Martin Luther King, Jr. was an American pastor, activist, and well-known figure in the fight for civil rights for African Americans. He lived from January 15, 1929, until April 4, 1968. King has become a symbol of human rights, and Catholics and Protestants honor him as a martyr. His most important contribution was ensuring civil rights in the US improved. Early in his life, King was ordained as a Baptist minister. Later, he turned to civil rights work. He was in charge of the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955, and when the Southern Christian Leadership Conference was formed in 1957, he was the group’s first president. King’s work made the 1963 March on Washington possible, where he gave him an “I Have a Dream” speech. There, he got more people involved in the fight for civil rights and became known as one of the best speakers in American history.
In 1964, King became the youngest person to win the Nobel Peace Prize for his work to end racial segregation and prejudice through civil disobedience and other nonviolent means. By the time he died in 1968, he was using a Christian point of view to fight against the Vietnam War and end poverty. On April 4, 1968, King was put to death in Memphis, Tennessee. In 1986, Martin Luther King Jr. Day was made a federal holiday in the United States. In 2004 and 1977, the Presidential Medal of Valor and the Congressional Gold Medal were given to him after he died.
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Martin Luther King Jr. Biography
Martin Luther King was born on January 15, 1929, at 501 Auburn Avenue in Atlanta, Georgia. Even though his birth certificate said, his name was “Michael,” the name “Martin Luther” was added to honor the German reformer, Martin Luther.
King grew up in a segregated Georgia, 70 years after the Confederacy was overthrown and blacks were separated from whites. This meant that people of different races could not go to the same hospitals, restaurants, public bathrooms, or schools. Everything was on its own. Most of the time, hospitals, schools, and other places for white people were better than those for black people. King was only six years old the first time he had to deal with racism (a white person badly treated him because he was black). He was sent to a school for black people only, while a white friend was sent to a school for white people only.
King won a contest when he was 14 years old with a speech about civil rights. He had to stand the whole way home from work on the bus so a white person could sit down. At the time, black people were seen as less important than white people. Any African American who wanted to could give their seat to a white person who wanted one. Later, King said that having to give up his seat made him “angrier than I’ve ever been in my life.”
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Martin Luther King Jr. Education
King went to Booker T. Washington High School and played quarterback for the football team. When he was younger, he went to Atlanta Public Schools and went David T. Howard Elementary.
In 1945, when he was 15 years old, he went to Morehouse College in Atlanta. After that, he went to Boston University and Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania, where he got his Ph.D. King’s education should be mentioned in his biography because it shaped his life, making him more knowledgeable about the world. Professors at Morehouse College said that King was an average student who didn’t do well. He wasn’t entirely devoted to God because he thought the black Southern Baptist church was too narrow-minded.
He studied sociology even though he thought about going into law or medicine. People say that when King read Henry David Thoreau’s essay “Civil Disobedience” for the first time at Morehouse College, he was deeply moved by how it stressed justice over law. At age 17, he gave his first sermon in front of a group of people. He was later made a priest and worked at Ebenezer Church with his father as an assistant pastor.
In September 1948, King started school at Crozer, where he did better in school than he had at Morehouse. King went to Crozer, the first school where black and white students went to school together. He quickly became student body president and graduated at the top of his class. Here, he first showed signs of being able to think for himself when he started reading a lot, especially books on theology and humanism. He was also exposed to psychological currents that would change the way he thought and saw the world for the rest of his life.
Martin Luther King Jr.’s Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prize for Peace was given to Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at a ceremony in Oslo, Norway, on December 10, 1964.
Since 1964, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has kept all of the notes, nominations, and reports that have anything to do with this prize locked away in a vast archive. Martin Luther King, Jr. brought worldwide attention to the American Civil Rights Movement.
People thought he was a great leader because he stood up for nonviolence, direct action, and peace. “This Nobel Prize was won by a group of great people, including Herbert Lee, Fannie Lou Hamer, Medgar Evers, Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner, as well as the thousands of children in Birmingham, Albany, St. Augustine, and Savannah who took beatings and jail time and learned that love can beat all odds. The Norwegian Parliament said that this movement was known worldwide because of these unidentified numbers.”
How did Martin Luther King Jr. Die?
King had enemies because he fought for civil rights and became a strong leader. In the South, the Ku Klux Klan did everything possible to hurt King’s reputation. The Federal Bureau of Investigation closely watched King (FBI). People he knew had their homes and phones tapped, as well as his own.
On April 4, 1968, King was in Memphis, TN. He planned to set up a march to support the trash workers on strike. At 6:01 p.m., King was shot while standing on the balcony of his hotel room. He was shot in the right cheek, and the bullet went through his neck. Before it got to King’s shoulder, it cut the most important veins and arteries in his neck.
King was taken to St. Joseph’s Medical Center as soon as possible. He had given up. Doctors cut open his chest and tried to get his heart to start beating again. But they couldn’t save King’s life. At 7:05 p.m., he died. When King was killed, it made people angry in other places. In March 1969, James Earl Ray was found guilty of killing King. He got a 99-year prison sentence. Ray died in the year 1998.
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