Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
(1929–1968)

As the most influential leader of the Civil Rights Movement during the 1950s and 1960s, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., inspired millions of Americans. King's philosophy of nonviolence, his persuasive speaking style, and his personal example resulted in sweeping social change.

Martin Luther King, Jr., was born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia, the son and grandson of Baptist ministers. King was ordained a minister in his father's church at the age of eighteen. After graduating from Morehouse College in 1948, he attended Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania for three years. It was during this period that King was first exposed to the philosophy of nonviolent resistance promoted by the Indian social and political leader Mohandas K. Gandhi. India had won independence from Great Britain in 1947, largely thanks to Gandhi's leadership. King's adoption of Gandhi's principles was a landmark in his development as a great leader. In 1953, King married Coretta Scott, and in time they became the parents of four children.

King capped his education by earning a doctorate at Boston University in 1955. That same year, as pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, he took up the cause of Rosa Parks, an African American woman who had been arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger on a public bus. King organized a year-long bus boycott to protest the policy of segregation in public accommodations. Although King was arrested and his life was threatened, the boycott ultimately prevailed. Montgomery's bus segregation law was struck down by the United States Supreme Court.

King recounted the story of the bus boycott in his first book, Stride Toward Freedom (1958). A gifted writer as well as one of the most talented orators in American history, he produced a series of important books. In 1957, he was elected president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Increasingly acknowledged as a national spokesman for civil rights, King returned to Atlanta in 1960 and became co-pastor, together with his father, of the Ebenezer Baptist Church.

In 1962, King began to work for civil rights in Birmingham, Alabama—one of the most rigidly segregated cities in America. The following year, he helped to organize an enormous march on Washington, D.C. King's speech on that occasion, delivered to 250,000 people gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial, has often been called his most eloquent address. In his ringing conclusion, he repeated the phrase "I have a dream" to emphasize his confidence that America would achieve liberty and justice for all people.

In early 1964, King was the first African American to be named "Man of the Year" by Time magazine. Later that year, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. In a book entitled Why We Can't Wait (1964), he persuasively addressed the claims of some of his critics, who argued for a more gradual pace of social change. Also in 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed a major Civil Rights Act into law.

In 1965, King led a march in Selma, Alabama, on behalf of voting rights. At that time, African Americans faced many obstacles to voting, including poll taxes and complex literacy tests. Outbreaks of violence in Selma and Montgomery led to vigorous action by President Johnson, who demanded that Congress pass a strong Voting Rights Bill. This measure was enacted into law later in 1965.

Throughout his career, King championed the ideal of nonviolent resistance. Within the Civil Rights Movement, however, other leaders felt that King's approach was too tame. In 1967, King published his next book, Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? In this work he responded to the arguments of these leaders, condemning any acceptance or approval of violence.

In the last years of his life, King aspired to even more ambitious goals: expanding his nonviolent demonstrations for civil rights to northern cities, as well as speaking out for peace in Vietnam and in favor of antipoverty legislation. On April 3, 1968, while he was organizing a labor action in Memphis, Tennessee, King delivered a speech in which he spoke of having "been to the mountaintop" and "seen the promised land." The following day, he was assassinated. Since 1986, the nation has observed a public holiday in mid-January to honor the memory of Martin Luther King, Jr.

The civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s challenged the public laws that segregated whites from people of color in the South. These laws, known as Jim Crow laws, specified that certain places, such as schools, restaurants, and public transport vehicles, be segregated according to race.

In 1954, the United States Supreme Court held that separate educational facilities were unequal and therefore unconstitutional. Racial tensions began to rise. In 1955, Rosa Parks's refusal to give up her seat to a white passenger spurred a bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama; in 1957, black students, accompanied by federal troops, integrated schools in Little Rock, Arkansas. Other challenges to segregation sprang from these acts of courage. Voter registration drives were mounted in the rural counties of Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi, where as few as one percent of eligible African Americans were registered to vote.

Martin Luther King, Jr., became a national figure and led thousands of Americans in the famous March on Washington in August 1963, when he delivered his inspiring "I Have a Dream" speech. In 1964, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act, which prohibited discrimination in education and employment, as well as segregation in public places.

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