Martin Luther King, Jr.
<span>Martin Luther King, Jr. was the instrumental leader of the
civil rights movement; he believed in non-violence and civil disobedience; he
was head of the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) and then the Southern
Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC); was born in Atlanta, Georgia to the
Rev. Martin Luther King, Sr. and Alberta Williams King. (King was born Michael
but in 1934 his father—Rev. Michael King, Sr.—returned home from Europe where
he had toured the site where Martin Luther had begun the Protestant Reformation
and upon returning home he changed his name as well as his sons.) He graduated from Morehouse College in 1948
at age nineteen and earned his Ph.D. in Theology from Boston University in
1955. King married Coretta Scott on June
18, 1953 and they had four children.
While at Crozer Theological Seminary, King first became acquainted with
the ideas of Mohandas Gandhi, which influenced him greatly in his future years. In 1953, King became the pastor of the Dexter
Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama.
He was selected to lead the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott. He was then instrumental in the founding of
the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). King led the SCLC in several
triumphs over racial injustices and became a symbol of the Civil Rights
Movement. His is probably most
remembered for his famous “I have a Dream” speech which came at the conclusion
the Civil Rights March on Washington which he had spearheaded. King was assassinated on April 4, 1968 in
Memphis, Tennessee while he stood on his hotel balcony. James Earl Ray was arrested and convicted of
the crime. In 1986. </span>
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<span>Hope that helps!!!</span>
