Franke previte biography of martin luther king
Martin Luther King Jr.
American civil rights leader (–)
"Martin Luther King" and "MLK" redirect here. For other uses, see Martin Luther King (disambiguation) and MLK (disambiguation).
The ReverendDoctor Martin Luther King Jr. | |
|---|---|
King in | |
| In office January 10, &#;– April 4, | |
| Preceded by | Position established |
| Succeeded by | Ralph Abernathy |
| Born | Michael King Jr. ()January 15, Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. |
| Died | April 4, () (aged&#;39) Memphis, Tennessee, U.S. |
| Manner&#;of&#;death | Assassination by gunshot |
| Resting place | Martin Luther King&#;Jr.
National Historical Park |
| Spouse | |
| Children | |
| Parents | |
| Relatives | |
| Education | |
| Occupation | |
| Monuments | Full list |
| Movement | |
| Awards | |
| Signature | |
| Nickname | MLK |
Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, &#;– April 4, ) was an American Baptist minister, activist, and political philosopher who was one of the most prominent leaders in the civil rights movement from until his assassination in King advanced civil rights for people of color in the United States through the use of nonviolent resistance and nonviolent civil disobedience against Jim Crow laws and other forms of legalized discrimination.
A black church leader, King participated in and led marches for the right to vote, desegregation, labor rights, and other civil rights. He oversaw the Montgomery bus boycott and later became the first president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). As president of the SCLC, he led the unsuccessful Albany Movement in Albany, Georgia, and helped organize some of the nonviolent protests in Birmingham, Alabama.
King was one of the leaders of the March on Washington, where he delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, and helped organize two of the three Selma to Montgomery marches during the Selma voting rights movement.
Franke previte biography of martin luther king jr That book, in conjunction with the Realize the Dream campaign, is intended to start a conversation about how individuals can refocus their own stories toward collective change. Indeed, in his autobiography, he stated:. The heat grew oppressive, but then King stood up. Al Sharpton and Sanjay Gupta , among others.The civil rights movement achieved pivotal legislative gains in the Civil Rights Act of , the Voting Rights Act of , and the Fair Housing Act of There were several dramatic standoffs with segregationist authorities, who often responded violently.
King was jailed several times. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) director J. Edgar Hoover considered King a radical and made him an object of the FBI's COINTELPRO from forward.
FBI agents investigated him for possible communist ties, spied on his personal life, and secretly recorded him. In , the FBI mailed King a threatening anonymous letter, which he interpreted as an attempt to make him commit suicide.[3] On October 14, , King won the Nobel Peace Prize for combating racial inequality through nonviolent resistance.
In his final years, he expanded his focus to include opposition towards poverty and the Vietnam War.
In , King was planning a national occupation of Washington, D.C., to be called the Poor People's Campaign, when he was assassinated on April 4 in Memphis, Tennessee. James Earl Ray, a fugitive from the Missouri State Penitentiary, was convicted of the assassination, though the King family believes he was a scapegoat.
Biography of martin luther king: In the wake of his death, a wave of riots swept major cities across the country, while President Johnson declared a national day of mourning. The final section of Martin Luther King Jr. Board of Education decision of He organized a campaign against poverty in and moved his family into one of Chicago's Black neighborhoods, but he found that strategies successful in the South didn't work in Chicago.
After a wrongful death lawsuit ruling named unspecified "government agencies" among the co-conspirators,[4] a Department of Justice investigation found no evidence of a conspiracy.[5] The assassination 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 Presidential Medal of Freedom in and the Congressional Gold Medal in Martin Luther King Jr. Day was established as a holiday in cities and states throughout the United States beginning in ; the federal holiday was first observed in The Martin Luther King&#;Jr. Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., was dedicated in
Early life and education
Birth
Michael King Jr.
was born on January 15, , in Atlanta; he was the second of three children born to Michael King Sr. and Alberta King (née&#;Williams).[6][7][8] Alberta's father, Adam Daniel Williams,[9] was a minister in rural Georgia, moved to Atlanta in ,[8] and became pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist 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 likely Mende (Sierra Leone) descent.[11][12][13] As an adolescent, Michael Sr.
left his parents' farm and walked to Atlanta, where he attained a high school education, and enrolled in Morehouse College to study for entry to the ministry. Michael Sr. and Alberta began dating in , and married on November 25, Until Jennie's death in , their home was on the 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 after marrying Alberta, Michael King Sr. became assistant pastor of the Ebenezer church. Senior pastor Williams died in the spring of and that fall Michael Sr. took the role. With support from his wife, he raised attendance from six hundred to several thousand.[8] In , the church sent King Sr.
on a multinational trip; one of the stops on the trip was Berlin for the Congress of the Baptist World Alliance (BWA).[23] He also visited sites in Germany that are associated with the Reformation leader Martin Luther.[23] In reaction to the rise of Nazism, the BWA adopted a resolution saying, "This Congress deplores and condemns as a violation of the law of God the Heavenly Father, all racial animosity, and every form of oppression or unfair discrimination toward the Jews, toward colored people, or toward subject races in any part of the world."[24] After returning home in August , Michael Sr.
changed his name to Martin Luther King Sr. and 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. After dinners, Martin Jr.'s grandmother Jennie, whom he affectionately referred to 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 and 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. Martin Jr. believing her dead, blamed himself and attempted suicide by jumping from a second-story window, but rose from the ground after hearing that she was alive.
Martin King Jr.
became friends with a white boy whose father owned a business across the street from his home. In September , when the boys were about six years old, they started school.[34] King had to attend a school for black children, Yonge Street Elementary School, while his playmate went to a separate school for white children only.
Soon afterwards, the parents of the white boy stopped allowing King to play with their son, stating to him, "we are white, and you are colored". When King relayed this to his parents, they talked with him about the history of slavery and racism in America, which King would later say made him "determined to hate 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 stopped by a police officer who referred to Martin Sr. as "boy", Martin Sr. responded sharply that Martin Jr. was a boy but he was a man.
When Martin Jr's father took him into a shoe store in downtown Atlanta, the clerk told them they needed to sit in the back. Martin Sr. refused asserting "we'll either buy shoes sitting here or we won't buy any shoes at all", before leaving the store with Martin Jr. He told Martin Jr. afterward, "I don't care how long I have to live with this system, I will never accept it." In , Martin Sr.
led hundreds of African Americans in a civil rights march to the city hall in Atlanta, to protest voting rights discrimination. Martin Jr. later remarked that Martin Sr. was "a real father" to him.
Martin King Jr. memorized hymns and Bible verses by the time he was five years old. Beginning at six years old, he attended church events with his mother and sang hymns while she played piano.
His favorite hymn was "I Want to Be More and More 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 vocabulary from reading dictionaries. He got into physical altercations with boys in his neighborhood, but oftentimes used his knowledge of words to stop or avoid fights.
King showed a lack of interest in grammar and spelling, a trait that persisted throughout his life. In , King sang as a member of his church choir dressed as a slave for the all-white audience at the Atlanta premiere of the film Gone with the Wind.[43] In September , at the age of 11, King was enrolled at the Atlanta University Laboratory School for the seventh grade.[46] While there, King took violin and piano lessons and showed keen interest in history and English classes.
On May 18, , when King had sneaked away from studying at home to watch a parade, he was informed that something had happened to his maternal grandmother.
After returning home, he learned she had a heart attack and died while being transported to a hospital. He took her death very hard and believed that his deception in going to see the parade may have been responsible for God taking her. King jumped out of a second-story window at his home but again survived. His father instructed him that Martin Jr.
should not blame himself and that she had been called home to God as part of God's plan.
Franke previte biography of martin luther king He was fascinated by Henry David Thoreau 's essay " On Civil Disobedience" and its idea of noncooperation with an unjust system. King lived with his parents, a sister, and a brother in the Victorian home of his maternal grandparents. King had also become a target for white supremacists, who firebombed his family home that January. King wanted her to stay home with their four children: Yolanda, Martin, Dexter, and Bernice.Martin Jr. struggled with this. Shortly thereafter, Martin Sr. decided to move the family to a two-story brick home on a hill overlooking downtown Atlanta.
Adolescence
As an adolescent, he initially felt resentment against whites due to the "racial humiliation" that he, his family, and his neighbors often had to endure.[48] In , when King was 13, he became the youngest assistant manager of a newspaper delivery station for the Atlanta Journal.
In the same year, King skipped the ninth grade and enrolled in Booker T. Washington High School, where he maintained a B-plus average. The high school was the only one in the city for African-American students.
Martin Jr. was brought up in a Baptist home; as he entered adolescence he began to question the literalist teachings preached at his father's church.
At the age of 13, he denied the bodily resurrection of Jesus 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 of this point in his life, "doubts began to spring forth unrelentingly."[52]
In high school, Martin King Jr.
became known for his public-speaking ability, with a voice that had grown into an orotund baritone. He joined the school's debate team. King continued to be most drawn to history and English, and chose English and sociology as his main subjects. King maintained an abundant vocabulary. However, he relied on his sister Christine to help him with spelling, while King assisted her with math.
King also developed an interest in fashion, commonly wearing polished patent leather shoes and tweed suits, which gained him the nickname "Tweed" or "Tweedie" among his friends.
Franke previte biography of martin luther king day 2025 Biography of Pancho Villa, Mexican Revolutionary. King's leadership and advocacy were instrumental in gaining support for this act and pushing it through Congress. Grace Thompson Grace Thompson is a dedicated historian and writer, contributing extensively to the field of world history. This legislation outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, and it was a major victory for the Civil Rights Movement.He liked flirting 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 crazy about dances, and just about the best jitterbug in town."
On April 13, , in his junior year, King gave his first public speech during an oratorical contest.[62][63][64] In his speech he stated, "black America still wears chains.
The finest negro is at the mercy of the meanest white man."[62] King was selected as the winner of the contest.[62] On the ride home to Atlanta by bus, he and his teacher were ordered by the driver to stand so that white passengers could sit. The driver of the bus called King a "black son-of-a-bitch". King initially refused but complied after his teacher told him that he would be breaking the law if he did not.
As all the seats were occupied, he and his teacher were forced to stand the rest of the way to Atlanta.
Later King wrote of the 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.
As World War II was underway many black college students had been enlisted, so the university aimed to increase their enrollment by allowing juniors to apply. In , aged 15, King passed the examination and was enrolled at the university that autumn.[citation needed]
In the summer before King started at Morehouse, he boarded a train with his friend—Emmett "Weasel" Proctor—and a group of other Morehouse College students to work in Simsbury, Connecticut, 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 letter to his father King wrote about the differences that struck him: "On our way here we saw some things I had never anticipated to see.
After we passed Washington there was no discrimination at all. The white people here are very nice. We go to any place we want to and sit anywhere we want to."[72] The farm had partnered with Morehouse College to allot their wages towards the university's tuition, housing, and fees.[70][71] On weekdays King and the other students worked in the fields, picking tobacco from am to at least pm, enduring temperatures above &#;°F, to earn roughly USD$4 per day.[71][72] On Friday evenings, the students visited downtown Simsbury to get milkshakes and watch movies, and on Saturdays they would travel to Hartford, Connecticut, to see theatre performances, shop and eat in restaurants.[71][73] On Sundays they attended church services in Hartford, at a church filled with white congregants.[71] King wrote to his parents about the lack of segregation, relaying how he was amazed they could go to "one of the finest restaurants in Hartford" and that "Negroes and whites go to the same church".[71][74][72]
He played freshman football there.
The summer before his last year at Morehouse, in , the year-old King chose to enter the ministry. He would later credit the college's president, Baptist minister Benjamin Mays, with being his "spiritual mentor".[75] King had concluded that the church offered the most assuring way to answer "an inner urge to serve humanity", and he made peace with the Baptist Church, as he believed he would be a "rational" minister with sermons that were "a respectful force for ideas, even social protest." King graduated from Morehouse with a Bachelor of Arts in sociology in , 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 at the University of Pennsylvania.[80][81] At Crozer, King was elected president of the student body. At Penn, King took courses with William Fontaine, Penn's first African-American professor, and Elizabeth F.
Flower, a professor of philosophy.[83] King's father supported his decision to continue his education and made arrangements for King to work with J. Pius Barbour, a family friend and Crozer alumnus 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.
and Samuel D. Proctor, who both went on to become well-known preachers.[85]
King reproved another student for keeping beer in his room once, saying they shared responsibility as African Americans to bear "the burdens of the Negro race". For a time, he was interested in Walter Rauschenbusch's "social gospel".
Biography of john knox Growing up in a loving and religious household, King's family instilled in him the values of equality, justice, and compassion. However, he refused to accept the status quo and dedicated himself to the nonviolent struggle for civil rights. Yet, Coretta felt strongly that her role, and the role of women in general in the civil rights movement, had long been "marginalized" and overlooked, according to The Guardian. King believed their origins were segregation and poverty and shifted his focus to poverty, but he couldn't garner support.In his third year at Crozer, King became romantically involved with[86] the white daughter of an immigrant German woman who worked in the cafeteria. King planned to marry her, but friends, as well as King's father,[86] advised against it, saying that an interracial marriage would provoke animosity from both blacks and whites, potentially damaging his chances of ever pastoring a church in the South.
King tearfully told a friend that he could not endure his mother's pain over the marriage and broke the relationship off six months later. One friend was quoted as saying, "He never recovered." Other friends, including Harry Belafonte, said Betty had been "the love of King's life."[86] King graduated with a Bachelor of Divinity in [78] He applied to the University of Edinburgh for a doctorate in the School of Divinity but ultimately chose Boston instead.[87]
In , King began doctoral studies in systematic theology at Boston University,