His instincts proved correct when civil rights activists were subjected to violent attacks by white officials in widely televised episodes that drew nationwide outrage. Inspired by Mahatma Gandhi's model of nonviolent resistance, King believed that peaceful protest for civil rights would lead to sympathetic media coverage and public opinion. With other Black church leaders in the South, King founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to mount nonviolent protests against racist Jim Crow laws. "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.… We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor it must be demanded by the oppressed." - Martin Luther King, Jr. His arrest and imprisonment as the boycott's leader propelled King onto the national stage as a lead figure in the civil rights movement. King, played a pivotal leadership role in organizing the protest. Starting in 1955, Montgomery's Black community staged an extremely successful bus boycott that lasted for over a year. Shortly after King took up residence in the town, Rosa Parks made history when she refused to give up her seat for a white passenger on a Montgomery bus. Joining the Civil Rights MovementĪfter finishing his doctorate, King returned to the South at the age of 25, becoming pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. In Boston, he met and married Coretta Scott, a student at the New England Conservatory of Music. While studying for King served as an assistant minister at Boston's Twelfth Baptist Church, which was renowned for its abolitionist origins. King left high school at the age of 15 to enter Atlanta's Morehouse College, an all-male historically Black university attended by both his father and maternal grandfather.Īfter graduating in 1948 with a bachelor's degree in sociology, King decided to follow in his father's footsteps and enrolled in a seminary in Pennsylvania before pursuing a doctorate in theology at Boston University. In 1936, King's father also led a march of several hundred African Americans to Atlanta's city hall to protest voting rights discrimination.Īs a member of his high school debate team, King developed a reputation for his powerful public speaking skills, enhanced by his deep baritone voice and extensive vocabulary. Early Life and Educationīorn in 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia, King was heavily influenced by his father, a church pastor, who King saw stand up to segregation in his daily life. King is remembered for his masterful oratorical skills, most memorably in his "I Have a Dream" speech. His adoption of nonviolent resistance to achieve equal rights for Black Americans earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. No figure is more closely identified with the mid-20th century struggle for civil rights than Martin Luther King, Jr.
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