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The Seattle Times Martin Luther King, Jr. Page

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The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Home Page
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The MCCSC Home Page

Biography about Martin Luther King, Jr.

  One of the world's best known advocates of non-violent social change
     strategies, Martin Luther King, Jr., synthesized ideas drawn from many
     different cultural traditions. Born in Atlanta on January 15, 1929,
     King's roots were in the African-American Baptist church. He was the
     grandson of the Rev. A. D. Williams, pastor of Ebenezer Baptist church
     and a founder of Atlanta's NAACP chapter, and the son of Martin Luther
     King, Sr., who succeeded Williams as Ebenezer's pastor and also became
     a civil rights leader. Although, from an early age, King resented
     religious emotionalism and questioned literal interpretations of
     scripture, he nevertheless greatly admired black social gospel
     proponents such as his father who saw the church as a instrument for
     improving the lives of African Americans. Morehouse College president
     Benjamin Mays and other proponents of Christian social activism
     influenced King's decision after his junior year at Morehouse to become
     a minister and thereby serve society. His continued skepticism,
     however, shaped his subsequent theological studies at Crozer
     Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania, and at Boston
     University, where he received a doctorate in systematic theology in
     1955. Rejecting offers for academic positions, King decided while
     completing his Ph. D. requirements to return to the South and accepted
     the pastorate of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama.
     On December 5, 1955, five days after Montgomery civil rights activist
     Rosa Parks refused to obey the city's rules mandating segregation on
     buses, black residents launched a bus boycott and elected King as
     president of the newly-formed Montgomery Improvement Association. As
     the boycott continued during 1956, King gained national prominence as a
     result of his exceptional oratorical skills and personal courage. His
     house was bombed and he was convicted along with other boycott leaders
     on charges of conspiring to interfere with the bus company's
     operations. Despite these attempts to suppress the movement, Montgomery
     bus were desegregated in December, 1956, after the United States
     Supreme Court declared Alabama's segregation laws unconstitutional.
     In 1957, seeking to build upon the success of the Montgomery boycott
     movement, King and other southern black ministers founded the Southern
     Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). As SCLC's president, King
     emphasized the goal of black voting rights when he spoke at the Lincoln
     Memorial during the 1957 Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom. During 1958, he
     published his first book, Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story.
     The following year, he toured India, increased his understanding of
     Gandhian non-violent strategies. At the end of 1959, he resigned from
     Dexter and returned to Atlanta where the SCLC headquarters was located
     and where he also could assist his father as pastor of Ebenezer.
     Although increasingly portrayed as the pre-eminent black spokesperson,
     King did not mobilize mass protest activity during the first five years
     after the Montgomery boycott ended. While King moved cautiously,
     southern black college students took the initiative, launching a wave
     of sit-in protests during the winter and spring of 1960. King
     sympathized with the student movement and spoke at the founding meeting
     of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in April 1960,
     but he soon became the target of criticisms from SNCC activists
     determined to assert their independence. Even King's decision in
     October, 1960, to join a student sit-in in Atlanta did not allay the
     tensions, although presidential candidate John F. Kennedy's sympathetic
     telephone call to King's wife, Coretta Scott King, helped attract
     crucial black support for Kennedy's successful campaign. The 1961
     "Freedom Rides," which sought to integrate southern transportation
     facilities, demonstrated that neither King nor Kennedy could control
     the expanding protest movement spearheaded by students. Conflicts
     between King and younger militants were also evident when both SCLC and
     SNCC assisted the Albany (Georgia) Movement's campaign of mass protests
     during December of 1961 and the summer of 1962.
     After achieving few of his objectives in Albany, King recognized the
     need to organize a successful protest campaign free of conflicts with
     SNCC. During the spring of 1963, he and his staff guided mass
     demonstrations in Birmingham, Alabama, where local white police
     officials were known from their anti-black attitudes. Clashes between
     black demonstrators and police using police dogs and fire hoses
     generated newspaper headlines through the world. In June, President
     Kennedy reacted to the Birmingham protests and the obstinacy of
     segregationist Alabama Governor George Wallace by agreed to submit
     broad civil rights legislation to Congress (which eventually passed the
     Civil Rights Act of 1964). Subsequent mass demonstrations in many
     communities culminated in a march on August 28, 1963, that attracted
     more than 250,000 protesters to Washington, D. C. Addressing the
     marchers from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, King delivered his
     famous "I Have a Dream" oration.
     During the year following the March, King's renown grew as he became
     Time magazine's Man of the Year and, in December 1964, the recipient of
     the Nobel Peace Prize. Despite fame and accolades, however, King faced
     many challenges to his leadership. Malcolm X's (1927-1965) message of
     self-defense and black nationalism expressed the discontent and anger
     of northern, urban blacks more effectively than did King's moderation.
     During the 1965 Selma to Montgomery march, King and his lieutenants
     were able to keep intra-movement conflicts sufficiently under control
     to bring about passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, but while
     participating in a 1966 march through Mississippi, King encountered
     strong criticism from "Black Power" proponent Stokely Carmichael.
     Shortly afterward white counter-protesters in the Chicago area
     physically assaulted King in the Chicago area during an unsuccessful
     effort to transfer non-violent protest techniques to the urban North.
     Despite these leadership conflicts, King remained committed to the use
     of non-violent techniques. Early in 1968, he initiated a Poor Peoples
     campaign designed to confront economic problems that had not been
     addressed by early civil rights reforms.

     King's effectiveness in achieving his objectives was limited not merely
     by divisions among blacks, however, but also by the increasing
     resistance he encountered from national political leaders. FBI director
     J. Edgar Hoover's already extensive efforts to undermine King's
     leadership were intensified during 1967 as urban racial violence
     escalated and King criticized American intervention in the Vietnam war.
     King had lost the support of many white liberals, and his relations
     with the Lyndon Johnson administration were at a low point when he was
     assassinated on April 4, 1968, while seeking to assist a garbage
     workers' strike in Memphis. After his death, King remained a
     controversial symbol of the African-American civil rights struggle,
     revered by many for his martyrdom on behalf of non-violence and
     condemned by others for his militancy and insurgent views.

1929  January 15. Michael Luther King Jr., later renamed
                  Martin, born to schoolteacher Alberta King and Baptist
                  minister Michael Luther King. Boyhood in Sweet Auburn
                  district.
            1948  King graduates from Morehouse College in Atlanta, Ga.
                  with a B.A.
            1951  Graduates with a B.D. from Crozer Theological Seminary
                  in Chester, Pa.
            1953  June 18. King marries Coretta Scott in Marion, Ala..
                  They will have four children: Yolanda Denise (b.1955),
                  Martin Luther King III (b.1957), Dexter (b.1961),
                  Bernice Albertine (b.1963).
            1954  September. King moves to Montgomery, Ala. to preach at
                  Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.
            1955  After coursework at New England colleges, King
                  finishes his Ph.D.in systematic theology.
            1956  January 26. King is arrested for driving 30 m.p.h.in a
                  25 m.p.h. zone.
                  January 30. King's house bombed.
            1957  January. Black ministers form what became known as the
                  Southern Christian Leadership Conference. King is
                  named first president one month later.
                  In this typical year of demonstrations, King traveled
                  780,000 miles and made 208 speeches.
            1958  King's first book published, Stride Toward Freedom
                  (Harper), his recollections of the Montgomery bus
                  boycott. While King is promoting his book in a Harlem
                  book store, an African American woman stabs him.
            1959  King visits India. He had a lifelong admiration for
                  Mohandas K. Gandhi, and credited Gandhi's passive
                  resistance techniques for his civil-rights successes.
            1960  King leaves for Atlanta to pastor his father's church,
                  Ebenezer Baptist Church.*
            1962  King meets with President John F. Kennedy to urge
                  support for civil rights.
            1963  King leads protests in Birmingham for desegregated
                  department store facilities, and fair hiring.
                  April. Arrested after demonstrating in defiance of a
                  court order, King writes "Letter From Birmingham
                  Jail." This eloquent letter, later widely circulated,
                  became a classic of the civil-rights movement.
                  August 28. 250,000 civil-rights supporters attended
                  the March on Washington.* At the Lincoln Memorial,
                  King delivers the famous "I have a dream" speech.
            1964  King's book published: Why We Can't Wait .
                  King visits with West Berlin Mayor Willy Brant and
                  Pope Paul VI.
                  December 10. King wins Nobel Peace Prize.
            1965  January 18. King successfully registers to vote at the
                  Hotel Albert in Selma, Ala. and is assaulted by James
                  George Robinson of Birmingham.
                  February. King continues to protest discrimination in
                  voter registration, is arrested and jailed. Meets with
                  President Lyndon B. Johnson Feb. 9 and other American
                  leaders about voting rights for African Americans.
                  March 16-21. King and 3,200 people march from Selma to
                  Montgomery.
            1968  April 4. King is assassinated in Memphis, Tenn. by
                  James Earl Ray.
            1986  January 20 is the first national celebration of King's
                  birthday as a holiday.

The "I Have a Dream" Speech

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand
signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great
beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the
flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long
night of captivity.

But one hundred years later, we must face the tragic fact that the Negro is
still not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still
sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of
discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island
of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred
years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American
society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here
today to dramatize an appalling condition.

In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the
architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution
and the declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to
which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men
would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit
of happiness.

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note
insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this
sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check which has
come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the
bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are
insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we
have come to cash this check -- a check that will give us upon demand the
riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this
hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no
time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing
drug of gradualism. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate
valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time
to open the doors of opportunity to all of God's children. Now is the time
to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock
of brotherhood.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment and
to underestimate the determination of the Negro. This sweltering summer of
the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an
invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an
end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam
and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to
business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America
until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt
will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of
justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm
threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining
our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek
to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and
hatred.

We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and
discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into
physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of
meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which
has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to distrust of all white
people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here
today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny
and their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk
alone.

And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall march ahead. We cannot
turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights,
"When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as our
bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels
of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long
as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We
can never be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a
Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are
not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like
waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and
tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow cells. Some of you
have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the
storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You
have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the
faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to Georgia, go back to
Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing
that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in
the valley of despair.

I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and
frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply
rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true
meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men
are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former
slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together
at a table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state,
sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed
into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where
they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of
their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose governor's lips are
presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will
be transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will
be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk
together as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and
mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the
crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be
revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the South. With
this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of
hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of
our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will
be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to
jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be
free one day.

This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a
new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I
sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every
mountainside, let freedom ring."

And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom
ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from
the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening
Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous peaks of California!

But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!

Let freedom ring from every hill and every molehill of Mississippi. From
every mountainside, let freedom ring.

When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village 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! thank God Almighty,
we are free at last!"

I hope you enjoyed looking at the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. I hope that the timeline and other information on this page helped you learn about the historic achievements of Martin Luther King, Jr. Thank you for looking at my page.