Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Born as Michael King Jr. on January 15, 1929, King was the middle child of Michael King Sr. and Alberta Williams King. The King and Williams families’ roots were in rural Georgia. Alberta’s father was a rural minister for years and then moved to Atlanta in 1893. He took over the small, struggling Ebenezer Baptist church with around 13 members and made it into a forceful congregation. Michael Sr. came from a sharecropper family in a poor farming community. He married Alberta in 1926 after eight years of dating.

Michael King Sr. stepped in as pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church upon the death of his father-in-law in 1931. He too became a successful minister. Following a 1934 trip to Germany to attend the Fifth Baptist World Alliance Congress in Berlin, Michael Sr. adopted the name Martin Luther King Sr. in honor of the German Protestant religious leader Martin Luther. Michael Jr. followed his father's lead and adopt the name himself.

Martin Sr. was more the disciplinarian, while his wife's gentleness easily balanced out the father's more strict hand. Though they tried, Martin Jr.’s parents couldn’t shield him completely from racism. Martin Luther King Sr. fought against racial prejudice, not just because his race suffered, but because he considered racism and segregation to be an affront to God's will. He strongly discouraged any sense of class superiority in his children.

Martin Jr. attended Booker T. Washington High School, where he was said to be an advanced student. He skipped both the ninth and eleventh grades, and entered Morehouse College in Atlanta at age 15, in 1944. Martin was a popular student, especially with his female classmates, but an unmotivated student who floated though his first two years. Although his family was deeply involved in the church and worship, young Martin questioned religion in general and felt uncomfortable with overly emotional displays of religious worship. This discomfort continued through much of his adolescence, initially leading him to decide against entering the ministry, disappointing his father. But in his junior year, Martin took a Bible class, renewed his faith and began to envision a career in the ministry. In the fall of his senior year, he told his father of his decision.

In 1948, Martin Luther King, Jr. earned a sociology degree from Morehouse College and attended the liberal Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania. He was elected student body president and valedictorian of his class in 1951. King also earned a fellowship for graduate study. But he also rebelled against his father’s more conservative influence by drinking beer and playing pool while at college. He became involved with a white woman and went through a difficult time before he could break it off.

During his last year in seminary, Martin Luther King Jr. came under the guidance of Morehouse College President Benjamin E. Mays who influenced King’s spiritual development. Mays was an outspoken advocate for racial equality and encouraged King to view Christianity as a potential force for social change. After being accepted at several colleges for his doctoral study, including Yale and Edinburgh in Scotland, King enrolled in Boston University.

During the work on this doctorate, Martin Luther King Jr. met Coretta Scott, an aspiring singer and musician, at the New England Conservatory School in Boston. They were married in June 1953 and had four children, Yolanda, Martin Luther King III, Dexter Scott and Bernice. In 1954, while still working on his dissertation, King became pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church of Montgomery, Alabama. He completed his Ph.D. and was award his degree in 1955.

On March 2, 1955, a 15-year-old girl refused to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery city bus in violation of local law. Claudette Colvin was arrested and taken to jail. At first, the local chapter of the NAACP felt they had an excellent test case to challenge Montgomery's segregated bus policy. But then it was revealed that she was pregnant and civil rights leaders feared this would scandalize the deeply religious black community and make Colvin (and, thus the group's efforts) less credible in the eyes of sympathetic whites.

On December 1, 1955, they got another chance to make their case. That evening, 42-year-old Rosa Parks was arrested and booked for violating the Montgomery City bus code. On the night that Rosa Parks was arrested, E.D. Nixon, head of the local NAACP chapter met with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other local civil rights leaders to plan a citywide bus boycott. Dr. King was elected to lead the boycott because he was young, well-trained with solid family connections and had professional standing. But he was also new to the community and had few enemies, so it was felt he would have strong credibility with the black community.

In his first speech as the group's president, Dr. King stated, "We have no alternative but to protest. For many years we have shown an amazing patience. We have sometimes given our white brothers the feeling that we liked the way we were being treated. But we come here tonight to be saved from that patience that makes us patient with anything less than freedom and justice."

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. put a new energy into the civil rights struggle in Alabama. The bus boycott would be 382 days of walking to work, harassment, violence and intimidation for the Montgomery's African-American community. Both Dr. King's and E.D. Nixon's homes were attacked. But the African American community also took legal action against the city ordinance arguing that it was unconstitutional based on the Supreme Court's "separate is never equal" decision in “Brown v. Board of Education”. After being defeated in several lower court rulings and suffering large financial losses, the city of Montgomery lifted the law mandating segregated

African American civil rights leaders recognized the need for a national organization to help coordinate their efforts. In January 1957, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Ralph Abernathy, and 60 ministers and civil rights activists founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to harness the moral authority and organize power of black churches. They would help conduct non-violent protests to promote civil rights reform. Dr. King's participation in the organization gave him a base of operation throughout the South, as well as a national platform. The organization felt the best place to start to give African Americans a voice was to enfranchise them in the voting process. In February 1958, the SCLC sponsored more than 20 mass meetings in key southern cities to register black voters in the South. Dr. King met with religious and civil rights leaders and lectured all over the country on race-related issues.

In 1959, inspired by Gandhi's success with non-violent activism, Dr. Martin Luther King visited Gandhi's birthplace in India. The trip affected him in a deeply profound way, increasing his commitment to America's civil rights struggle. Bayard Rustin, who had studied Gandhi's teachings, became one of Dr. King's associates and counseled him to dedicate himself to the principles of non-violence. Rustin served as Dr. King's mentor and advisor throughout his early activism and was the main organizer of the 1963 March on Washington. But Rustin was also a controversial figure at the time, being a homosexual. Though his counsel was invaluable to Dr. King, many of his other supporters urged him to distance himself from Rustin.

In February 1960, a group of African American students began what became known as the "sit-in" movement in Greensboro, North Carolina. The students would sit at racially segregated lunch counters in the city's stores. When asked to leave or sit in the colored section, they just remained seated, subjecting themselves to verbal and sometimes physical abuse. The movement quickly gained traction in several other cities. In April 1960, the SCLC held a conference at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina with local sit-in leaders. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. encouraged students to continue to use nonviolent methods during their protests. Out of this meeting, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee formed and for a time, worked closely with the SCLC. By August of 1960, the sit-ins had been successful in ending segregation at lunch counters in 27 southern cities.

By 1960, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was gaining national notoriety. He returned to Atlanta to become co-pastor with his father at Ebenezer Baptist Church, but also continued his civil rights efforts. On October 19, 1960, Dr. King and 75 students entered a local department store and requested lunch-counter service but were denied. When they refused to leave the counter area, Dr. King and 36 others were arrested. Realizing the incident would hurt the city's reputation, Atlanta's mayor negotiated a truce and charges were eventually dropped. But soon after, Dr. King was imprisoned for violating his probation on a traffic conviction. The news of his imprisonment entered the 1960 presidential campaign, when candidate John F. Kennedy made a phone call to Coretta Scott King. Kennedy expressed his concern for Dr. King's harsh treatment for the traffic ticket and political pressure was quickly set in motion. Dr. King was soon released.

In the spring of 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. organized a demonstration in downtown Birmingham, Alabama. Entire families attended. City police turned dogs and fire hoses on demonstrators. Dr. King was jailed along with large numbers of his supporters, but the event drew nationwide attention. However, he was criticized by black and white clergy alike for taking risks and endangering the children who attended the demonstration. From the jail in Birmingham, Dr. King spelled out his theory of non-violence: "Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community, which has constantly refused to negotiate, is forced to confront the issue."

By the end of the Birmingham campaign, Dr. King and his supporters were making plans for a massive demonstration on the nation's capital composed of multiple organizations, all asking for peaceful change. On August 28, 1963, the March on Washington drew more than 200,000 people in the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial. It was here that Dr. King made his famous "I Have a Dream" speech, emphasizing his belief that someday all men could be brothers.

The rising tide of civil rights agitation produced a strong effect on public opinion. Many people in cities not experiencing racial tension began to question the nation's Jim Crow laws and the near the second class treatment of African American citizens. This resulted in the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 authorizing the federal government to enforce desegregation of public accommodations and outlawing discrimination in publicly owned facilities. This also led to Dr. King receiving the Nobel Peace Prize for 1964.

Dr. King's struggle continued throughout the 1960s. On March 7, 1965, a civil rights march, planned from Selma to Alabama's capital in Montgomery, turned violent as police with nightsticks and tear gas met the demonstrators as they tried to cross the Edmond Pettus Bridge. Dr. King was not in the march, however the attack was televised showing horrifying images of marchers being bloodied and severely injured. Seventeen demonstrators were hospitalized leading to the naming the event "Bloody Sunday." A second march was cancelled due to a restraining order to prevent the march from taking place. A third march was planned and this time Dr. King made sure he was on it. Not wanting to alienate southern judges by violating the restraining order, a different tact was taken. On March 9, 1965, a procession of 2,500 marchers, both black and white, set out once again to cross the Pettus Bridge and confronted barricades and state troopers. Instead of forcing a confrontation, Dr. King led his followers to kneel in prayer and they then turned back. The event caused him the loss of support among some younger African American leaders, but it nonetheless aroused support for the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

From late 1965 through 1967, Dr. King expanded his Civil Rights Movement into other larger American cities, including Chicago and Los Angeles. But he was met with increasing criticism and public challenges from young black-power leaders. Dr. King's patient, non-violent approach and appeal to white middle-class citizens alienated many black militants who considered his methods too weak and too late. In their eyes, Dr. King's manner was foolishly passive and ineffective. To address this criticism, Dr. King began making a link between discrimination and poverty. He expanded his civil rights efforts to the Vietnam War. He felt that America's involvement in Vietnam was politically untenable and the government's conduct of the war discriminatory to the poor. He sought to broaden his base by forming a multi-race coalition to address economic and unemployment problems of all disadvantaged people.

By 1968, the years of demonstrations and confrontations were beginning to wear on Dr. King. He had grown tired of marches, going to jail, and living under the constant threat of death. Plans were in the works for another march on Washington to revive his movement and bring attention to a widening range of issues. In the spring of 1968, a labor strike by Memphis sanitation workers drew Dr. King to one last crusade. On April 3, he told supporters, "I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight that we, as a people, will get to the promised land." The next day, while standing on a balcony outside his room at the Lorraine Motel, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was struck by a sniper's bullet. The shooter, a drifter and former convict named James Earl Ray, was eventually apprehended after a two-month, international manhunt. The killing sparked riots and demonstrations in more than 100 cities across the country. In 1969, Ray pleaded guilty to assassinating Dr. King and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. He died in prison on April 23, 1998.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s life had a huge impact on race relations in the United States. Years after his death, he is the most widely known African American leader of his era. His life and work have been honored with a national holiday, schools and public buildings named after him, and a memorial on Independence Mall in Washington, D.C. Dr. King was a visionary leader who was deeply committed to achieving social justice through nonviolent means.

“When we allow freedom to ring-when we let it ring from every city and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, ‘Free at last, Free at last, Great God a-mighty, We are free at last.’”