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Martin Luther King, Jr. was born on January 15, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia. His parents, Martin and Alberta King, were wonderful parents who raised Martin Jr. in a middle class, religious home. Martin Luther King, Sr. was a minister and Alberta was the daughter of an affluent minister.
Martin was protected as much as possible from racism by his parents and they instilled in him a sense of self-respect and equality. Martin Luther King, Sr. was a strong, self- confident man who feared no one. He was a sharecroppers son who had experienced brutalities firsthand. His early experiences made him determined to get an education and he worked to put himself through Morehouse College. Martin Sr.
became the pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta which gave him great influence among the black community and even some respect from the white community. He led the fight in Atlanta to equalize teachers salaries and to eliminate Jim Crow elevators in the courthouse giving young Martin a strong role model in his future fight for civil rights. As a young person, Martin Luther King, Jr. , was always the most intelligent person in his classes. He was so smart that he got accepted to Morehouse Collage when he was only 15 years old. He graduated from collage at the top of his class.
He was always being asked to speak at church which his dad loved since he always wanted his son to become a minister. He moved on to Boston Collage where he got his Ph. D. in 1955 and met his future wife, Coretta Scott.
While he was in the north, he learned and liked the new liberal ideas of the time. His father didnt approve of the liberal ideas he was learning. Once Martin finished collage he married and had four children with Coretta Scott. With his wife at his side, and wanting to settle down and live a normal peaceful life, they moved to Montgomery, Alabama. Martin took a job as minister at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. At this time Martin had no intention of starting an equal rights movement.
However, he was drawn into the struggle when Rosa Parks decided not to give up her seat to a white man. Martin Luther King, Jr. led the boycott of Montgomery's segregated buses. He figured that if the only people who really rode the buses were black, then boycotting the buses would cause the system to give in without the use of force or violence. The boycott started as a one day thing but it was so successful that it continued on for weeks until the bus company started to run out of money. Then they had to make their buses unsegregated so that they wouldnt go out of business.
This was the beginning of Kings nonviolence approach to protest. He received lots of hate mail every day from whites. White people assumed Martin Luther King, Jr. would be afraid of their retaliations but they were wrong. The next years of his life are known as the wondering years.
In 1957, Martin Luther King, Jr. was chosen president of the new organization, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. He began to broaden his active role in the civil rights struggle while advocating his nonviolent approach to achieving results. King moved to Atlanta in 1959 to become the co- pastor of his fathers church. In the next few years he used the techniques he learned from the Montgomery boycott at other cities. He organized protest demonstrations and marches in Birmingham and Selma, Alabama, as well as other southern cities.
During these years he was arrested several times, physically attacked, and his house was bombed. He was also secretly placed under FBI surveillance by J. Edward Hoover who wanted to discredit King. King almost gave up hope until one day a group of students walked into a white restaurant took part in a sit- in.
The white people wouldnt serve the students and the students were either beaten or arrested. The sit-in concept became very popular, and all over the south black people started to sit- in anywhere they were not welcome. In Atlanta, Martin was opposed by the upper black class, and when he participated in a sit- in there, he was arrested and put in jail. The Georgia courts sent King to a maximum security prison. John F. Kennedy, a candidate for President of the United States at the time, worked with Coretta King to secure Kings release from prison.
This action gave Kennedy the black vote. Martin Luther King, Jr. s finest hour came on August 28, 1963, when he led the great march in Washington, D. C. There he gave his famous I have a dream speech at the Lincoln Memorial. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964.
In the spring of 1968, King went to Memphis, Tennessee to show support for the striking city workers. He was shot and killed as he stood on the balcony of his motel by James Earl Ray. Martin Luther King was a very important person for the movement to equal rights. He was the unquestionable head of the movement and his nonviolent ways were the reason why they had so much success. If the civil rights activists had used violent tactics then the white racists would have had a reason to retaliate with their cruel actions and less people would have had compassion for the civil rights movement. But it was not just Kings nonviolent acts that helped move him to the head of the equal rights movement, it was also his talent as a speaker.
He was a wonderful preacher and speaker who held the attention of whoever was listening to his speeches. Whether he was in Birmingham or Washington D. C. , when Martin Luther King talked, people listened to what he had to say. What would have happened if Rosa Parks had given up her bus seat and there had been no Montgomery Bus Boycott? There might still be segregation today if Martin Luther King, Jr. hadnt been stirred to take up the reins and steered the black population into the course of an equal rights movement.
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