Martin Luther King

Birth

When: January 15, 1929

Where: Atlanta, Georgia

Parents: Martin Luther King, Sr. and Alberta Williams King

Childhood

Siblings: Willie Christine King, Alfred Daniel Williams King

Sceptical of Christian claims

Seminary Bible has "many profound truths which one cannot escape”

Studies

Booker T. Washington High School

Morehouse College

1948 – B.A. degree in sociology at Morehouse College

1951 – B.Div. degree at Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania

1955 – Ph.D. degree in systematic theology at Boston University

Family

June 18, 1953 – Married Coretta Scott

Four children: Yolanda King, Martin Luther King III, Dexter Scott King, and Bernice King

Religion

1954 – became pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama

love your neighbor as yourself, love God above all, and love your enemies, pray for them and bless them.

The Montgomery Bus Boycott

December 1, 1955 – Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on the bus

Campaign – The Montgomery Bus Boycott

Result – The end of racial segregation on all Montgomery public buses

African-American Civil Rights Movement

Bayard Rustin – King’s advisor and mentor

1957 – King and other civil rights activists founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)

1959 – trip to India to learn more about the non-violence resistance of Gandhi

March on Washington

When: August 28, 1963

Where: in front of the Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C.

Theme: Jobs and Freedom

Speech: “I have a dream”

1994 – Nobel Peace Price

“I have a dream”

“I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its

vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today”

Assassination

When: April 4, 1968

Where: Memphis, Tennessee

How: shot by James Earl Ray

Martin Luther King’s day

When: third Monday of January

First time: 1986

All 50 states: 2000