Martin Luther King Jr.

The Voice of Civil Rights

There were many people throughout the history of the United States that helped to get equality for African Americans; however, one man's voice moved an entire race. That one man is Martin Luther King, JR. He has a way of making you listen when he speaks and of making you understand his ideas. Many people did listen and he motivated a whole race of people to strive with him on his quest for equality. The events in his life from early life, civil rights, and later life led him to be one of the most powerful people in the movement towards civil rights.

Martin Luther King, JR., was born in Atlanta, Georgia on January 15, 1929 to Martin Luther King and Alberta Williams King. He was the middle child. He had an older sister, Christine and a younger brother, A.D. His father was the pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church, following in the footsteps of Martin's maternal grandfather A.D. Williams. Martin went to public schools in Atlanta and he did so well in school he skipped the 9th and 12th grades, graduating high school at only 15 years old. He went on to be accepted into Morehouse College as an early admission student. He graduated at 19 with a degree in Sociology in 1948. (Williams)

With his father's guidance and his admiration for Benjamin E. Mays, King decided to become a minister. On February 25, 1948 he was ordained a Baptist minister.

He was admitted to Crozer Theologist Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania in September of the same year, to receive his divinity degree. He graduated from Crozer with the honors of being the first African American to be elected president of the student body and the highest GPA in his class. He then went on to graduate school at Boston University where he formed a great devotion to the study of Gandhi and received a PhD in theology (The World Book Encyclopedia).

While in Boston he met a music student named Coretta Scott. He fell in love with her and Martin's father married them on January 18, 1953, at Coretta's home in Alabama. They would go on to have four children, Yolanda, Dexter, Martin, and Bernice. In 1954 King was offered the Pastoral ship at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. His father installed him pastor on October 31, 1954. (Michael)

The start of King's involvement in the Civil Rights Movement began in 1955 when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white passenger and was jailed. Community leaders formed the Montgomery Improvement Association and asked King to be the leader. The organization would urge blacks to boycott the buses and use other means of transportation. The boycott lasted 381 days. On November 13, 1956 the Supreme Court declared that Alabama's bus segregation was unconstitutional and on December 21, 1956 buses were desegregated. (Michael).

Due to his involvement in civil rights terrorists would bomb his home and threaten him by phone and through letters. Despite this King stood by nonviolent ways and studied Gandhi's techniques during a trip to India. With the help of other black minister King organized the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and served as president for the rest of his life. It helped promote nonviolence and black equality. The SCLC worked for voter registration, political education, leadership training, education in nonviolent methods, and economic development (The World Book Encyclopedia).

Black college student began sit ins at facilities that refused to serve blacks in Greensboro, North Carolina. The movement quickly spread throughout the south and black students were frequently joined by white students who sympathized with them. King urged the young students to continue there nonviolent ways. Out of the movement the SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) formed and for a time worked closely with the SLCC. In 1963 with the help of the SCLC associates King launched a massive demonstration in Birmingham, Alabama, one of the most segregated cities. Police used violence to drive out the peaceful protestors. Not long after President John F. Kennedy proposed a civil rights bill to congress (The World Book Encyclopedia).

In an effort to get the bill passed and to help with job for African Americans King organized the famous March on Washington. On August 28, 1963 over 250,000 Americans, both white and black, gathered at the Lincoln Memorial to hear the number of speakers. King gave the most powerful and captivating speeches of the day, his famous "I Have a Dream" speech, where he says.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live up the true meaning of its creed. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all mean are created equal.' 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 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.

His speech moved President Kennedy and the rally was the largest in the Civil Rights Movement. A year later in 1964 the Civil Rights Act was passed by Congress to outlaw discrimination in employment and stop desegregation. In December of the same year King