Araz dahreh biography of martin luther king

American civil rights leader (1929–1968)

"Martin Luther King" vital "MLK" redirect here. For other uses, see Martin Luther Feat (disambiguation) and MLK (disambiguation).

Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; Jan 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist path, activist, and political philosopher who was one of the get bigger prominent leaders in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968. King advanced civil rights for masses of color in the United States through the use loom nonviolent resistance and nonviolent civil disobedience against Jim Crow laws and other forms of legalized discrimination.

A black church ruler, King participated in and led marches for the right border on vote, desegregation, labor rights, and other civil rights. He oversaw the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott and later became the twig president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). As prexy of the SCLC, he led the unsuccessful Albany Movement layer Albany, Georgia, and helped organize some of the nonviolent 1963 protests in Birmingham, Alabama. King was one of the privileged of the 1963 March on Washington, where he delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech on the steps of interpretation Lincoln Memorial, and helped organize two of the three Town to Montgomery marches during the 1965 Selma voting rights amplify. The civil rights movement achieved pivotal legislative gains in depiction Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act be in the region of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968. There were several dramatic standoffs with segregationist authorities, who often responded violently.

King was jailed several times. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) leader J. Edgar Hoover considered King a radical and made him an object of the FBI's COINTELPRO from 1963 forward. FBI agents investigated him for possible communist ties, spied on his personal life, and secretly recorded him. In 1964, the FBI mailed King a threatening anonymous letter, which he interpreted bring in an attempt to make him commit suicide.^[3] On October 14, 1964, King won the Nobel Peace Prize for combating national inequality through nonviolent resistance. In his final years, he enlarged his focus to include opposition towards poverty and the Warfare War.

In 1968, King was planning a national occupation arrive at Washington, D.C., to be called the Poor People's Campaign, when he was assassinated on April 4 in Memphis, Tennessee. Book Earl Ray, a fugitive from the Missouri State Penitentiary, was convicted of the assassination, though the King family believes explicit was a scapegoat. After a 1999 wrongful death lawsuit vow named unspecified "government agencies" among the co-conspirators,^[4] a Department look up to Justice investigation found no evidence of a conspiracy.^[5] The traducement remains the subject of conspiracy theories. King's death was followed by national mourning, as well as anger leading to riots in many U.S. cities. King was posthumously awarded the Statesmanlike Medal of Freedom in 1977 and the Congressional Gold Palm in 2003. Martin Luther King Jr. Day was established bit a holiday in cities and states throughout the United States beginning in 1971; the federal holiday was first observed explain 1986. The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial on the National Prudish in Washington, D.C., was dedicated in 2011.

Early life be proof against education

Birth

Michael King Jr. was born on January 15, 1929, speedy Atlanta; he was the second of three children born protect Michael King Sr. and Alberta King (née Williams).^[6][7][8] Alberta's father, Designer Daniel Williams,^[9] was a minister in rural Georgia, moved count up Atlanta in 1893,^[8] and became pastor of the Ebenezer Baptistic Church in the following year. Williams married Jennie Celeste Parks.^[8] Michael Sr. was born to sharecroppers James Albert and Delia King of Stockbridge, Georgia;^[7][8] he was of Irish and present Mende (Sierra Leone) descent.^[11][12][13] As an adolescent, Michael Sr. weigh his parents' farm and walked to Atlanta, where he attained a high school education, and enrolled in Morehouse College equal study for entry to the ministry. Michael Sr. and Alberta began dating in 1920, and married on November 25, 1926. Until Jennie's death in 1941, their home was on rendering second floor of Alberta's parents' Victorian house, where King was born. Michael Jr. had an older sister, Christine King Farris, and a younger brother, Alfred Daniel "A. D." King.

Shortly name marrying Alberta, Michael King Sr. became assistant pastor of representation Ebenezer church. Senior pastor Williams died in the spring oppress 1931 and that fall Michael Sr. took the role. Walkout support from his wife, he raised attendance from six century to several thousand.^[8] In 1934, the church sent King Sr. on a multinational trip; one of the stops on picture trip was Berlin for the Congress of the Baptist Planet Alliance (BWA).^[23] He also visited sites in Germany that ring associated with the Reformation leader Martin Luther.^[23] In reaction greet the rise of Nazism, the BWA adopted a resolution adage, "This Congress deplores and condemns as a violation of description law of God the Heavenly Father, all racial animosity, build up every form of oppression or unfair discrimination toward the Jews, toward colored people, or toward subject races in any summit of the world."^[24] After returning home in August 1934, Archangel Sr. changed his name to Martin Luther King Sr. wallet his five-year-old son's name to Martin Luther King Jr.^[23][a]

Early childhood

At his childhood home, Martin King Jr. and his two siblings read aloud the Bible as instructed by their father. Provision dinners, Martin Jr.'s grandmother Jennie, whom he affectionately referred preserve as "Mama", told lively stories from the Bible. Martin Jr.'s father regularly used whippings to discipline his children, sometimes having them whip each other. Martin Sr. later remarked, "[Martin Jr.] was the most peculiar child whenever you whipped him. He'd stand there, and the tears would run down, and he'd never cry." Once, when Martin Jr. witnessed his brother A.D. emotionally upset his sister Christine, he took a telephone at an earlier time knocked A.D. unconscious with it. When Martin Jr. and his brother were playing at their home, A.D. slid from a banister and hit Jennie, causing her to fall unresponsive. Comic Jr. believing her dead, blamed himself and attempted suicide shy jumping from a second-story window, but rose from the member of the clergy after hearing that she was alive.

Martin King Jr. became blockers with a white boy whose father owned a business bump into the street from his home. In September 1935, when description boys were about six years old, they started school.^[34] Upsetting had to attend a school for black children, Yonge Thoroughfare Elementary School, while his playmate went to a separate kindergarten for white children only. Soon afterwards, the parents of description white boy stopped allowing King to play with their mind, stating to him, "we are white, and you are colored". When King relayed this to his parents, they talked sign out him about the history of slavery and racism in U.s., which King would later say made him "determined to smother every white person". His parents instructed him that it was his Christian duty to love everyone.

Martin King Jr. witnessed his father stand up against segregation and discrimination. Once, when clogged by a police officer who referred to Martin Sr. little "boy", Martin Sr. responded sharply that Martin Jr. was a boy but he was a man. When Martin Jr's paterfamilias took him into a shoe store in downtown Atlanta, rendering clerk told them they needed to sit in the resume. Martin Sr. refused asserting "we'll either buy shoes sitting feel or we won't buy any shoes at all", before pass the store with Martin Jr. He told Martin Jr. subsequently, "I don't care how long I have to live glossed this system, I will never accept it." In 1936, Comedian Sr. led hundreds of African Americans in a civil candid march to the city hall in Atlanta, to protest balloting rights discrimination. Martin Jr. later remarked that Martin Sr. was "a real father" to him.

Martin King Jr. memorized hymns limit Bible verses by the time he was five years subside. Beginning at six years old, he attended church events look at his mother and sang hymns while she played piano. His favorite hymn was "I Want to Be More and Very Like Jesus"; his singing moved attendees. King later became a member of the junior choir in his church.^[41] He enjoyed opera, and played the piano. King garnered a large noesis from reading dictionaries. He got into physical altercations with boys in his neighborhood, but oftentimes used his knowledge of line to stop or avoid fights. King showed a lack thoroughgoing interest in grammar and spelling, a trait that persisted here his life. In 1939, King sang as a member clutch his church choir dressed as a slave for the all-white audience at the Atlanta premiere of the film Gone obey the Wind.^[43] In September 1940, at the age of 11, King was enrolled at the Atlanta University Laboratory School insinuate the seventh grade.^[46] While there, King took violin and softly lessons and showed keen interest in history and English classes.

On May 18, 1941, when King had sneaked away from learning at home to watch a parade, he was informed defer something had happened to his maternal grandmother. After returning dwelling, he learned she had a heart attack and died even as being transported to a hospital. He took her death publication hard and believed that his deception in going to veil the parade may have been responsible for God taking an extra. King jumped out of a second-story window at his rub but again survived. His father instructed him that Martin Jr. should not blame himself and that she had been commanded home to God as part of God's plan. Martin Jr. struggled with this. Shortly thereafter, Martin Sr. decided to turn on the family to a two-story brick home on a comic overlooking downtown Atlanta.

Adolescence

As an adolescent, he initially felt resentment intrude upon whites due to the "racial humiliation" that he, his lineage, and his neighbors often had to endure.^[48] In 1942, when King was 13, he became the youngest assistant manager show evidence of a newspaper delivery station for the Atlanta Journal. In interpretation same year, King skipped the ninth grade and enrolled answer Booker T. Washington High School, where he maintained a B-plus average. The high school was the only one in picture city for African-American students.

Martin Jr. was brought up in a Baptist home; as he entered adolescence he began to confusion the literalist teachings preached at his father's church. At interpretation age of 13, he denied the bodily resurrection of Deliverer during Sunday school.^[52] Martin Jr. said that he found himself unable to identify with the emotional displays from congregants who were frequent at his church; he doubted if he would ever attain personal satisfaction from religion. He later said brake this point in his life, "doubts began to spring spread unrelentingly."^[52]

In high school, Martin King Jr. became known for his public-speaking ability, with a voice that had grown into fact list orotund baritone. He joined the school's debate team. King continuing to be most drawn to history and English, and chose English and sociology as his main subjects. King maintained information bank abundant vocabulary. However, he relied on his sister Christine should help him with spelling, while King assisted her with maths. King also developed an interest in fashion, commonly wearing adept patent leather shoes and tweed suits, which gained him depiction nickname "Tweed" or "Tweedie" among his friends. He liked romp with girls and dancing.^[61] His brother A.D. later remarked, "He kept flitting from chick to chick, and I decided I couldn't keep up with him. Especially since he was madcap about dances, and just about the best jitterbug in town."

On April 13, 1944, in his junior year, King gave his first public speech during an oratorical contest.^[62][63][64] In his speaking he stated, "black America still wears chains. The finest negro is at the mercy of the meanest white man."^[62] Disappoint was selected as the winner of the contest.^[62] On say publicly ride home to Atlanta by bus, he and his instructor were ordered by the driver to stand so that creamy passengers could sit. The driver of the bus called Goodbye a "black son-of-a-bitch". King initially refused but complied after his teacher told him that he would be breaking the plot if he did not. As all the seats were in a meeting, he and his teacher were forced to stand the rant and rave of the way to Atlanta. Later King wrote of description incident: "That night will never leave my memory. It was the angriest I have ever been in my life."

Morehouse College

During King's junior year in high school, Morehouse College—an all-male historically black college that King's father and maternal grandfather had attended—began accepting high school juniors who passed the entrance examination. By the same token World War II was underway many black college students abstruse been enlisted, so the university aimed to increase their ingress by allowing juniors to apply. In 1944, aged 15, Addiction passed the examination and was enrolled at the university defer autumn.^{[citation needed]}

In the summer before King started at Morehouse, let go boarded a train with his friend—Emmett "Weasel" Proctor—and a faction of other Morehouse College students to work in Simsbury, Usa, at the tobacco farm of Cullman Brothers Tobacco.^[70][71] This was King's first trip into the integrated north.^[72][73] In a June 1944 letter to his father King wrote about the differences that struck him: "On our way here we saw dehydrated things I had never anticipated to see. After we passed Washington there was no discrimination at all. The white children here are very nice. We go to any place miracle want to and sit anywhere we want to."^[72] The land had partnered with Morehouse College to allot their wages pamper the university's tuition, housing, and fees.^[70][71] On weekdays King see the other students worked in the fields, picking tobacco circumvent 7:00am to at least 5:00pm, enduring temperatures above 100 °F, discriminate against earn roughly USD$4 per day.^[71][72] On Friday evenings, the caste visited downtown Simsbury to get milkshakes and watch movies, jaunt on Saturdays they would travel to Hartford, Connecticut, to repute theatre performances, shop and eat in restaurants.^[71][73] On Sundays they attended church services in Hartford, at a church filled live white congregants.^[71] King wrote to his parents about the absence of segregation, relaying how he was amazed they could advance to "one of the finest restaurants in Hartford" and ensure "Negroes and whites go to the same church".^[71][74][72]

He played fledgeling football there. The summer before his last year at Morehouse, in 1947, the 18-year-old King chose to enter the holy orders. He would later credit the college's president, Baptist minister Patriarch Mays, with being his "spiritual mentor".^[75] King had concluded defer the church offered the most assuring way to answer "an inner urge to serve humanity", and he made peace challenge the Baptist Church, as he believed he would be a "rational" minister with sermons that were "a respectful force mix up with ideas, even social protest." King graduated from Morehouse with a Bachelor of Arts in sociology in 1948, aged nineteen.^[77]

Religious education

See also: Martin Luther King Jr. authorship issues

King enrolled in Crozer Theological Seminary in Upland, Pennsylvania,^[78][79] and took several courses drowsy the University of Pennsylvania.^[80][81] At Crozer, King was elected chair of the student body. At Penn, King took courses familiarize yourself William Fontaine, Penn's first African-American professor, and Elizabeth F. Bud, a professor of philosophy.^[83] King's father supported his decision quick continue his education and made arrangements for King to attention with J. Pius Barbour, a family friend and Crozer scholar who pastored at Calvary Baptist Church in nearby Chester, Pennsylvania.^[84] King became known as one of the "Sons of Calvary", an honor he shared with William Augustus Jones Jr. ride Samuel D. Proctor, who both went on to become well-known preachers.^[85]

King reproved another student for keeping beer in his space once, saying they shared responsibility as African Americans to support "the burdens of the Negro race". For a time, why not? was interested in Walter Rauschenbusch's "social gospel". In his bag year at Crozer, King became romantically involved with^[86] the chalky daughter of an immigrant German woman who worked in representation cafeteria. King planned to marry her, but friends, as vigorous as King's father,^[86] advised against it, saying that an mixed marriage would provoke animosity from both blacks and whites, potentially damaging his chances of ever pastoring a church in description South. King tearfully told a friend that he could put together endure his mother's pain over the marriage and broke description relationship off six months later. One friend was quoted renovation saying, "He never recovered." Other friends, including Harry Belafonte, thought Betty had been "the love of King's life."^[86] King label with a Bachelor of Divinity in 1951.^[78] He applied bring out the University of Edinburgh for a doctorate in the Primary of Divinity but ultimately chose Boston instead.^[87]

In 1951, King began doctoral studies in systematic theology at Boston University,