Martin Luther King Jr. was a Baptist minister and civil rights activist who played a key leadership role in the American civil rights movement. He was born in Atlanta in 1929 and became a pastor while earning his doctorate. He rose to prominence leading the Montgomery bus boycott from 1955-1956 and founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957. King gained national attention for his nonviolent protests and "I Have a Dream" speech at the 1963 March on Washington. He continued to lead the civil rights movement and oppose the Vietnam War until his assassination in 1968.

1. Martin Luther King, Jr.
By: Benedict S. Gombocz

2. Childhood and Education, 1929-1951
 Martin Luther King, Jr., was born on
Tuesday, January 15, 1929, in Atlanta,
Georgia.
 His birth certificate listed his birth name as
Michael Luther King, Jr., but it was later
changed to Martin; his father arranged this
change in 1935 in honor of German reformer
and leader of the Protestant Reformation
Martin Luther.
 His grandfather and father were both pastor
at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.
 King was only fifteen when he graduated
from high school, having skipped from 9th to
12th grade; he attended Morehouse College
and graduated in 1948 with a degree in
Sociology.
 In 1951, he got a Bachelor’s of Divinity
followed by a Ph.D. from Boston College in
1955.
 In Boston, he met Coretta Scott and married
her in 1953; they had four children: Yolanda
Denise (1955-2007), Martin Luther III (b.
1957), Dexter Scott (b. 1961), and Bernice
Albertine (b. 1963).

3. Becoming a Civil Rights leader, 1955
 Martin Luther King, Jr. became co-
pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist
Church in Montgomery, Alabama, in
1954.
 While he was serving as pastor of
the church, 42-year-old Rosa Parks
was arrested for refusing to give her
seat on a Montgomery bus to a
white man; this occurred on
Thursday, December 1, 1955.
 On Monday, December 5, 1955, a
group of African Americans gathered
to discuss the situation, which
started the Montgomery Bus
Boycott.

4. Montgomery Bus Boycott, 1955-1956
 As the Montgomery Bus Boycott began, 26-year-
old Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was unanimously
elected president of the Montgomery
Improvement Association; because of his young
age, he was chosen to lead the boycott.
 African Americans participated in the boycott by
refusing to ride public buses; as the boycott
progressed, the buses started losing money and
nearly went out of business.
 The situation often involved so much risk that Dr.
King’s home was bombed on Tuesday, January
30, 1956; fortunately, his wife and two-month-old
daughter who were at home were unhurt.
 In February, Dr. King was arrested on charges of
conspiracy.
 The boycott, meanwhile, lasted 1 year and 16
days (382 days).
 On Friday, December 21, 1956, the Supreme
Court ruled that racial segregation on public
transportation was unconstitutional; blacks could
now ride on buses wherever they
wanted, alongside whites.

5. Southern Christian Leadership
Conference, 1957
 The Southern Christian Leadership
Conference (SCLC) was established in 1957
with Dr. King named as its leader.
 Its objective was to provide leadership and
organization in the struggle for civil rights.
 Dr. King adopted the ideas of civil
disobedience and peaceful protests based
on the works of Henry David Thoreau and
the actions of Mohandas Gandhi to lead the
organization and the struggle to end
segregation and discrimination; these
demonstrations and acts of non-violence
helped lead to the passing of the Civil Rights
Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of
1965.
 Leading non-violent demonstrations rarely
were without incident; on
Saturday, September 20, 1958, while going
on a book tour in New York to promote his
book Strive Toward Freedom, Dr. King faced
the first attempt on his life- a demented
African-American woman named Izola Curry
stabbed him in his chest with a letter opener.

6. Dr. King undergoing surgery at Harlem
Hospital in New York, September 1958

7. Letter from a Birmingham Jail, April 1963
 As leader of the Civil Rights Movement, Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr., was a major part and
central figure of many non-violent protests
as he helped in leading the fight for
desegregation and equal rights; he was
arrested several times, which inspired,
motivated, and encouraged African-
Americans to engage in acts of civil
disobedience by also going to jail.
 The 60s turned the ride of the Civil Rights
Movement, beginning with the staging of the
first “sit-in” on Monday, February 1, 1960, at
a Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro,
North Carolina.
 Later “sit-ins” were also staged in 1963 in
Birmingham, Alabama, (known that year as
“Bombingham”) to protest segregation in
restaurants and eating facilities.
 During one of these, Dr. King was arrested;
while he was imprisoned, he wrote his
famous letter “Letter from a Birmingham
Jail”, in which he argued that visible protests
would guarantee progress; he also argued
that it was an individual’s obligation to
protest and in fact refuse to obey unjust
laws: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to
justice everywhere”.

8. “I Have a Dream” Speech, August 1963
 On Wednesday, August 28, 1963, Dr. King and other
Civil Rights leaders led the March on Washington for
Jobs and Freedom; it was the biggest demonstration
of its kind in Washington, D.C., up to this time and an
estimated 250,000 demonstrators participated.
 In this march, King delivered his inspiring “I Have a
Dream” speech, his most famous one, while
speaking from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
 Following the success of the march, Dr. King and
other leaders met with President John F. Kennedy
and asked him for many things like an end to
segregation in public schools, greater protection for
African-Americans, more effective civil rights
legislation, and on down the line.
 Unfortunately, tragedy struck three and a half weeks
later when another bombing, again in
Birmingham, this time at the 16th Street Baptist
Church, killed four young black girls on
Sunday, September 15.
 On Friday, November 22, President Kennedy was
assassinated by a Communist sympathizer, Lee
Harvey Oswald, in Dallas, Texas; Texas Governor
John B. Connally was wounded, but survived. Vice
President Lyndon B. Johnson, a supporter of the
Civil Rights movement like Kennedy, became the
36th President.

9. Man of the Year and Nobel Peace Prize, 1964
 Dr. King was named Time Magazine’s
Man of the Year in 1964; with this
honor, he had become part of the
world stage.
 Also in 1964, he met with Pope Paul
VI and was honored as the recipient
of the Nobel Peace Prize on
Wednesday, October 14, (ironically
coinciding with the change of
leadership in the Soviet Union from
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev to
Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev) becoming the
youngest to receive it at the age of 35.
 He was awarded the prize on
Thursday, December 10, saying in his
acceptance speech, “I accept the
Nobel Prize for Peace at a moment
when 22 million Negroes of the United
States of America are engaged in a
creative battle to end the long night of
racial injustice.”
 Dr. King gave the whole amount of the
prize money to aid with the Civil Rights
movement.

10. Dr. King sitting along the pulpit of Ebenezer
Baptist Church, Sunday, November 8, 1964

11. Dr. King’s Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance
Speech, Thursday, December 10, 1964

12. Selma, Alabama, 1965
 On Sunday, March 7, 1965, a group of
demonstrators attempted to organize a
march from Selma to Montgomery; Dr. King
did not attend because he preferred delaying
it to the following day.
 The march was very important because it
was met with police brutality, which was
captured on film; these images had a big
impact on those who were not directly
involved in the resulting fight in a public
outcry for change.
 Two weeks later, the march was reattempted
and the demonstrators made it to
Montgomery on Thursday, March 25, where
they heard Dr. King speak at the Capital.
 With the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the victory
of Lyndon B. Johnson over his Republican
opponent Barry M. Goldwater in the 1964
presidential election, the peaceful march
from Selma to Montgomery, and the Voting
Rights Act of 1965, both 1964 and 1965
were successful years for the Civil Rights
Movement in many respects.

13. Dr. King with President Johnson, March 1966

14. Opposition to the Vietnam War and
“Beyond Vietnam” Speech, 1967
 After 1965, Dr. King retained his
commitment to non-violence and the
fight for Civil Rights, in spite of
constant death threats; he was struck
by a stone in Chicago in the summer
of 1966 during the Chicago Freedom
Movement.
 By 1967, Dr. King had become a critic
of the War in Vietnam and was
strongly opposed to American
involvement in that war.
 On Tuesday, April 4, 1967, he
delivered a speech “Beyond Vietnam”
to a crowd of 3,000 at the Riverside
Church in New York; in it, he said there
is a mutual link forming between the
civil rights and peace movements.
 He put forward a plan where the
United States would cease bombing in
North and South Vietnam.

15. Opposition to the Vietnam War and
“Beyond Vietnam” Speech, 1967 – cont.
 Despite being sympathetic to President Johnson’s Great
Society, Dr. King became increasingly critical of U.S. involvement
in Vietnam; as the public became more aware of Dr. King’s
criticism, his relationship with the Johnson administration
worsened.
 Dr. King came to regard U.S. intervention in Southeast Asia as
more than imperialism; in addition, he believed the Vietnam War
caused money and attention to turn away from domestic
programs created to help poor blacks.
 Furthermore, King said in “Beyond Vietnam”: “The war was doing
far more than devastating the hopes of the poor at home… We
were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our
society and sending them eight thousand miles away to
guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in
southwest Georgia and East Harlem”.

16. Poor People’s Campaign, 1967-1968
 Early in 1968, Dr. King and other civil rights
leaders organized and planned the Poor
People’s Campaign (it was set up in
November 1967) in Washington, D.C. , for
the spring of that year; the campaign was
organized to demand that President
Johnson aid the poor in getting jobs, health
care and good homes.
 In March, Dr. King, along with advisors
Ralph Abernathy, Jesse Jackson, and
Andrew Young, went to Memphis; a march
was held on Thursday, March 28, which
turned violent.
 Dr. King returned to Memphis on
Wednesday, April 3, and skipped a rally that
was held in the afternoon; that night, he
delivered what would be his last
speech, “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop”, in
which he said: “Like anybody, I would like to
live - a long life; longevity has its place. But
I’m not concerned about that now. I just want
to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go
up to the Mountaintop. And I’ve looked over.
And I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not
get there with you. But I want you to know
tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the
Promised Land. So I’m happy, tonight. I’m
not worried about anything. I’m not fearing
any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of
the coming of the Lord!”.

17. Assassination, April 1968
 On Thursday, April 4, as he stood
on the second-floor balcony of the
Lorraine Motel, Dr. King was
struck by a single bullet, which
damaged more than half of his
face and cut into his neck.
 Only an hour later, he was
pronounced dead at St. Joseph’s
Hospital after a failed surgery.
 In the wake of Dr. King’s
death, riots erupted in several
cities across the country.
 In Indianapolis, Senator Robert F.
Kennedy, brother of the slain
President Kennedy, managed to
prevent a riot by asking the
people to say a prayer for the
country.
 Dr. King’s funeral was held in
Atlanta on Tuesday, April 9, at
Ebenezer Baptist Church.

18. Dr. King’s funeral procession in Atlanta, April
1968

19. Poor People’s Campaign after Dr.
King’s death, May 1968
 After Dr. King died, Ralph Abernathy was chosen to succeed him as
leader of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and to
lead the Poor People’s Campaign in Dr. King’s place.
 Thousands of people took part in the march on Sunday, May 12,
1968.
 As he led the way for demonstrators, Abernathy said: “We come
with an appeal to open the doors of America to the almost 50 million
Americans who have not been given a fair share of America’s
wealth and opportunity, and we will stay until we get it”.
 Even though as many as 50,000 people marched, the Poor
People’s campaign was viewed as a failure by those who had grown
tired of protesting and did not see these protests meet with
changes.

20. Posthumous awards and federal holiday
 Dr. King was posthumously
awarded the Presidential Medal of
Freedom in 1977 by President
Jimmy Carter, in the presence of
Dr. King’s wife and father and the
Congressional Gold Metal in
2004.
 Martin Luther King, Jr. Day was
signed into law as a federal
holiday on Monday, January
20, 1986, almost 18 years after
his death; it was observed for the
first time in all 50 states on
Monday, January 17, 2000.

21. Bibliography
 http://americanhistory.about.com/od/afamerpeopl
e/p/mlking.htm
 http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/martin-
luther-king-jr-speaks-out-against-the-war
 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?story
Id=91626373
 Tribute to Dr. King:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56mjwycKuXA