Martin Luther King Jr.

Biography

Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister and a key leader in the civil rights movement, pushing for racial equality in the U.S. Born in Atlanta, Georgia, King grew up in a family with strong roots in the Black Baptist church; his father was a well-known minister. King showed outstanding academic ability early on, entering Morehouse College at fifteen and later earning a Bachelor of Divinity degree from Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania. He completed his doctorate in systematic theology at Boston University in 1955, the same year he became pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, and became a national figure in the civil rights movement.

King became well-known through his leadership in the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott, a 381-day campaign that successfully challenged the city's segregated public transportation. He was the first president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), coordinating nonviolent protests throughout the South. Inspired by Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy and Christian nonviolent resistance, King led or took part in campaigns in Albany, Georgia, Birmingham, Alabama, and Selma, Alabama. In 1963, the Birmingham campaign, which showed the harshness of segregationist law enforcement on national TV, and the March on Washington, where King gave his famous 'I Have a Dream' speech, helped generate the political push for key federal laws.

The movement King led achieved major legislative successes, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968. King won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, becoming its youngest recipient at that time. He consistently opposed racial discrimination based on a belief in universal human dignity, and he was a prolific writer and speaker, making the moral case for civil rights. He also received the Gandhi Peace Award in 1964 and the Pacem in Terris Award in 1965, showing international recognition of his commitment to nonviolence.

In his later years, King expanded his focus to include economic injustice and U.S. military involvement in Vietnam. He organized the Poor People's Campaign to unite Americans of various races in demanding economic reform. The FBI, led by director J. Edgar Hoover, intensely surveilled King from 1963 onward, looked into his associates for supposed communist ties, and sent him an anonymous letter he saw as an attempt to drive him to suicide. On April 4, 1968, King was assassinated on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was supporting striking sanitation workers. He was thirty-nine years old. His death sparked widespread mourning and unrest across the United States.