Martin Luther King Jr. was born on January 15, 1929 in Georgia, Atlanta, as Michael Luther King to which he later changed to Martin. He was a social activist and a Baptist Minister, who fought and led the Civil Rights Movement in the United States for equal rights and freedom for the African Americans from the mid-1950's onwards until he was assassinated in 1968.
Martin Luther King Jr. was a gifted student who attended a segregated public school at the time in Georgia. He graduated at the age of 15 and was admitted to Morehouse college, a Negro Institution of Atlanta from which he graduated with Bachelors of Arts degree in sociology 1948. King attended the Crozer theological Seminary in Pensylvania where he was awarded B.D in 1951 and won a prestigious fellowship.
Martin Luther King enrolled for graduate studies at Boston University in 1953, to which he received his degree in 1955. While studying in Boston University, he met and married his wife Coretta Scott who was a young singer from Alabama. They wed together in 1953 and moved into Montgomery, Alabama in which King was appointed to become a pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery in 1954.
Martin and Coretta together had four children: Yolanda Denise King (1955-2007), Martin Luther King III (born 1957), Dexter Scott King (born 1961) and Bernice Albertine King (born 1963).
Dr. King became active in the movement for civil rights and racial equality and was a strong advocate for civil rights for African Americans as he was already a member of the executive committee of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1955. Martin’s father and grandfather were both also active in the NAACP. This organization tried to improve the living conditions for African Americans.Martin accepted the leadership of the first great Negro nonviolent demonstration of modern times in the United States, the bus boycott in Montgomery and many other peaceful demonstrations which included nonviolent protests and boycotts that protested the unfair treatment of African-Americans against other Americans.
His philosophy of fighting with no violence regardless of the oppressors brutality was inspired by Gandhi’s nonviolent action to end the British rule in India.
In 1957, he was elected the president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which was an organization formed to provide new leadership for the civil rights movement in America. Time magazine had named him "Man of the Year" in 1963. In 1964, he was the youngest man to have received the Nobel Peace Prize at the age of 35.
In 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was campaigning actively for economic justice in Memphis, Tennessee, to support a strike by sanitation workers. The strikers wanted fair wages and decent working conditions. In Memphis, King gave his last speech in Memphis and the next night King was shot as he stood on his hotel balcony on 4th of April. He died a short time later in the hospital. He was just 39 years old and his accused killer was a white man by the name James Earl Ray.
After his death, millions of people around the world mourned King’s death. His funeral was held at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. More than 100,000 people lined the streets to watch the funeral procession bring his body to the cemetery.
Martin Luther King performing his " I Have a Dream" speech
Last official photo of the entire King family
Martin Luther King with NAACP members
Martin Luther King's place of assassination in Memphis, Tenessee.
CBS- News coverage report on Martin Luther King's assassination on April 4th