Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was born in Atlanta, Georgia, in At the time in that part of the country, segregation—or the separation of races in places like schools, buses, and restaurants—was the law. He experienced racial predjudice from the time he was very young, which inspired him to dedicate his life to achieving equality and Jan 21, · The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (January 15, –April 4, ) was the charismatic leader of the U.S. civil rights movement in the s and s. He directed the year-long Montgomery bus boycott, which attracted scrutiny by a wary, divided nation, but his leadership and the resulting Supreme Court ruling against bus segregation Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (January 15, - April 4, ) Dr. King was born Michael Luther King, Jr., but later had his name changed to Martin. His grandfather began the family's long tenure as pastors of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, serving from to ; his father has served from then until the present, and from until his death Martin Luther acted as co-pastor
Martin luther king jr i have a dream essay outline
Martin Luther King, Jr. The son, grandson, and great-grandson of Baptist ministers, Martin Luther King, martin luther king jr essay, Jr. Williams and Jeannie Celeste Williams. The elder King began referring to himself and later to his son as Martin Luther King. He resisted religious emotionalism and as a teenager questioned some facets of Baptist doctrine, such as the bodily resurrection of Jesus. Morehouse president Benjamin E.
King admired both educators as deeply religious yet also learned men and, by the end of his junior year, such academic role models and the example of his father led King to enter the ministry. He was ordained during his final semester at Morehouse, martin luther king jr essay, and by this time King had also taken his first steps toward political activism.
After leaving Morehouse, King increased his understanding of liberal Christian thought while attending Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania from to Mentored by local minister and King family friend J.
Pius Barbourhe reacted skeptically to a presentation on pacifism by Fellowship of Reconciliation leader A. Moreover, by the end of his seminary studies King had become increasingly dissatisfied with the abstract conceptions of God held by some modern theologians and identified himself instead with the theologians who affirmed personalismor a belief in the personality of God.
Even as he continued to question and modify his own religious beliefs, he compiled an outstanding academic record and graduated at the top of his class. Harold DeWolf. The papers including his dissertation that King wrote during his years at Boston University displayed little originality, and some contained extensive plagiarism; but his readings enabled him to formulate an eclectic yet coherent theological perspective.
By the time he completed his doctoral studies inKing had refined his exceptional ability to draw upon a wide range of theological and philosophical texts to express his views with force and precision. His capacity to infuse his oratory with borrowed theological insights became evident in his expanding preaching activities in Boston-area churches and at Ebenezer, where he assisted his father during school vacations. During his stay in Boston, King also met and courted Coretta Scottan Alabama-born Antioch College graduate who was then a student at the New England Conservatory of Music.
Although he considered pursuing an academic career, King decided in to accept an offer to become the pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. In Decemberwhen Montgomery black leaders such as Jo Ann RobinsonE. Nixonand Ralph Abernathy formed the Montgomery Improvement Association MIA to protest the arrest of NAACP official Rosa Parks for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white man, they selected King to head the new group, martin luther king jr essay.
In his role as the primary spokesman of the year-long Montgomery bus boycottKing utilized the leadership abilities he had gained martin luther king jr essay his religious background and academic training to forge a distinctive protest strategy that involved the mobilization of black churches and skillful appeals for white support.
After the U. Supreme Court outlawed Alabama bus segregation laws in Browder v. Gayle in lateKing sought to expand the nonviolent civil rights movement throughout the South.
Inhe joined with C. SteeleFred Shuttlesworthand T. Jemison in founding the Southern Christian Leadership Conference SCLC with King as president to coordinate civil rights activities throughout the region.
Even as he expanded his influence, however, King acted cautiously. Rather than immediately seeking to stimulate mass desegregation protests in the South, King stressed the goal of achieving black voting rights when he addressed an audience at the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom.
InKing was the victim of his first assassination attempt. Although his house had been bombed several times during the Montgomery bus boycott, it was while signing copies of Stride Toward Freedom that Izola Ware Curry stabbed him with a letter opener.
Surgery to remove it was successful, but King had to recuperate for several months, giving up all protest activity. As early aslabor unions, such as the United Packinghouse Workers of America and the United Auto Workers, contributed to MIA, and peace activists such as Homer Jack alerted their associates to MIA activities. In addition, his extensive ties to the National Baptist Convention provided support from churches all over the nation; and his advisor, Stanley Levisonensured broad support from Jewish groups.
Duringhe increased his understanding of Gandhian ideas during a month-long visit to India sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee. With Coretta and MIA historian Lawrence D. Reddick in tow, King met with many Indian leaders, including Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.
Early the following year, he moved his family, which now included two children—Yolanda King and Martin Luther KingIII—to Atlanta in order to be nearer to SCLC headquarters in that city and to become co-pastor, with his father, of Ebenezer Baptist Church.
The sit-ins brought into existence a new protest group, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee SNCCwhich would often push King toward greater militancy, martin luther king jr essay. King came in contact with students, especially those from Nashville such as John Lewismartin luther king jr essay, James Bevelmartin luther king jr essay, and Diane Nashwho had been trained in nonviolent tactics by James Lawson.
Kennedy called Coretta King to express his concern. SCLC leaders hoped that with King now in Atlanta, strategy would be improved. The hiring of Wyatt Tee Walker as executive director in was also seen as a step toward bringing efficiency to the organization, while the addition of Dorothy Cotton and Andrew Young to the staff infused new leadership after SCLC took over the administration of the Citizenship Education Program pioneered by Septima Clark.
As the southern protest movement expanded during the early s, King was often torn between the increasingly militant student activists, such as those who participated in the Freedom Ridesand more cautious national civil rights leaders. During andhis tactical differences with SNCC activists surfaced during a sustained protest movement in Albany, Georgia.
King was arrested twice during demonstrations organized by the Albany Movementbut when he left jail and ultimately left Albany without achieving a victory, some movement activists began to question his militancy and his dominant role within the southern protest movement. As King encountered increasingly fierce white opposition, he continued his movement away from theological abstractions toward more reassuring conceptions, rooted in African-American religious culture, of God as a constant source of support.
Duringhowever, King reasserted his preeminence within the African-American freedom struggle through his leadership of the Birmingham Campaign. Initiated by SCLC and its affiliate, the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rightsthe Birmingham demonstrations were the most massive civil rights protests that had yet occurred. With the assistance of Fred Shuttlesworth and other local black leaders, and with little competition from SNCC and other civil rights groups, SCLC officials were able to orchestrate the Birmingham protests to achieve maximum national impact.
During May, televised pictures of police using dogs and fire hoses against young demonstrators generated a national outcry against white segregationist officials in Birmingham. Wallace to allow the admission of black students at the University of Alabama prompted President Kennedy to introduce major martin luther king jr essay rights legislation.
It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! Although there was much elation after the March on Washington, less than a month later, the movement was shocked by another act of senseless violence. Augustine, Florida became the site of the next major confrontation of the civil rights movement. Beginning inRobert B. Haylingof the local NAACP, had led sit-ins against segregated businesses.
SCLC was called in to help in Maysuffering the arrest of King and Abernathy. After a few court victories, SCLC left when a biracial committee was formed; however, local residents continued to suffer violence.
The acclaim King received strengthened his stature among civil rights leaders but also prompted Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI director J. Hoover, with the approval of President Kennedy and Attorney General Robert Kennedyestablished phone taps and bugs.
Hoover and many other observers of the southern struggle saw King as controlling events, but he was actually a moderating force within an increasingly diverse black militancy of the mids.
Although he was not personally involved in Freedom Summerhe was called upon to attempt to persuade the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party delegates to accept a compromise at the Democratic Party National Convention. Augustine, which secured popular support for the passage of national civil rights legislation, particularly the Civil Rights Act of The Alabama protests martin luther king jr essay a turning point on 7 Marchmartin luther king jr essay, when state police attacked a group of demonstrators at the start of a march from Selma to the state capitol in Montgomery.
Unprepared for the violent confrontation, martin luther king jr essay, King alienated some activists when he decided to postpone the continuation of the Selma to Montgomery March until he had received court approval, but the march, which finally secured federal court approval, attracted several thousand civil rights sympathizers, martin luther king jr essay, black and white, from all regions of the nation.
On 25 March, King addressed the arriving marchers from the steps of the capitol in Montgomery. The march and the subsequent killing of martin luther king jr essay white participant, Viola Liuzzo, as well as the earlier murder of James Reeb dramatized the denial of black voting rights and spurred passage during the following summer of the Voting Rights Act of After the march in Alabama, King was unable to garner similar support for his effort to confront the problems of northern urban blacks.
Martin luther king jr essay King shifted the focus of his activities to the North, however, he discovered that the tactics used in the South were not as effective elsewhere.
King was stoned by angry whites in the Chicago suburb of Cicero when he led a march against racial discrimination in housing. Black radicals increasingly turned away from the Gandhian precepts of King toward the black nationalism of Malcolm Xwhose posthumously published autobiography and speeches reached large audiences after his assassination in February Unable to influence the black insurgencies that occurred in many urban areas, martin luther king jr essay, King refused to abandon his firmly rooted beliefs martin luther king jr essay racial integration and nonviolence.
He was nevertheless unpersuaded by black nationalist calls for racial uplift and institutional development in black communities. King, Floyd McKissick of the Congress of Racial Equalityand Stokely Carmichael of SNCC decided to continue his march. During the march, the activists from SNCC decided to test a new slogan that they had been using, Black Power. King objected to the use of the term, but the media took the opportunity to expose the disagreements among protesters and publicized the term, martin luther king jr essay.
In his last book, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? Nevertheless, he became ever more insistent that his version of Gandhian nonviolence and social gospel Christianity was the most appropriate response to the problems of black Americans. King and other Martin luther king jr essay workers began to recruit poor people and antipoverty activists to come to Washington, D. On 28 Marchas King led thousands of sanitation workers and sympathizers on a march through downtown Memphis, black youngsters began throwing rocks and looting stores.
King returned to Memphis for the last time in early April. Addressing an audience at Bishop Charles J. The following evening, the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. A white segregationist, James Earl Ray, was later convicted of the crime. Until his death, King remained steadfast in his commitment to the transformation of American society through nonviolent activism.
She also led the successful effort to honor her husband with a federally mandated King national holidaymartin luther king jr essay was first celebrated in Introduction, in Papers — King, Eulogy for the Martyred Children18 Septemberin A Call to Conscienceed. Carson and Shepard, King, Remarks Delivered at Africa Freedom Dinner at Atlanta University, martin luther king jr essay, 13 Mayin Papers — Document Research Requests. Cypress Hall D, Via Ortega, Stanford, CA P: F: kinginstitute stanford.
edu Campus Map. The Institute cannot give permission to use or reproduce any of the writings, statements, or images of Martin Luther King, Jr. Please c ontact Intellectual Properties Management IPMthe exclusive licensor of the Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr.
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, time: 1:28Biography of Civil Rights Leader Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr. Biographical M artin Luther King, Jr., (January 15, April 4, ) was born Michael Luther King, Jr., but later had his name changed to Martin. His grandfather began the family’s long tenure as pastors of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, serving from to ; his father has served from then until the present, and from until his death Martin Luther Jan 21, · The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (January 15, –April 4, ) was the charismatic leader of the U.S. civil rights movement in the s and s. He directed the year-long Montgomery bus boycott, which attracted scrutiny by a wary, divided nation, but his leadership and the resulting Supreme Court ruling against bus segregation Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was born in Atlanta, Georgia, in At the time in that part of the country, segregation—or the separation of races in places like schools, buses, and restaurants—was the law. He experienced racial predjudice from the time he was very young, which inspired him to dedicate his life to achieving equality and
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