Martin Luther King

Martin Luther King
Martin Luther King was born on January 15, 1992, in Atlanta Georgia. King grew up in in Atlanta where his father was a pastor at a small church. King had an older sister and a younger brother. Throughout school King was a good student and eventually attended College at only 15 years old. 4 years later King earned a sociology degree from Morehouse College. King married Coretta Scott and had 4 children. He became a pastor at a Baptist Church in Montgomery Alabama. He completed his Ph.D in 1955 at Pennsylvania University. When Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery city bus, the NAACP asked King to lead a bus boycott in the city. In his first speech as the group’s president he says “we have no alternative but to protest. For many years we have shown amazing patience. We have sometimes given our white brothers the feeling that we liked the way we were being treated. But we come here tonight to be saved from that patience that makes us patient with anything less than freedom and justice." Kings new skill put energy into the civil rights struggle in Alabama. The bus boycott lasted 382 days and in that time Kings House was attacked and the African-American community suffered violence intimidation and harassment. When the city was taken to court it was ruled that segregation on public transit was to no longer be applicable. With this victory, King and 60 other civil right activists founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. They would help conduct non-violent protests to promote civil rights reform. In 1958 the group sponsored mass meetings to register black voters in the south. King met with religious and civil rights leaders and lectured all over the country on race related issues. By 1960 King was gaining national notoriety. He returned to Atlanta to become a pastor but continued his civil rights efforts.
In 1963 King organized a demonstration in downtown Birmingham, Alabama. King was jailed along with many of his supporters. On August 28, 1963 the historic march of Washington drew more than 20,000 people. It was here that king made his famous “I have a dream speech” In 1965 the Voting Rights act was passed meaning all blacks over 18 were able to vote. In the late 1960’s King spoke over 2500 times in the South. At the age of 35 Martin Luther King was the youngest man to have received the Nobel Peace Prize. When he found out his nomination he announced he would turn over the 55,000 dollar prize money to the furtherance of the civil rights movement.