By Sarah Ross



Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Martin Luther King Jr. was an American Baptist minister who became an activist and the leader in the civil rights movement of 1954.

What MLK is known for:

Martin Luther King's Life

Martin was born on January 15th 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia to Reverend Martin Luther King, Sr and Alberta Williams King. He followed in his fathers and grandfathers footsteps in becoming a pastor. Growing up martin attended segregated schools in Georgia. He was able to graduate from high school by the age of 15 and then moved on to get his B.A from Morehouse College in 1948. Both King's father and grandfather attended Morehouse College. He later went on to study 3 years of theological study at Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania. Here he was elected president of his mostly white class. Later he enrolled in graduate studies at Boston University where he would complete his residency for his doctorate in 1953 and receiving the degree in 1955. While he was living in Boston he met Coretta Scott and they later got married and had two sons and two daughters.

His work dedicated to ending segregation.

King always had a passion for civil rights for all people. By this time in his life he was a member of the executive committee of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. In March of 1955 a fifteen year old African American woman refused to give up her bus seat to a a white male. At the time this was in violation of the Jim Crow laws. King was on a committee that looked into this case. Nine months later in December of 1955 a similar incident happened where a woman by the name of Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on the city bus. These two incidences led up to the Montgomery bus boycott which was led by King. The boycott lasted for 385 days and even King himself was subjected to violence. During this time King was arrested which later concluded with the United States District Court ruling that racial segregation on Montgomery public buses be banned.

Kings role in the bus boycott made him into a national figure and the best known spokesman for the Civil rights movement.

In 1957 he was elected the president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. This was an organization formed to provide leadership for the civil rights movement. During the years 1957-1968 King traveled over 6 million miles to appear in places where there was injustice and protests. While this was happening he led a massive protest in Birmingham, Alabama, that caught attention from people all over the world. In Washington D.C he delivered his "I have a dream" speech in front of 250,000 people. He was arrested around 20 times, assaulted at least 4 times, was awarded 5 honorary degrees and was named Man of the Car by Time magazine in 1963. At the age of 35 King was the youngest man to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. He was aware $54,123 which he later turned over to further the civil rights movement. On April 1968 while on his balcony in his motel room in Memphis, Tennessee he was assassinated. He was on his way to lead a protest.