Martin Luther King Jr.

Martin Luther King Jr.

Everyone is familiar with Martin Luther King Jr's inspirational "I have a dream" speech. But what events in his life influenced the words that moved and fueled a civil revolution. A hero to the entire nation was cut off so abruptly and violently. The story of the man who wanted more for our country and what freedom really meant.

January 15, 1929 born Michael Luther King Jr., but later had his name changed to Martin, after his father. Growing up as an African American in Georgia, Martin experienced and suffered discrimination throughout his boyhood. This discrimination against black people was cruel and demoralizing. Martin Luther King Jr. told once of an experience he had riding a bus with his schoolteacher from Macon to Atlanta,

"The driver started cursing us out and calling us black sons of bitches. I decided not to move at all, but my teacher pointed out that we must obey the law. So we got up and stood in the aisle the whole ninety miles to Atlanta. It was a night I'll never forget. I don't think I have ever been so deeply angry in my life."

He attended segregated public schools and graduated at the age fifteen. In 1948 he received a B.A. degree from Morehouse college where both his father and grandfather had graduated. After three years of Theological study at Crozer Theological Seminary he was elected president of a primarily white senior class, he was awarded the B.D. in 1951. Martin later enrolled in Boston University completing his residence for the doctorate in 1953 and receiving the degree in 1955. While he was in Boston he met and married a young intellectual woman Coretta Scott. Following their marriage came two sons and two daughters.

In 1954, King accepted the pastorale of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. King was a member of the executive committee of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the leading organization of its kind in the nation. He lead the first great Negro nonviolent demonstration of contemporary times in the United States, the bus boycott, which started December 1, 1955. The boycott lasted 382 days. On December 21, 1956, after the Supreme Court of the United States had declared unconstitutional the laws requiring segregation on buses, Negroes and whites rode the buses as equals. During the days of the boycott, King was arrested, his home was bombed,