MARTIN LUTHER KING JR

(1929 – 1968)

“A remarkable visionary willing to risk their life to do God’s will.
Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good,
and you will have praise for the same. Romans 13:3 NKJV

“His Dream Inspired An Entire Nation To Face Its Racial Prejudice”
Martin Luther King Jr. was born the son of a prominent Baptist minister and grew up in a thirteen – room house in the best black neighborhood of Atlanta without experiencing many indignities that poorer blacks suffered. He also grew up in a home that was active in resisting anti – black biases, and he was raised to believe that quality of character, not race, should be the basis on which a person is judged.
As a boy, he enjoyed sports, jitterbugging, nice clothes, and girls. He was also an excellent student, skipping two grades in high school. At age fifteen, he entered Morehouse College. He considered becoming a doctor or lawyer, but in the end, he chose the family tradition of ministry. He was ordained immediately after graduation from college and was elected co-pastor of his father’s church. He later enrolled at Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania, where he was only one of the six blacks in a class of one hundred students. He graduated as president and valedictorian of his class and went on to Boston University to earn a PhD in systematic theology in 1955. He also took courses in philosophy at Harvard, and while in Boston, he met and married Coretta Scott.
After Boston, King took a position as pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. Shortly after his arrival, Rosa Parks took a seat in the “white” section of a city bus and refused the driver’s orders to move to the “black” section. Her arrest and the subsequent bus boycott that lasted for 381 days brought Martin Luther king into national limelight. He was active in urging blacks to protest courageously and yet with dignity and love.
He was arrested in Birmingham after leading a civil rights march, and while in Jail, he wrote a 9000-word statement about racial justice that truly marked him as the recognized leader of the civil rights movement. His famous “I Have a Dream” speech was delivered in front of the Lincoln Memorial during the Freedom March in Washington, D.C on August 28, 1963. In 1964, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Bill, which opened public facilities to black people and desegregated public accommodations. In October 1964, King received the Nobel Peace prize.
In areas of the South where blacks were denied the right to vote, King continued to lead marches. In 1965, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act. King then turned his attention to poverty. He began plans for a poor people’s March on Washington, D.C.
While planning this event, King went to Memphis, Tennessee, where predominantly black sanitation workers were predominantly black sanitation workers were on strike for higher wages. There while standing on his motel room’s balcony, he was assassinated by a sniper’s bullet. He was only thirty – nine years old.
Throughout his life, king advocated a course of nonviolent protest. He said as part of his final speech in Memphis, “We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter with me now. Because I’ve been to the mountain top……..Like anybody I would like to live a long life…….but I’m not concerned with that now; I just want to do God’s will. I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promise land.”