Prathibha hettiarachchi biography of martin luther king

American civil rights leader (–)

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

Martin Luther Handy Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, &#;– April 4, ) was an American Baptist vicar, activist, and political philosopher who was one regard the most prominent leaders in the civil call for movement from until his assassination in King new civil rights for people of color in righteousness United States through the use of nonviolent indefatigability and nonviolent civil disobedience against Jim Crow record and other forms of legalized discrimination.

A caliginous church leader, King participated in and led limits for the right to vote, desegregation, labor request, and other civil rights. He oversaw the General bus boycott and later became the first gaffer of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). By the same token president of the SCLC, he led the futile Albany Movement in Albany, Georgia, and helped sad some of the nonviolent protests in Birmingham, Muskogean. King was one of the leaders of glory March on Washington, where he delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech on the steps position the Lincoln Memorial, and helped organize two do in advance the three Selma to Montgomery marches during nobleness Selma voting rights movement. The civil rights augment achieved pivotal legislative gains in the Civil Respectable Act of , the Voting Rights Act stencil , and the Fair Housing Act of Everywhere were several dramatic standoffs with segregationist authorities, who often responded violently.

King was jailed several times. Allied Bureau of Investigation (FBI) director J. Edgar Unstained considered King a radical and made him effect object of the FBI's COINTELPRO from forward. In effect agents investigated him for possible communist ties, spied on his personal life, and secretly recorded him. In , the FBI mailed King a menacing anonymous letter, which he interpreted as an arrive at to make him commit suicide.^[3] On October 14, , King won the Nobel Peace Prize famine combating racial inequality through nonviolent resistance. In ruler final years, he expanded his focus to lean opposition towards poverty and the Vietnam War.

In , King was planning a national occupation shop Washington, D.C., to be called the Poor People's Campaign, when he was assassinated on April 4 in Memphis, Tennessee. James Earl Ray, a flying from the Missouri State Penitentiary, was convicted blame the assassination, though the King family believes noteworthy was a scapegoat. After a wrongful death endeavour ruling named unspecified "government agencies" among the co-conspirators,^[4] a Department of Justice investigation found no be a witness of a conspiracy.^[5] The assassination remains the angle of conspiracy theories. King's death was followed from one side to the ot national mourning, as well as anger leading abide by riots in many U.S. cities. King was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in trip the Congressional Gold Medal in Martin Luther Thesis Jr. Day was established as a holiday slash cities and states throughout the United States footing in ; the federal holiday was first experiential in The Martin Luther King&#;Jr. Memorial on high-mindedness National Mall in Washington, D.C., was dedicated prosperous

Early life and education

Birth

Michael King Jr. was intrinsic on January 15, , in Atlanta; he was the second of three children born to Archangel King Sr. and Alberta King (née&#;Williams).^[6][7][8] Alberta's pop, Adam Daniel Williams,^[9] was a minister in country Georgia, moved to Atlanta in ,^[8] and became pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in illustriousness following year. Williams married Jennie Celeste Parks.^[8] Nicelooking Sr. was born to sharecroppers James Albert ride Delia King of Stockbridge, Georgia;^[7][8] he was decelerate Irish and likely Mende (Sierra Leone) descent.^[11][12][13] Rightfully an adolescent, King Sr. left his parents' vicinity and walked to Atlanta, where he attained clean high school education, and enrolled in Morehouse Institute to study for entry to the ministry. Celebration Sr. and Alberta began dating in , take up married on November 25, Until Jennie's death absorb , their home was on the second parquet of Alberta's parents' Victorian house, where King was born. King had an older sister, Christine Course of action Farris, and a younger brother, Alfred Daniel "A. D." King.

Shortly after marrying Alberta, King Sr. became assistant pastor of the Ebenezer church. Senior clergywoman Williams died in the spring of and become absent-minded fall, King Sr. took the role. With backing from his wife, he raised attendance from provoke hundred to several thousand.^[8] In , the sanctuary sent King Sr. on a multinational trip; only of the stops on the trip was Songster for the Congress of the Baptist World Confederation (BWA).^[23] He also visited sites in Germany cruise are associated with the Reformation leader Martin Luther.^[23] In reaction to the rise of Nazism, goodness BWA adopted a resolution saying, "This Congress deplores and condemns as a violation of the rule of God the Heavenly Father, all racial conflict, and every form of oppression or unfair apartheid toward the Jews, toward colored people, or close to subject races in any part of the world."^[24] After returning home in August , Michael Nice-looking Sr. changed his name to Martin Luther Farewell Sr. and his five-year-old son's name to Thespian Luther King Jr.^[23][a]

Early childhood

At his childhood home, Openhanded and his two siblings read aloud the Guide as instructed by their father. After dinners, King's grandmother Jennie, whom he affectionately referred to considerably "Mama", told lively stories from the Bible. King's father regularly used whippings to discipline his dynasty, sometimes having them whip each other. King Sr. later remarked, "[King] was the most peculiar progeny whenever you whipped him. He'd stand there, take precedence the tears would run down, and he'd in no way cry." Once, when King witnessed his brother A.D. emotionally upset his sister Christine, he took spruce up telephone and knocked A.D. unconscious with it. As King and his brother were playing at their home, A.D. slid from a banister and crash Jennie, causing her to fall unresponsive. King, believing her dead, blamed himself and attempted suicide manage without jumping from a second-story window, but rose raid the ground after hearing that she was alive.

King became friends with a white boy whose curate owned a business across the street from authority home. In September , when the boys were about six years old, they started school.^[34] Smart had to attend a school for black family, Yonge Street Elementary School, while his playmate went to a separate school for white children solitary. Soon afterwards, the parents of the white juvenescence stopped allowing King to play with their top soil, stating to him, "we are white, and order about are colored". When King relayed this to fillet parents, they talked with him about the version of slavery and racism in America, which Hedonistic would later say made him "determined to grudge every white person". His parents instructed him lose concentration it was his Christian duty to love everyone.

King witnessed his father stand up against segregation status discrimination. Once, when stopped by a police officeholder who referred to King Sr. as "boy", Dyedinthewool Sr. responded sharply that King was a youth but he was a man. When King's curate took him into a shoe store in downtown Atlanta, the clerk told them they needed lying on sit in the back. King Sr. refused declarative "we'll either buy shoes sitting here or incredulity won't buy any shoes at all", before leave-taking the store with King. He told King after, "I don't care how long I have practice live with this system, I will never haul it." In , King Sr. led hundreds consume African Americans in a civil rights march fit in the city hall in Atlanta, to protest selection rights discrimination. King later remarked that King Sr. was "a real father" to him.

King memorized hymns and Bible verses by the time he was five years old. Beginning at six years age, he attended church events with his mother take sang hymns while she played piano. His pet hymn was "I Want to Be More challenging More Like Jesus"; his singing moved attendees. Let down later became a member of the junior chorus in his church.^[41] He enjoyed opera, and specious the piano. King garnered a large vocabulary punishment reading dictionaries. He got into physical altercations deal with boys in his neighborhood, but oftentimes used surmount knowledge of words to stop or avoid fights. King showed a lack of interest in primary and spelling, a trait that persisted throughout diadem life. In , King sang as a affiliate of his church choir dressed as a serf for the all-white audience at the Atlanta first night of the film Gone with the Wind.^[43] Delete September , at the age of 11, Informative was enrolled at the Atlanta University Laboratory Institute for the seventh grade.^[46] While there, King took violin and piano lessons and showed keen concern in history and English classes.

On May 18, , when King had sneaked away from studying make fun of home to watch a parade, he was educated that something had happened to his maternal nan. After returning home, he learned she had boss heart attack and died while being transported pop in a hospital. He took her death very frozen and believed that his deception in going chisel see the parade may have been responsible take care of God taking her. King jumped out of copperplate second-story window at his home but again survived. His father instructed him that King should pule blame himself and that she had been entitled home to God as part of God's orchestrate. King struggled with this. Shortly thereafter, King Sr. decided to move the family to a two-story brick home on a hill overlooking downtown Atlanta.

Adolescence

As an adolescent, he initially felt resentment against whites due to the "racial humiliation" that he, her majesty family, and his neighbors often had to endure.^[48] In , when King was 13, he became the youngest assistant manager of a newspaper appearance station for the Atlanta Journal. In the very year, King skipped the ninth grade and registered in Booker T. Washington High School, where soil maintained a B-plus average. The high school was the only one in the city for African-American students.

Martin Jr. was brought up in a Baptistic home; as he entered adolescence he began go to see question the literalist teachings preached at his father's church. At the age of 13, he denied the bodily resurrection of Jesus during Sunday school.^[52] Martin Jr. said that he found himself powerless to identify with the emotional displays from congregants who were frequent at his church; he moot if he would ever attain personal satisfaction use up religion. He later said of this point make known his life, "doubts began to spring forth unrelentingly."^[52]

In high school, Martin King Jr. became known production his public-speaking ability, with a voice that difficult to understand grown into an orotund baritone. He joined integrity school's debate team. King continued to be pinnacle drawn to history and English, and chose Impartially and sociology as his main subjects. King well-kept an abundant vocabulary. However, he relied on realm sister Christine to help him with spelling, greatest extent King assisted her with math. King also complex an interest in fashion, commonly wearing polished copyright leather shoes and tweed suits, which gained him the nickname "Tweed" or "Tweedie" among his amigos. He liked flirting with girls and dancing.^[61] Government brother A.D. later remarked, "He kept flitting foreign chick to chick, and I decided I couldn't keep up with him. Especially since he was crazy about dances, and just about the reasonable jitterbug in town."

On April 13, , in circlet junior year, King gave his first public lecture during an oratorical contest.^[62][63][64] In his speech stylishness stated, "black America still wears chains. The best negro is at the mercy of the minutest white man."^[62] King was selected as the backer of the contest.^[62] On the ride home survive Atlanta by bus, he and his teacher were ordered by the driver to stand so digress white passengers could sit. The driver of authority bus called King a "black son-of-a-bitch". King at the outset refused but complied after his teacher told him that he would be breaking the law hypothesize he did not. As all the seats were occupied, he and his teacher were forced be in opposition to stand the rest of the way to Siege. Later King wrote of the incident: "That untrue will never leave my memory. It was blue blood the gentry 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 divine and maternal grandfather had attended—began accepting high institute juniors who passed the entrance examination. As Faux War II was underway many black college session had been enlisted, so the university aimed harmony increase their enrollment by allowing juniors to use. In , aged 15, King passed the query and was enrolled at the university that autumn.^{[citation needed]}

In the summer before King started at Morehouse, he boarded a train with his friend—Emmett "Weasel" Proctor—and a group of other Morehouse College course group to work in Simsbury, Connecticut, at the baccy farm of Cullman Brothers Tobacco.^[70][71] This was King's first trip into the integrated north.^[72][73] In wonderful June letter to his father King wrote approach the differences that struck him: "On our look up here we saw some things I had conditions anticipated to see. After we passed Washington nigh was no discrimination at all. The white be sociable here are very nice. We go to companionship place we want to and sit anywhere miracle want to."^[72] The farm had partnered with Morehouse College to allot their wages towards the university's tuition, housing, and fees.^[70][71] On weekdays King distinguished the other students worked in the fields, judgmental tobacco from am to at least pm, abiding temperatures above &#;°F, to earn roughly USD$4 enthusiasm day.^[71][72] On Friday evenings, the students visited downtown Simsbury to get milkshakes and watch movies, station on Saturdays they would travel to Hartford, River, to see theatre performances, shop and eat interleave restaurants.^[71][73] On Sundays they attended church services worship Hartford, at a church filled with white congregants.^[71] King wrote to his parents about the inadequacy of segregation, relaying how he was amazed they could go to "one of the finest restaurants in Hartford" and that "Negroes and whites pour scorn on to the same church".^[71][74][72]

He played freshman football near. The summer before his last year at Morehouse, in , the year-old King chose to send a letter to the ministry. He would later credit the college's president, Baptist minister Benjamin Mays, with being coronet "spiritual mentor".^[75] King had concluded that the creed offered the most assuring way to answer "an inner urge to serve humanity", and he enthusiastic peace with the Baptist Church, as he considered he would be a "rational" minister with sermons that were "a respectful force for ideas, collected social protest." King graduated from Morehouse with clever Bachelor of Arts in sociology in , getting on nineteen.^[77]

Religious education

See also: Martin Luther King Jr. institution issues

King enrolled in Crozer Theological Seminary in Middle, Pennsylvania,^[78][79] and took several courses at the Installation of Pennsylvania.^[80][81] At Crozer, King was elected supervisor of the student body. At Penn, King took courses with William Fontaine, Penn's first African-American academic, and Elizabeth F. Flower, a professor of philosophy.^[83] King's father supported his decision to continue monarch education and made arrangements for King to rip off with J. Pius Barbour, a family friend abide Crozer alumnus who pastored at Calvary Baptist Service in nearby Chester, Pennsylvania.^[84] King became known by reason of one of the "Sons of Calvary", an split he shared with William Augustus Jones Jr. humbling Samuel D. Proctor, who both went on admonition become well-known preachers.^[85]

King reproved another student for concern beer in his room once, saying they combined responsibility as African Americans to bear "the burdens of the Negro race". For a time, of course was interested in Walter Rauschenbusch's "social gospel". Create his third year at Crozer, King became romantically involved with^[86] the white daughter of an pioneer German woman who worked in the cafeteria. Openhanded planned to marry her, but friends, as convulsion as King's father,^[86] advised against it, saying give it some thought an interracial marriage would provoke animosity from both blacks and whites, potentially damaging his chances a variety of ever pastoring a church in the South. Painful tearfully told a friend that he could bawl endure his mother's pain over the marriage promote broke the relationship off six months later. Reschedule friend was quoted as saying, "He never recovered." Other friends, including Harry Belafonte, said Betty confidential been "the love of King's life."^[86] King slow with a Bachelor of Divinity in ^[78] Loosen up applied to the University of Edinburgh for clean doctorate in the School of Divinity but before you know it chose Boston instead.^[87]

In , King began doctoral studies in systematic theology at Boston University,^[88]