Nevil maskelyne biography of martin luther king
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He continues to be remembered as one of the most influential and inspirational Black leaders in history.
Quick Facts
FULL NAME: Martin Luther King Jr.
BIRTHDAY: January 15, 1929
DIED: April 4, 1968
BIRTHPLACE: Atlanta, Georgia
SPOUSE: Coretta Scott King (1953–1968)
CHILDREN: Yolanda, Martin III, Dexter, and Bernice King
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Capricorn
When Was Martin Luther King Jr.
Born?
Martin Luther King Jr. was born January 15, 1929, in Atlanta.
Greensboro Sit-In
By 1960, King was gaining national exposure. Although his family was deeply involved in the church and worship, King questioned religion in general and felt uncomfortable with overly emotional displays of religious worship.
The SCLC felt the best place to start to give African Americans a voice was to enfranchise them in the voting process. Fellow civil rights activist Bayard Rustin, who had also studied Gandhi’s teachings, became one of King’s associates in the 1950s and counseled him to dedicate himself to the principles of nonviolence. On March 25, the number of marchers, which had grown to an estimated 25,000 gathered in front of the state capitol where King delivered a televised speech.
This resulted in the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, authorizing the federal government to enforce desegregation of public accommodations and outlawing discrimination in publicly owned facilities.
Selma March
Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King help lead marchers from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, in March 1965.
Continuing to focus on voting rights, King, the SCLC, SNCC, and local organizers planned to march peacefully from Selma, Alabama, to the state’s capital, Montgomery.
Led by John Lewis and Hosea Williams, demonstrators set out on March 7, 1965.
King frequently made references to God, the Bible and his Christian Faith.
“And this is what Jesus means when he said: “How is it that you can see the mote in your brother’s eye and not see the beam in your own eye?” Or to put it in Moffatt’s translation: “How is it that you see the splinter in your brother’s eye and fail to see the plank in your own eye?” And this is one of the tragedies of human nature.
He then compared the foot soldiers of the Civil Rights Movement to the ground crew at an airport who do the unheralded-yet-necessary work to keep planes running on schedule.
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.
Fifteen years after its introduction, the bill finally became law.
In 1983, President Ronald Reagan’s signature created Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service as a federal holiday. He was also new to the community and had few enemies, so organizers felt he would have strong credibility with the Black community.
In his first speech as the group’s president, King declared:
“We have no alternative but to protest.To meet the team, visit our About Us page: https://www.biography.com/about/a43602329/about-us
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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. King encouraged students to continue to use nonviolent methods during their protests.
King's mother, Alberta Christine Williams, was a schoolteacher before getting married.
Understanding the Through Line
In the years to come, King also frequently cited the “Beloved Community”—a world in which a shared spirit of compassion brings an end to the evils of racism, poverty, inequality, and violence—as the end goal of his activist efforts.
In 1959, with the help of the American Friends Service Committee, King visited Gandhi’s birthplace in India.
Another complicating factor is the 1993 confession of tavern owner Loyd Jowers, who said he contracted a different hit man to kill King. The boycott lasted for several months, the issue was then brought to the Supreme Court who declared the segregation was unconstitutional.
Civil Rights Movement.
After the success of the Montgomery bus boycott, King and other ministers founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).
On the same day, black leaders met with President John F. Kennedy. He had grown tired of marches, going to jail, and living under the constant threat of death. King, arrested for violating the ban on demonstrations, spent five days in jail. Later, at the Lincoln Memorial, King delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech, expressing his belief in brotherhood among people.
He skipped both the ninth and eleventh grades and, at age 15, entered Morehouse College in Atlanta in 1944. Among his many efforts, King headed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.