Martin Luther King, Jr. was born on January 15, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia. His father and grandfather before him were Baptist ministers. Dr. King received a Bachelor of Divinity degree in 1951 from the Crozer Theological Seminary, Pennsylvania, and a PhD. in Systematic Theology in 1954 from Boston University. During his college years, Dr. King encountered two people who were to have a profound effect on his life. The first was the great American philosopher, Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862), whose essay Civil Disobedience argued that if enough people would follow their conscience and disobey unjust laws, those laws would eventually be changed. The second was a music student named Coretta Scott—who as Coretta Scott King would be his wife, support, and inspiration.
In 1954 Dr. King became a pastor in Montgomery, Alabama, and the next year he became involved in a local dispute that was to become a cause célèbre in the Civil Rights Movement. On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, an African American seamstress, was arrested for not giving up her seat on a Montgomery bus to a white passenger. Dr. King organized a boycott of the bus service, which ended after 381 days, when the Supreme Court declared those laws illegal.
Dr. King believed the success of the Parks case vindicated his belief in peaceful protest, and in May, 1957, he led a mass march of 37,000 people to the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., to protest voting discrimination. In September 1957, President Eisenhower and the United States Congress responded by creating the Civil Rights Commission, and appointing the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice.
Dr. King’s first book, Stride Toward Freedom (1958), was a best seller. He visited India, where Mahatma Gandhi’s theories of nonviolence had helped bring about India’s independence. In January, 1963, he sought to put those theories into action by leading a demonstration in Birmingham, Alabama, protesting local segregation laws. An injunction was issued forbidding the demonstration, but it went ahead. The violence used against the demonstrators was seen on TV news all over the country, and Dr. King was arrested. The nation was shocked by these scenes of brutality and support for the movement grew.
On the centenary of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1963, Dr. King’s second great demonstration at the Lincoln Memorial attracted 200,000 people, and the words I have a dream were heard for the first time. The following year, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act into law. It declared: No person in the United States shall, on the grounds of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subject to discrimination under any program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.
However, discrimination continued. In the winter of 1965, despite an injunction, Dr. King led a march from Selma, Alabama, to the state capital of Montgomery, to protest voting rights. State troopers and anti-reform activists fought the demonstrators with such violence that two people were killed and seventy injured. But the injunction was overturned, and the demonstrators sang “We Shall Overcome” as they marched into Montgomery. The same year a bill was passed, ensuring African Americans voting rights.
Martin Luther King, Jr., believed that poverty was the root cause of much unrest. He also campaigned vigorously for world peace. As an orator he was unparalleled, and as an inspirational leader he commanded the reverence of his followers and the urgent attention of his opponents. On April 3, 1968, he spoke at a rally in Memphis, Tennessee: “I have a dream… ” were the words that began that last great speech. The next day he was shot and killed by a petty criminal named James Earl Ray. Whether Ray acted alone or was hired has never been established.
In the years following Dr. King’s assassination, many African Americans observed his birthday as a holiday, and some states declared it a state holiday. The bill to create a national holiday on the third Monday in January each year was signed into law on November 2, 1983. The first Martin Luther King, Jr. Day was celebrated on January 20, 1986.
