. Day
In the nearly 40 years that the United States has celebrated Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the national holiday has never coincided with the inauguration of a non-incumbent president.
I may not get there with you.
Martin Luther King Jr.'s rise to prominence as a leader in the civil rights movement not only transformed the lives of African Americans, but also left a lasting impact on global events and cultures. He initially escaped authorities but was apprehended after a two-month international manhunt. He sought to broaden his base by forming a multiracial coalition to address the economic and unemployment problems of all disadvantaged people.
I’m not fearing any man. The news of his imprisonment entered the 1960 presidential campaign when candidate John F. Kennedy made a phone call to Martin’s wife, Coretta Scott King. Their daughter Bernice was born the next year.
While working on his doctorate at Boston University, King met Coretta Scott, an aspiring singer and musician at the New England Conservatory school in Boston.
Their oldest, Yolanda, was born in 1955, followed by sons Martin Luther King III in 1957 and Dexter in 1961. But the movement wasn’t done yet.
On October 19, 1960, King and 75 students entered a local department store and requested lunch-counter service but were denied.
In his famous Letter from Birmingham Jail, King eloquently spelled out his theory of nonviolence: “Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community, which has constantly refused to negotiate, is forced to confront the issue.”
1963 March on Washington
By the end of the Birmingham campaign, King and his supporters were making plans for a massive demonstration on the nation’s capital composed of multiple organizations, all asking for peaceful change.
The most dangerous criminal may be the man gifted with reason but with no morals.
Notable Quote: “I think Alfred Nobel would know what I mean when I say that I accept this award in the spirit of a curator of some precious heirloom which he holds in trust for its true owners—all those to whom beauty is truth and truth, beauty—and in whose eyes the beauty of genuine brotherhood and peace is more precious than diamonds or silver or gold.”
Date: March 25, 1965
At the end of the bitterly fought Selma-to-Montgomery march, King addressed a crowd of 25,000 supporters from the Alabama State Capitol.
Of the 600 demonstrators, 58 were hospitalized in a day that became known as “Bloody Sunday.” King, however, was spared because he was in Atlanta. He completed his doctorate and earned his degree in 1955 at age 25.
Decades after King’s death, in the late 1980s, researchers at Stanford University’s King Papers Project began to note similarities between passages of King’s doctoral dissertation and those of another student’s work.
In 1954, while still working on his dissertation, King became pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church of Montgomery, Alabama. His legacy continues to inspire people all over the world to stand up against injustice and fight for a better future.