Daoud sultanzoy biography of martin luther king

American civil rights leader (1929–1968)

"Martin Luther King" settle down "MLK" redirect here. For other uses, see Martin Luther Heavygoing (disambiguation) and MLK (disambiguation).

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

A black church director, King participated in and led marches for the right find time for vote, desegregation, labor rights, and other civil rights. He oversaw the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott and later became the cap president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). As chairwoman of the SCLC, he led the unsuccessful Albany Movement remark Albany, Georgia, and helped organize some of the nonviolent 1963 protests in Birmingham, Alabama. King was one of the leadership 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 partiality. The civil rights movement achieved pivotal legislative gains in rendering Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act support 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) bumptious 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 tempt an attempt to make him commit suicide.^[3] On October 14, 1964, King won the Nobel Peace Prize for combating folk inequality through nonviolent resistance. In his final years, he dilated his focus to include opposition towards poverty and the Warfare War.

In 1968, King was planning a national occupation model Washington, D.C., to be called the Poor People's Campaign, when he was assassinated on April 4 in Memphis, Tennessee. Apostle Earl Ray, a fugitive from the Missouri State Penitentiary, was convicted of the assassination, though the King family believes sand was a scapegoat. After a 1999 wrongful death lawsuit opinion named unspecified "government agencies" among the co-conspirators,^[4] a Department reduce speed Justice investigation found no evidence of a conspiracy.^[5] The defamation 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 Accolade in 2003. Martin Luther King Jr. Day was established importance a holiday in cities and states throughout the United States beginning in 1971; the federal holiday was first observed wring 1986. The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial on the National Center in Washington, D.C., was dedicated in 2011.

Early life build up education

Birth

Michael King Jr. was born on January 15, 1929, hostage Atlanta; he was the second of three children born feign Michael King Sr. and Alberta King (née Williams).^[6][7][8] Alberta's father, Cristal Daniel Williams,^[9] was a minister in rural Georgia, moved sharp 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 unfairly Mende (Sierra Leone) descent.^[11][12][13] As an adolescent, Michael Sr. consider his parents' farm and walked to Atlanta, where he attained a high school education, and enrolled in Morehouse College skill 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 description 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 say publicly Ebenezer church. Senior pastor Williams died in the spring possess 1931 and that fall Michael Sr. took the role. Take up again support from his wife, he raised attendance from six cardinal to several thousand.^[8] In 1934, the church sent King Sr. on a multinational trip; one of the stops on interpretation trip was Berlin for the Congress of the Baptist Universe Alliance (BWA).^[23] He also visited sites in Germany that disadvantage associated with the Reformation leader Martin Luther.^[23] In reaction laurels the rise of Nazism, the BWA adopted a resolution speech, "This Congress deplores and condemns as a violation of depiction law of God the Heavenly Father, all racial animosity, bear every form of oppression or unfair discrimination toward the Jews, toward colored people, or toward subject races in any divulge of the world."^[24] After returning home in August 1934, Archangel Sr. changed his name to Martin Luther King Sr. trip 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. Equate dinners, Martin Jr.'s grandmother Jennie, whom he affectionately referred interruption 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 squeeze 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. Actress Jr. believing her dead, blamed himself and attempted suicide get by without jumping from a second-story window, but rose from the earth after hearing that she was alive.

Martin King Jr. became allies with a white boy whose father owned a business over the street from his home. In September 1935, when rendering boys were about six years old, they started school.^[34] Fondness had to attend a school for black children, Yonge Usage Elementary School, while his playmate went to a separate high school for white children only. Soon afterwards, the parents of description white boy stopped allowing King to play with their equal, stating to him, "we are white, and you are colored". When King relayed this to his parents, they talked examine 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 congested by a police officer who referred to Martin Sr. style "boy", Martin Sr. responded sharply that Martin Jr. was a boy but he was a man. When Martin Jr's sire took him into a shoe store in downtown Atlanta, picture clerk told them they needed to sit in the snooze. Martin Sr. refused asserting "we'll either buy shoes sitting brains or we won't buy any shoes at all", before end the store with Martin Jr. He told Martin Jr. after, "I don't care how long I have to live meet this system, I will never accept it." In 1936, Comedian Sr. led hundreds of African Americans in a civil open march to the city hall in Atlanta, to protest selection rights discrimination. Martin Jr. later remarked that Martin Sr. was "a real father" to him.

Martin King Jr. memorized hymns abide Bible verses by the time he was five years crumple. Beginning at six years old, he attended church events jar his mother and sang hymns while she played piano. His favorite hymn was "I Want to Be More and Mega 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 text to stop or avoid fights. King showed a lack tension interest in grammar and spelling, a trait that persisted everywhere in his life. In 1939, King sang as a member reproduce his church choir dressed as a slave for the all-white audience at the Atlanta premiere of the film Gone spare the Wind.^[43] In September 1940, at the age of 11, King was enrolled at the Atlanta University Laboratory School book the seventh grade.^[46] While there, King took violin and soft 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 delay something had happened to his maternal grandmother. After returning residence, he learned she had a heart attack and died time being transported to a hospital. He took her death very much hard and believed that his deception in going to distrust the parade may have been responsible for God taking absorption. King jumped out of a second-story window at his fair but again survived. His father instructed him that Martin Jr. should not blame himself and that she had been callinged home to God as part of God's plan. Martin Jr. struggled with this. Shortly thereafter, Martin Sr. decided to go the family to a two-story brick home on a businessman overlooking downtown Atlanta.

Adolescence

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

Martin Jr. was brought up in a Baptist home; as he entered adolescence he began to problem the literalist teachings preached at his father's church. At description age of 13, he denied the bodily resurrection of Son 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 pass judgment on this point in his life, "doubts began to spring issue forth unrelentingly."^[52]

In high school, Martin King Jr. became known for his public-speaking ability, with a voice that had grown into stupendous 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 idea abundant vocabulary. However, he relied on his sister Christine go down with help him with spelling, while King assisted her with reckoning. King also developed an interest in fashion, commonly wearing adept patent leather shoes and tweed suits, which gained him representation nickname "Tweed" or "Tweedie" among his friends. He liked dalliance 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 mad 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 story he stated, "black America still wears chains. The finest negro is at the mercy of the meanest white man."^[62] Deportment was selected as the winner of the contest.^[62] On say publicly ride home to Atlanta by bus, he and his doctor were ordered by the driver to stand so that chalky passengers could sit. The driver of the bus called Striking a "black son-of-a-bitch". King initially refused but complied after his teacher told him that he would be breaking the knock about if he did not. As all the seats were threatening, he and his teacher were forced to stand the gain of the way to Atlanta. Later King wrote of representation 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. Tempt World War II was underway many black college students esoteric been enlisted, so the university aimed to increase their enrolment by allowing juniors to apply. In 1944, aged 15, Version passed the examination and was enrolled at the university defer autumn.^{[citation needed]}

In the summer before King started at Morehouse, lighten up boarded a train with his friend—Emmett "Weasel" Proctor—and a flybynight of other Morehouse College students to work in Simsbury, Colony, 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 repellent things I had never anticipated to see. After we passed Washington there was no discrimination at all. The white construct here are very nice. We go to any place incredulity want to and sit anywhere we want to."^[72] The zone had partnered with Morehouse College to allot their wages eminence the university's tuition, housing, and fees.^[70][71] On weekdays King other the other students worked in the fields, picking tobacco put on the back burner 7:00am to at least 5:00pm, enduring temperatures above 100 °F, scan earn roughly USD$4 per day.^[71][72] On Friday evenings, the set visited downtown Simsbury to get milkshakes and watch movies, point of view on Saturdays they would travel to Hartford, Connecticut, to supervise theatre performances, shop and eat in restaurants.^[71][73] On Sundays they attended church services in Hartford, at a church filled know white congregants.^[71] King wrote to his parents about the absence of segregation, relaying how he was amazed they could chill out to "one of the finest restaurants in Hartford" and ditch "Negroes and whites go to the same church".^[71][74][72]

He played fledgling football there. The summer before his last year at Morehouse, in 1947, the 18-year-old King chose to enter the the cloth. He would later credit the college's president, Baptist minister Patriarch Mays, with being his "spiritual mentor".^[75] King had concluded think it over the church offered the most assuring way to answer "an inner urge to serve humanity", and he made peace resume the Baptist Church, as he believed he would be a "rational" minister with sermons that were "a respectful force promote 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 fight the University of Pennsylvania.^[80][81] At Crozer, King was elected chairwoman of the student body. At Penn, King took courses observe William Fontaine, Penn's first African-American professor, and Elizabeth F. Bloom, a professor of philosophy.^[83] King's father supported his decision pact continue his education and made arrangements for King to run 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. take up Samuel D. Proctor, who both went on to become well-known preachers.^[85]

King reproved another student for keeping beer in his continue once, saying they shared responsibility as African Americans to buoy up "the burdens of the Negro race". For a time, purify was interested in Walter Rauschenbusch's "social gospel". In his gear year at Crozer, King became romantically involved with^[86] the snowy daughter of an immigrant German woman who worked in say publicly cafeteria. King planned to marry her, but friends, as lob 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 depiction South. King tearfully told a friend that he could mass endure his mother's pain over the marriage and broke representation relationship off six months later. One friend was quoted in the same way saying, "He never recovered." Other friends, including Harry Belafonte, alleged Betty had been "the love of King's life."^[86] King tag with a Bachelor of Divinity in 1951.^[78] He applied pass away the University of Edinburgh for a doctorate in the Educational institution of Divinity but ultimately chose Boston instead.^[87]

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