Happy Birthday Martin Luther King Jr.
Civil Rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. was born on January 15, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia.
The middle child of a Baptist minister, he was born Michael King, Jr. In 1931, his father succeeded his grandfather as pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church. It was at this time that his father changed his name to Martin, in honor of the German Protestant leader Martin Luther. Michael Jr. eventually adopted this name change as well.
King was a bright child, skipping two grades as a student at Booker T. Washington High School. He entered Morehouse College in Atlanta when he was just 15. Perhaps because of his young age, King was an unmotivated student during his first two years in college. He questioned religion and seriously considered not joining the ministry. Then, in is his junior year, King took a Bible class that renewed his faith and set him on the path to become a minister.
After graduating from Morehouse in 1948 with a degree in sociology, King attended the Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania. He was a model scholar, elected student body president, and was valedictorian of his graduating class. King went on to earn his doctorate at Boston University, where he met his wife, Coretta Scott. By the time he was 25, King earned his Ph.D. and was serving as pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama.
It was in Montgomery, in December 1955, that Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus to a white man. After she was arrested that night, King met with E.D. Nixon, head of the local N.A.A.C.P. chapter, as well as other local civil rights leaders, to coordinate a bus boycott. King was young, well-trained, and new to the community, so he didn’t have many enemies. As such, he was selected to lead the boycott, providing a voice for the civil rights movement. King inspired the protesters to withstand the harassment that followed in the coming months. During the protest, King’s home was among several that were attacked. After more than a year, their efforts helped push the city to end its segregation of public transportation.
Following that victory, King and a group of 60 ministers and civil rights activists founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (S.C.L.C.). They united black churches and encouraged them to hold nonviolent protests for civil rights reform. And in 1960, King met with the students who had held a sit-in at a North Carolina university, protesting segregated lunch counters. He encouraged them to continue to use nonviolent means, eventually leading to the desegregation of lunch counters in 27 Southern cities.
King led one of his most famous demonstrations in August 1963 – the March on Washington, where he delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech. The march, and King’s eloquent speech, brought national attention to the movement and was a major stepping stone in the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for this accomplishment.
Though King wasn’t part of the first Selma March, which turned violent, he helped plan one two days later. Under his guidance, 2,500 protesters marched to a police barricade, knelt in prayer, and turned back. Again, King’s peaceful protest sparked national attention and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed shortly after.
In the coming years, King continued this quest for change through nonviolence, but a younger faction of militant activists arose that believed his efforts were too weak to make change. On April 4, 1968, King was shot by an assassin on his hotel balcony. King’s death sent shockwaves across the nation.
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As I ponder Martin Luther King I am taken with his sense of history. Her studied the Protestant movement in Germany under Martin Luther. Luther’s “Here I stand, I can do no other,” motivated MLK to take a stand. Of course he studied Gandi and British colonial government in India. From Gandi he learned non-violence. Now, we study Martin Luther King and what progress he made by non-violence on one hand and by appealing to the best of Luther’s Protestant movement. I think that we should see MLK as an historic figure with nation-changing ideals. Possibly, in this period of our history we can look back as see what MLK accomplished with non-violence, not with bullets and fire bombs. Dr. James J. Cooke, Prof. Emeritus of History
Well said.
I was a Medical Corpsman in the Air Force and was working in the Emergency Room, when we heard the news of Doctor King’s assassination. It was a sad day for all American’s. Happy Birthday, Dr. King. Rest in Peace.
King was one of the great citizens of the US. He would have been an interesting candidate for President. As it was he was one of the top of the list good examples of what this country is supposed to stand for: equal rights for all of its citizens. He is a better model of what this country says it is, better than any of the so-called “founding fathers,” many of whom tolerated slavery and deprivation of rights for Native Americans. We must never forget him as our true model of what an American should be.
COULDV’E SELECTED SCOTT# 3183a for display
I think King would agree with a couple of quotes from escaped slave, abolitionist, and women’s right advocate, Frederick Douglass. “Without a struggle, there can be no progress.” “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, and it never will.”
To James J Cooke-Very Well Written and Said! To William W. Graff. Not only did the ‘founding fathers’ tolerate slavery, many actually owned slaves. Thomas Jefferson was one and may have fathered children with one of his slave. And then there was Andrew Jackson who believed not only in slavery of Afro-Americans, but All Native Americans that came under the dominion of whites.