Martin Luther King Jr. was a man of much wisdom for his time. He was born on January 15, 1929 to Alberta and Martin King. Alberta was a school teacher and Martin was a Baptist Minister. King was first born with the name Michael, but later in his childhood his name was changed to Martin. King had a good childhood and learned very good values from his parents.
In 1948 he graduated from Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia. Then in 1951 he graduated from Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania. Through much of his college education he found that Blacks were not treated fairly and he knew from the beginning he wanted to take his skills and put it towards changing that. In 1953 he married Coretta Scott in Marion, Alabama. Together they had four children, Yolanda Denise, Martin Luther, Dexter, and Bernice. They raised the children by teaching them that they were equal and through their childhood they suffered much by being made fun of because of their father.
During 1954 King moved his family to Montgomery so he could preach at his fathers ministry. During this time he was also working on getting more schooling and by 1955 had got his Ph.D. in Systematic Theology. Education was very important to King because he understood very early in life that education was not only the key to success, but it made him more powerful by having such knowledge.
On January 26, 1956 Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested for speeding. He was going 30m.p.h. in a 25m.p.h. zone. Apon being arrested not only did it prove that he was unjustly treated, it also showed that for his willingness to fight was a tremendous uphill battle. Shortly after his arrest, January 30, 1956, his house was bombed. None of his family was hurt in this bombing but it was the first of many signs that people did not like what King was trying to do.
During the Christian Leadership Conference in 1957, King was named first president of the conference. The purpose of the Christian Leadership Conference was to lecture about peacefully changing things to where the African American people of the Untied States had equal rights, which they did not have at this point in time. During his leadership he traveled well over 780,000 miles and delivered over 208 speeches on Black rights. Shortly after his experience with this his first book, Stride Toward Freedom, was published. It expressed his views about how to achieve equal rights. Also during this same year King met with John F. Kennedy to formulate a plan to help create equal rights.
On August 28, 1963 King gave his most famous speech, I Have A Dream at Lincoln Memorial. Out of all his work, this speech is remembered most to have touched the hearts of so many. During 1964 his second book, Why Cant We Wait, was published. About this time King was assaulted by James George Robinson with a knife. March 16 through the 21 he lead a band of 3,200 people, from Selma to Montgomery, in protest for equal voting rights between the Whites and the Blacks.
On April 14, 1968 Martin Luther King Jr. was killed in Memphis, Tennessee by James Earl Ray. Through all the work that he did to try to help the Black people of America, his death spoke the very loudest.
1 -[Martin Luther King]
2 -[Martin Luther King : «J'ai fait un ręve» (1963)]
|