Martin Luther King, Jr. Martin Luther king, jr.was born January 15, 1929 In Atlanta, Georgia. He died April 4, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee. He was a Baptist minister and a social activist who lead the civil rights movement in the United States from the mid-1950s until his death by assassination in 1968. His leadership was fundamental to that movement’s success in ending the legal segregation of African Americans in the south and other parts of the United States.
Martin Luther king Jr. was the middle child of Michael King Sr. and Alberta Williams King. He had an older sister, Willie Christine and a younger brother, Alfred Daniel William King. The king children grew up in a secure and loving environment. His parents tried to shield him from racism but were unsuccessful. His father considered racism and segregation to be an affront to god’s will.
Martin entered public school at the age of 5 in Atlanta Georgia .When he was 12 years old his grandmother died, this was traumatic for him because he was attending a parade when she died. He was so upset by the news he attempted suicide by leaping from a second story window. Martin attended Booker T. Washington High School. He skipped both ninth and eleventh grade and entered Morehouse College at age 15 in 1955. His junior year he took a bible class and began to envision a career in the ministry. After graduating from Morehouse College in 1948 Martin attended The Liberal Crozer Theological seminary in Chester Pennsylvania. He graduated from this school in 1951. He was valedictorian of his class. Martin enrolled in Boston University to work on his Doctorate Studies.
In June of 1953 Martin married Coretta Scott who he met while attending Boston University. They had 4 children, Yolanda, Martin Luther King the second, Dexter Scott, and Bernice. He became the pastor of Dexter Avenue church of Montgomery Alabama in 1954.
On December 1,1955 Rosa parks boarded a bus after a exhausting day at work, the bus driver demanded that she give up her seat to white passengers when she repeatedly refused she was arrested. The night she was arrested, martin was elected to lead a city-wide bus boycott. His fresh and skillful speech making put a new energy into the civil rights struggle in Alabama He returned to Atlanta in 1960. Martin became a co-pastor with his father at Ebenezer Baptist Church, but he also continued his civil rights efforts. On august 28 1963 Martin and 200,000 of his supporters marched in Washington D.C. He made his most famous speech “I have a dream” at the Lincoln memorial. It emphasized his belief that someday all men could be brother. This resulted in the passage of the civil rights act of 1964 and led to Martin receiving the noble peace prize. The struggle for civil rights continued throughout the 1960s. It seemed as though progress was “two steps forward and one step back”. During the last part of 1965 through 1967 Martin expanded his civil rights movement