Biography of Martin Luther King Jr. :: Martin Luther King Civil Rights Movement Essays

Biography of Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King, Jr., (January 15, 1929-April 4, 1968) was born Michael Luther King, Jr., but subsequently had his name changed to Martin. His grandfather began the familys long tenure as pastors of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in capital of Georgia, serving from 1914 to 1931 his father has served from then until the present, and from 1960 until his death Martin Luther acted as co-pastor. Martin Luther attended segregated commonplace schools in Georgia, graduating from high school at the age of fifteen he received the B. A. degree in 1948 from Morehouse College, a distinguished Negro institution of Atlanta from which both his father and grandfather had been graduated. After three years of theological study at Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania where he was elected death chair of a predominantly white senior class, he was awarded the B.D. in 1951. With a fellowship won at Crozer, he enrolled in graduate studies at capital of Massachus etts University, completing his residence for the doctorate in 1953 and receiving the degree in 1955 In Boston he met and married Coretta Scott, a young woman of uncommon talented and artistic attainments. Two sons and two daughters were born into the family.In 1954, Martin Luther King accepted the pastorale of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. Always a fast worker for civil rights for members of his race, King was, by this sentence, a member of the executive committee of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the leading organization of its diversity in the nation. He was ready, then, early in December, 1955, to accept the leadership of the first great Negro nonviolent demonstration of contemporary times in the unite States, the bus boycott described by Gunnar Jahn in his presentation speech in honor of the laureate. The boycott lasted 382 days. On December 21, 1956, after the Supreme apostrophize of the United States had declar ed unconstitutional the laws requiring segregation on buses, Negroes and whites rode the buses as equals. During these days of boycott, King was arrested, his home was bombed, he was subjected to personal abuse, but at the same time he emerged as a Negro leader of the first rank.In 1957 he was elected president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization organize to provide new leadership for the now burgeoning civil rights movement. The ideals for this organization he took from Christianity its operational techniques from Gandhi.