MARTIN LUTHER KING JR

Martin Luther King, Jr."Martin Luther King" and "MLK" redirect here. For other uses, seeMartin Luther King (disambiguation)andMLK (disambiguation).Martin Luther King, Jr.King in 1964BornMichael King, Jr.January 15, 1929Atlanta,Georgia, U.S.DiedApril 4, 1968(aged 39)Memphis, Tennessee, U.S.MonumentsMartin Luther King, Jr. MemorialAlma materMorehouse College(B.A.)Crozer Theological Seminary(B.D.)Boston University(Ph.D.)OccupationClergyman, activistOrganizationSouthern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)Political movementAfrican-American Civil Rights Movement,Peace movementReligionBaptist(Progressive National Baptist Convention)Spouse(s)Coretta Scott King(1953–1968)ChildrenYolanda Denise-King(1955–2007)Martin Luther King III(b. 1957)Dexter Scott King(b. 1961)Bernice Albertine King(b. 1963)ParentsMartin Luther King, Sr.Alberta Williams KingAwardsNobel Peace Prize(1964),Presidential Medal of Freedom(1977, posthumous),Congressional Gold Medal(2004, posthumous)SignatureMartin Luther King, Jr.(January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American clergyman, activist, humanitarian, and leader in theAfrican-American Civil Rights Movement. He is best known for his role in the advancement ofcivil rightsusing nonviolentcivil disobedience. King has become a national icon in the history ofAmerican progressivism.[1]BornMichael King, hisfatherchanged his name in honor ofGermanreformerMartin Luther. ABaptistminister, King became a civil rights activist early in his career. He led the 1955Montgomery Bus Boycottand helped found theSouthern Christian Leadership Conference(SCLC) in 1957, serving as its first president. With the SCLC, King led an unsuccessful struggleagainst segregation inAlbany, Georgia, in 1962,and organized nonviolent protests inBirmingham, Alabama, that attracted national attention following television news coverage of the brutal police response. King also helped to organize the 1963March on Washington, wherehe delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech. There, he established his reputation as one of the greatest orators in American history. He also established his reputation as a radical, and became an object of theFederal Bureau of Investigation'sCOINTELPROfor the rest of his life. FBI agents investigated him for possiblecommunistties, recorded his extramarital liaisons and reported on them to government officials, and on one occasion, mailed King a threatening anonymous letter that he interpreted as an attempt to make him commit suicide.On October 14, 1964, King received theNobel Peace Prizefor combating racial inequality throughnonviolence. In 1965, he and the SCLC helped to organize theSelma to Montgomery marchesand the following year, he took the movement north toChicago. In the final years of his life, King expanded his focus to includepovertyand theVietnam War, alienating many of his liberal allies with a 1967 speech titled "Beyond Vietnam". In 1968 King was planning a national occupation of Washington, D.C., to be called thePoor People's Campaign, when he wasassassinatedon April 4, inMemphis, Tennessee. His death was followed byriots in many U.S. cities. Allegations thatJames Earl Ray, the man convicted of killing King, had been framed or acted in concert with government agents persisted for decades after the shooting,and the jury of a 1999 civil trial foundLoyd Jowersto be complicit in a conspiracy against King.King was awarded thePresidential Medal of Freedomand theCongressional Gold Medalposthumously.Martin Luther King, Jr. Daywas established as aU.S. federal holidayin 1986.Hundreds of streetsin the U.S. have been renamed in his honor. Amemorial statueon theNational Mallwas opened to the public in 2011.Early life and educationKing's high school alma mater was named afterAfrican-American scholarBooker T. WashingtonMartin Luther King, Jr. was born on January 15, 1929, inAtlanta, Georgia, to ReverendMartin Luther King, Sr.andAlberta Williams King.[2]His legal name at birth was "Michael King".[3]King's father was also bornMichael King. The father "changed" both names on his own during a 1934 trip toNazi Germanyto attend theFifth Baptist World Alliance CongressinBerlin. It wasduring this time he chose to be called Martin Luther King in honor of the great German reformerMartin Luther.[4]Martin, Jr., was a middle child, between an older sister,Willie Christine King, and a younger brother,Alfred Daniel Williams King.[5]King sang with his church choir at the 1939 Atlanta premiere of the movieGone with the Wind.[6]King was originally skeptical of many of Christianity's claims.[7]At the age of thirteen, he denied thebodily resurrection of JesusduringSunday school. From this point, he stated, "doubts began to spring forth unrelentingly".[8]However, he later concludedthat the Bible has "many profound truths which one cannot escape" and decided to enter theseminary.[7]Growing up in Atlanta, King attendedBooker T. Washington High School. A precocious student, he skipped both the ninth and the twelfth grades and enteredMorehouse Collegeat age fifteen without formally graduating from high school.[9]In 1948, he graduated from Morehouse with aB.A.degree insociology, and enrolled inCrozer Theological SeminaryinChester, Pennsylvania, from which he graduated with aB.Div.degree in 1951.[10][11]King marriedCoretta Scott, on June 18, 1953, on the lawn of her parents' house in her hometown ofHeiberger, Alabama.[12]They became the parents of four children:Yolanda King,Martin Luther King III,Dexter Scott King, andBernice King.[13]During their marriage, King limited Coretta's role in the civil rights movement, and expected her to be a housewife.[14]King became pastor of theDexter Avenue Baptist ChurchinMontgomery, Alabama, when he was twenty-five years old, in 1954.[15]Kingthen began doctoral studies insystematic theologyatBoston Universityand received hisPh.D.degree on June 5, 1955, with adissertationon "A Comparison of the Conceptions of God in the Thinking ofPaul TillichandHenry Nelson Wieman". An academicinquiry concluded in October 1991 that portionsof his dissertation had beenplagiarizedand he had acted improperly, but that his dissertation still "makes an intelligent contribution to scholarship"; the committee recommended thathis degree not be revoked.[16]Ideas, influences, and political stancesReligionAs aChristianminister, Martin Luther King's main influence wasJesus Christand the Christian gospels, which he would almost alwaysquote in his religious meetings and speeches at church; but also in public discourses. King's faithwas strongly based in Jesus' commandment ofloving your neighbor as yourself, loving God above all, and loving your enemies, praying for them and blessing them. Hisnon-violentthought was also based in the injuction toturn the other cheekin theSermon on the Mount, and Jesus' teaching of "putting your sword back into its place" (Matthew 26:52).[17]In hisLetter from Birmingham Jail, King urges action consistent with what he describes as Jesus'"extremist" love, and also quotes numerous otherChristian pacifistauthors, which was very usual for him. In his speechI've Been to the Mountaintop, he states he just wanted to doGod's will.Non-violenceKing at a Civil Rights March on Washington, D.C.Inspired byMahatma Gandhi's success with non-violent activism, King had "for a long time...wanted to take a trip to India".[18]With assistance from theQuakergroup theAmerican Friends Service Committee, he was able to make the journey in April 1959.[19]The trip toIndia affected King, deepening his understanding ofnon-violent resistanceand his commitment to America's struggle for civil rights. In a radio address made during his final evening in India, King reflected, "Since being in India, I am more convinced than ever before that the method of nonviolent resistance is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for justice and human dignity".King's admiration of Gandhi's non-violence did not diminish in later years, he went so far as to hold up his example when receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, hailing the "successful precedent" of using non-violence "in a magnificent way by Mohandas K. Gandhi to Challenge the might of the British Empire...He struggled only with the weapons of truth, soul force, non-injury and courage."[20]Gandhi seemed to have influenced him with certain moral principles,[21]though Gandhi himself had been influenced byThe Kingdom ofGod Is Within You, a nonviolent classic written by Christian anarchistLeo Tolstoy. In turn, both Gandhi and Martin Luther King had read Tolstoy. King quoted Tolstoy'sWar and Peacein 1959.[22]All three men—Tolstoy, Gandhi, andKing—had been influenced by Jesus' teachings on non-resistance to evil force.Another influence for King's non-violent method wasThoreau's essayOn Civil Disobedience, which King read in his student days influenced by the idea of refusing to cooperate with an evil system.[23]He also wasgreatly influenced by the works of Protestant theologiansReinhold NiebuhrandPaul Tillich,[24]as well asWalter Rauschenbusch'sChristianity and the Social Crisis. In his later career, King use the concept of "agape" (Christian brotherly love), which may have represented an influence ofPaul Ramsey.[25]African-American civil rights activistBayard Rustinhad studied Gandhi's teachings,[26]and Jesus' teachings at the SCLC. Rustin counseled King to dedicate himself to the principles of non-violence,[27]served as King's main advisor and mentor throughout his early activism,[28]and was the main organizer of the 1963 March on Washington.[29]Rustin's open homosexuality, support ofdemocratic socialism, and his former ties to theCommunist Party USAcaused many white and African-American leaders to demand King distance himself from Rustin,[30]which King agreed to do.[31]PoliticsAs the leader of the SCLC, King maintained a policy of not publicly endorsing a U.S. political party or candidate: "I feel someone must remain in the position of non-alignment, so thathe can look objectively at both parties and be the conscience of both—not the servant or master of either."[32]In a 1958 interview, he expressed his view that neither party was perfect, saying, "I don't think the Republican party is a party full of the almighty God nor is the Democratic party. They both have weaknesses ... And I'm not inextricably bound to either party."[33]King critiqued both parties' performance on promoting racial equality:Actually, the Negro has been betrayed by both the Republican and the Democratic party. The Democrats have betrayed him by capitulating tothe whims and caprices of the Southern Dixiecrats. The Republicans have betrayed him by capitulating to the blatant hypocrisy of reactionary right wing northern Republicans. And this coalition of southern Dixiecrats and right wing reactionary northern Republicans defeats every bill and every move towards liberal legislation in the area of civil rights.[34]Although King never publicly supported a political party or candidate for president, in a letter to a civil rights supporter in October 1956he said that he was undecided as to whether he would vote forAdlai StevensonorDwight Eisenhower, but that "In the past I always votedthe Democratic ticket."[35]In his autobiography, King says that in 1960 he privately voted for Democratic candidateJohn F.Kennedy: "I felt that Kennedy would make the best president. I never came out with an endorsement. My father did, but I never made one." King adds that he likely would have made an exception to his non-endorsement policy for a second Kennedy term, saying "Had President Kennedy lived, I would probably have endorsed him in 1964."[36]CompensationKing stated that black Americans, as well as other disadvantaged Americans, should be compensated for historical wrongs. In an interview conducted forPlayboyin 1965, he said that granting black Americans only equality could not realistically close the economic gap between them and whites. King said that he did not seek a full restitution of wages lost to slavery, which he believed impossible, but proposed a government compensatory programof $50 billion over ten years to all disadvantaged groups.[37]He posited that "the money spent would be more than amply justified by the benefits that would accrue to the nation through a spectacular decline in school dropouts, family breakups, crime rates, illegitimacy, swollen relief rolls, rioting and other social evils".[38]He presented this idea as an application of thecommon lawregarding settlement of unpaid labor, but clarified that he felt that the money should not be spent exclusively on blacks. He stated, "It should benefit the disadvantaged ofallraces".[39]Montgomery Bus Boycott, 1955Main articles:Montgomery Bus BoycottandJim Crow laws#Public arenaRosa Parkswith King, 1955In March 1955, a fifteen-year-old school girl in Montgomery,Claudette Colvin, refused to give up her bus seat to a white man in compliance withJim Crow laws, laws in the US South that enforcedracial segregation. King was on the committee from the Birmingham African-American community that looked into the case; because Colvin was pregnant and unmarried,E.D. NixonandClifford Durrdecided to wait for a better case to pursue.[40]On December 1, 1955,Rosa Parkswas arrested for refusing to give up her seat.[41]The Montgomery Bus Boycott, urged and planned byNixon and led by King, soon followed.[42]The boycott lasted for 385 days,[43]and the situation became so tense that King's house wasbombed.[44]King was arrested during this campaign, which concluded with a United States District Court ruling inBrowder v. Gaylethat ended racial segregation on all Montgomery public buses.[45][46]King's role in the bus boycott transformed him into a national figure and the best-known spokesman of the civil rights movement.[47]Southern Christian Leadership ConferenceIn 1957, King,Ralph Abernathy,Fred Shuttlesworth,Joseph Lowery, and other civil rights activists founded theSouthern Christian Leadership Conference(SCLC). The group was created to harness themoral authorityand organizing power of black churches to conduct non-violent protests in the service of civil rightsreform. King led the SCLC until his death.[48]On September 20, 1958, while signing copies ofhis bookStride Toward Freedomin Blumstein's department store in Harlem,[49]King narrowly escaped death whenIzola Curry, a mentally ill black woman who believed he was conspiring against her with communists, stabbed him in the chest with a letter opener. After emergency surgery, King was hospitalized for several weeks, while Curry was found mentally incompetent to stand trial.[50][51]In 1959, he published a short book calledThe Measure of A Man, which contained his sermons "What is Man?" and "The Dimensions of a Complete Life". The sermons argued for man's need for God's love and criticized the racial injustices of Western civilization.[52]Harry Wachtel who joined King's legal advisor Clarence B. Jones in defending four ministers ofthe SCLC in a libel suit over a newspaper advertisement (New York Times Co. v. Sullivan)founded a tax-exempt fund to cover the expenses of the suit and to assist the nonviolentcivil rights movement through a more effective means of fundraising. This organization was named the "Gandhi Society for Human Rights". King served as honorary president for the group. Displeased with the pace of President Kennedy's addressing the issue of segregation, King and the Gandhi Society produced a document in 1962 calling on the President to follow in the footsteps ofAbraham Lincolnand use an Executive Order to deliver a blow for Civil Rights as a kind ofSecond Emancipation Proclamation- Kennedy did not execute the order.[53]Lyndon JohnsonandRobert Kennedywith Civil Rights leaders, June 22, 1963TheFBI, under written directive from Attorney GeneralRobert F. Kennedy, begantappingKing's telephone in the fall of 1963.[54]