biography
| name: |
King, Martin Luther, Jr
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originally Michael L King
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| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1929–68)
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| biography:
| Baptist minister and civil rights leader, born in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. The grandson and son of Baptist ministers, in 1935 his father changed both their names to Martin to honour the German Protestant. Young Martin graduated from Morehouse College in Georgia (1948) and Crozer Theological Seminary (1951) and then took a PhD from Boston University (1955), where he also met his future (1957) wife, Coretta Scott, with whom he had four children. Ordained a minister (1947) at his father's Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, he became pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, AL (1953). Relatively untested when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat in a bus in December 1955, he led the boycott of Montgomery's segregated buses for over a year (eventually resulting in the Supreme Court decision outlawing discrimination in public transportation). In 1957 he was chosen president of the newly formed Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and he began to broaden his active role in the civil-rights struggle while advocating his nonviolent approach to achieving results. His approach was based on the ideas of Henry David Thoreau and Mohandas Gandhi as well on Christian teachings. In 1959 he moved to Atlanta to become co-pastor of his father's church, and in the ensuing years gave much of his energies to organizing protest demonstrations and marches in such cities as Birmingham, AL (1963), St Augustine, FL (1964), and Selma, AL (1965). During these years he was arrested and jailed by Southern officials on several occasions, he was stoned and physically attacked, and his house was bombed. He was also placed under secret surveillance by the FBI due to the strong prejudices of its director, J Edgar Hoover, who wanted to discredit King as both a leftist and a womanizer. King's finest hour came on 28 August 1963 when he led the great march in Washington, DC, that culminated with his famous ‘I have a dream’ speech at the Lincoln Memorial. At the height of his influence, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 and he used his new-found powers to attack discrimination in the US North. Meanwhile, as the Vietnam War began to consume the country, he also broadened his criticisms of American society because he saw the impact of the war on the country's resources and energies. In the spring of 1968 he went to Memphis, TN to show support for the striking city workers, and he was shot and killed as he stood on the balcony of his motel there. (James Earl Ray pleaded guilty to the murder, although he later insisted that he was innocent.) With his oratorical style that drew directly on the force of the Bible, and with his serene confidence derived from his non-violent philosophy, he had advocated a programme of moderation and inclusion, and although later generations would question some of his message, few could deny that he had been the guiding light for 15 of the most crucial years in America's civil-rights struggle. |
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