Martin Luther King Jr
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Martin Luther King Jr. Date: 2017 From: Gale In Context Online Collection Publisher: Gale, a Cengage Company Document Type: Biography Length: 1,246 words Content Level: (Level 5) Lexile Measure: 1350L About this Person Born: January 15, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia, United States Died: April 04, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee, United States Nationality: American Occupation: Civil rights activist Other Names: King, Michael Luther, Jr. Full Text: One of the most well-known and accomplished social activists in history, Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) was one of the key figures of the American civil rights movement and a revered leader in the African American community. A Baptist minister, King led a passionate campaign to promote equal rights for African Americans and put an end to racial discrimination. His efforts, which included such historic events as the Montgomery bus boycott (1955–1956) and the March on Washington (1963), had a lasting impact on the way Americans thought about race and led to the passage of groundbreaking legislation including the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Although his life was ultimately cut short, King left a lasting legacy that continues to shape America and the American way of life today. Critical Thinking Questions Critical Thinking Questions What contributions did King make to the civil rights movement, and why were they important? Why might King have been a target of violence and intimidation? How might King’s death have changed the way the American public thought about him and the civil rights movement? Early Life Martin Luther King Jr. was born in Atlanta, Georgia, on January 15, 1929. The son of Martin Luther King Sr. (1899–1984), the pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church, and former schoolteacher Alberta Williams King (1926–1974), King grew up in Atlanta’s Sweet Auburn neighborhood, which was one of the most affluent African American communities in America. As a child, King attended segregated public school and performed so well as a student that he graduated high school early and enrolled at Morehouse College when he was just fifteen years old. Upon earning a degree from Morehouse, King began religious studies at Pennsylvania’s Crozer Theological Seminary. After earning a bachelor of divinity degree from Crozer in 1951, King moved on to Boston University. While working toward earning his doctorate at the university, King met a student from the New England Conservatory of Music named Coretta Scott (1927–2006). The two subsequently married in 1953. The following year, King moved to Montgomery, Alabama, with his new wife and took a position as pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. The Kings would eventually add four children to their family, including Yolanda Denise King (1955–2007), Martin Luther King III (1957–), Dexter Scott King (1961–), and Bernice Albertine King (1963–). King and the Civil Rights Movement Within a year of his arrival in the city, Montgomery became the center of the quickly escalating civil rights movement. King’s involvement in the civil rights movement began after local National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) secretary Rosa Parks (1913–2005) was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a city bus to a white passenger in 1955. In response to this injustice, King led a boycott of the Montgomery bus system that lasted for 381 days and brought national attention to the problem of segregation. Thanks in part to King’s efforts, segregated seating on public buses was declared unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court less than a year later. Empowered by the effectiveness of his bus boycott, King moved to take a more active role in the civil rights movement and, along with some of his fellow activists, formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1957. The SCLC was founded with the specific aim of achieving full equality for African Americans through nonviolent means. From the outset, King served as the SCLC’s president and most visible public spokesman. In this position, which he held for the remainder of his life, King spoke about civil rights and nonviolent protest at lectures around the world, wrote several books, and generally took a stand against racism and discrimination. King moved back to Atlanta in 1960 to serve alongside his father at the Ebenezer Baptist Church. In 1963, King and a number of other civil rights activists participated in a campaign against segregation in Birmingham, Alabama, that involved marches, sit-ins, and boycotts. For his part in the campaign, King was arrested on April 12 and briefly imprisoned. During his incarceration, King wrote a civil rights manifesto called “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” In this famous letter to a group of white clergymen, King persuasively defended the use of civil disobedience as a way of achieving social change. In August 1963, King organized and led the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the massive civil rights rally for which he is perhaps best remembered. On the day of the event, approximately two hundred thousand to three hundred thousand supporters of the civil rights movement gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial and called for an end to racial inequality and discrimination. For his part, King delivered the renowned “I Have a Dream” speech in which he described his vision of a future America where people of all colors and creeds lived side by side in peace. The march and King’s speech had an immediate impact, galvanizing the civil rights movement and helping to pave the way for the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. That same year, King himself was honored as both Time magazine’s Man of the Year and the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. In early 1965, an SCLC voter registration campaign in Selma, Alabama, erupted into a violent confrontation between white segregationists and peaceful protestors. In response to the violence, King led a group of supporters on a peaceful procession from Selma to Montgomery known as the March for Voting Rights. Just months after King’s march in Selma, Congress took steps to protect the voting rights of all African Americans with the passage of the Voting Rights Act. After Selma, King began making a concerted effort to extend the scope of his activism beyond civil rights. Specifically, he started speaking out against poverty and the Vietnam War (1954–1975). Death and Legacy Throughout the time he spent as a major public figure in the civil rights movement, King was frequently subjected to threats of violence and personal assaults. His home was even damaged in a bombing in the 1950s. King took these incidents in stride, but his work was undoubtedly dangerous and often left him vulnerable to attack. In the spring of 1968, King traveled to Memphis, Tennessee, to lend his voice to a sanitation workers’ strike. On the night of April 4, King was shot and killed while standing on a motel balcony. King’s assassination set off a wave of violence in cities across the nation. His assassin, an escaped convict named James Earl Ray (1928–1998), was later caught, tried, and sentenced to ninety-nine years in prison for King’s murder. In the years following his death, King came to be seen not only as a civil rights hero but also as one of the most important and influential activists in American history. In recognition of his groundbreaking accomplishments and the lasting legacy he left behind, the third Monday of January was designated a national holiday in King’s honor in 1983. Timeline—Martin Luther King Jr. Timeline—Martin Luther King Jr. 1929: Born on January 15 in Atlanta, Georgia 1948: Graduates from Morehouse College and enrolls at Boston University 1953: Marries Coretta Scott King 1955: Earns doctorate from Boston University 1955: Leads the Montgomery bus boycott 1957: Founds the Southern Christian Leadership Conference 1963: Gets arrested and is briefly jailed for participating in a campaign against segregation in Birmingham, Alabama 1963: Leads the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and delivers “I Have a Dream” speech 1965: Leads a voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama 1968: Dies of a gunshot wound on April 4 in Memphis, Tennessee Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2020 Gale, a Cengage Company Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition) "Martin Luther King Jr." Gale In Context Online Collection, Gale, 2017. Gale In Context: High School, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/GFPPKR808355292/SUIC?u=esc11&sid=SUIC&xid=76275bfa. Accessed 20 Mar. 2020. Gale Document Number: GALE|GFPPKR808355292 Disclaimer: This is a machine generated PDF of selected content from our databases. This functionality is provided solely for your convenience and is in no way intended to replace original scanned PDF.