Martin Luther King Jr.: Staunch Fighter for Civil Rights

Born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia, to Michael King Sr and Alberta Williams King, the infant was initially christened Michael after his father. Five years later, when his father attended the Baptist World Alliance Congress in Berlin, what he learnt about the German reformation leader Martin Luther’s life inspired him to change his own as well as his son’s name from Michael King to Martin Luther King.

Early life

King Jr. attended the Booker T Washington High School, a segregated institution for African-American students. He was much affected by racial segregation. In 1944, he completed bachelor’s degree in sociology, before enrolling for training in theology. He became acquainted with Mohandas Gandhi’s philosophy of non-violence and with the thought of contemporary theologians. He received a bachelor’s degree in divinity in May 1951 and pursued PhD at the Boston University.

Bus boycott

In 1954, King joined the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama as pastor. He became a member of the executive committee of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People and worked for their rights.

His first major campaign, the Montgomery Bus Boycott, was launched on December 1, 1955, when Rosa Park was arrested for not giving up her bus seat in favour of white passengers. African-American leaders gave a call for bus boycott and King was chosen to lead the movement. The campaign caused huge losses for the bus operators. King’s house was firebombed but he stayed firm. The movement turned him into a national leader. In 1957, he became the president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference that organised non-violent protests for civil rights reform.

World leader

In 1958, King published his first book titled Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story. While signing copies of the book in Harlem, King was stabbed in the chest with a letter opener. He underwent surgery and remained in the hospital for several weeks.

In 1959, King visited India, where he held discussions with followers of Gandhi about the latter’s concepts of peaceful non-compliance. The trip made him more committed to non-violent resistance as a weapon for the oppressed people He led an unsuccessful 1962 struggle against segregation in Albany, Georgia, and helped hold the non-violent 1963 protests in Birmingham, Alabama. He also helped organise the 1963 March on Washington where he delivered his famous speech titled ‘I Have a Dream’.

In 1968, King was assassinated on April 4 in Memphis, Tennessee. His death was followed by riots in many US cities. James Earl Ray, the man convicted of killing King, served 29 years of his sentence and died from hepatitis while in prison.

Awards

King won the Nobel Peace Prize for his non-violent campaign against racism in 1964. When he was named the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 aged 35, he was till then, the youngest to receive the award. (At present, the youngest person to have won the Peace prize is Malala Yousafzai who did so in 2014 aged 17).

Interesting facts

1. King skipped two grades in high school, 9th and 11th, and entered the Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, US at the age of 15 in 1944. By the age of 19, he had received a bachelor’s degree in the subject of sociology.

2. In addition to being nominated for three Grammy Awards, the civil rights leader also posthumously won the award for Best Spoken Word Recording in the year 1971 for his speech ‘Why I Oppose The War In Vietnam’.

3. King’s death was followed by a nationwide race riot. Much later, the National Civil Rights Museum was built around the former Lorraine Motel. Many streets around the country have also been named after him.

4. In 1986, it was decided that January 15, the day Martin Luther King Jr. was born, would be observed as a federal holiday. In 2011, The Martin Luther King Jr Memorial was opened in the National Mall in Washington, DC.

5. King was arrested many times and assaulted at least four times. He was awarded five honorary degrees; named Time’s Man of the Year in 1963. He became a world figure and symbolic leader of American blacks.

Source: thefamouspeople.com, Wikipedia