Martin luther king biography for high school

Martin graduated from Booker T. Washington High School martin luther king biography for high school he was just 15 and went right to college. He then moved north to Pennsylvania to study religion at the Crozer Theological Seminary. During his stay at the seminary, he studied the teachings of Indian spiritual leader Mohandas Gandhi, who cautioned against violence as a way to bring about social change.

The seminary classes included students of varying colors of skin, and Martin was elected president of his senior class, a class that had mostly white students in it. He received his seminary degree in and then moved on to Boston University, from which he graduated in with a doctorate degree. It was in Boston that Martin met his future wife, Coretta Scott, a strong and powerful woman who cared deeply about civil rights.

They were married soon after and eventually had four children, two sons and two daughters. He also was on the executive committee of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. This was not the first bus boycott, however. That took place in in Baton Rouge, La. Not long after it ended, the Supreme Court ruled that laws requiring segregation on buses were illegal.

During the boycott and his increasingly public presence, King was arrested and was also the target of violence and threats on his life. Mays was an outspoken advocate for racial equality and encouraged King to view Christianity as a potential force for social change. After being accepted at several colleges for his doctoral study, King enrolled at Boston University.

He completed his doctorate and earned his degree in at age A committee of scholars appointed by Boston University determined that King was guilty of plagiarism inthough it also recommended against the revocation of his degree. As explained in his autobiographyKing previously felt that the peaceful teachings of Jesus applied mainly to individual relationships, not large-scale confrontations.

It was in this Gandhian emphasis on love and nonviolence that I discovered the method for social reform that I had been seeking. Led by his religious convictions and philosophy of nonviolence, King became one of the most prominent figures of the Civil Rights Movement. He was a founding member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and played key roles in several major demonstrations that transformed society.

The effort began on December 1,when year-old Rosa Parks boarded the Cleveland Avenue bus to go home after work. As more passengers boarded, several white men were left standing, so the bus driver demanded that Parks and several other African Americans give up their seats. Three other Black passengers reluctantly gave up their places, but Parks remained seated.

The driver asked her again to give up her seat, and again, she refused. Parks was arrested and booked for violating the Montgomery City Code. On the night Parks was arrested, E. King was elected to lead the boycott because he was young, well-trained, and had solid family connections and professional standing. He was also new to the community and had few enemies, so organizers felt he would have strong credibility with the Black community.

The Montgomery Bus Boycott began December 5,and for more than a year, the local Black community walked to work, coordinated ride sharing, and faced harassment, violence, and intimidation. In addition to the boycott, members of the Black community took legal action against the city ordinance that outlined the segregated transit system. They argued it was unconstitutional based on the U.

Board of Education After the legal defeats and large financial losses, the city of Montgomery lifted the law that mandated segregated public transportation. The boycott ended on December 20, Flush with victory, African American civil rights leaders recognized the need for a national organization to help coordinate their efforts.

In JanuaryKing, Ralph Abernathyand 60 ministers and civil rights activists founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to harness the moral authority and organizing power of Black churches. The SCLC helped conduct nonviolent protests to promote civil rights reform. The SCLC felt the best place to start to give African Americans a voice was to enfranchise them in the voting process.

King met with religious and civil rights leaders and lectured all over the country on race-related issues. ByKing was gaining national exposure. He returned to Atlanta to become co-pastor with his father at Ebenezer Baptist Church but also continued his civil rights efforts. His next activist campaign was the student-led Greensboro Sit-In movement.

The movement quickly gained traction in several other cities. King encouraged students to continue to use nonviolent methods during their protests. By Augustthe sit-ins had successfully ended segregation at lunch counters in 27 southern cities. On October 19,King and 75 students entered a local department store and requested lunch-counter service but were denied.

When they refused to leave the counter area, King and 36 others were arrested. Soon after, King was imprisoned for violating his probation on a traffic conviction. The news of his imprisonment entered the presidential campaign when candidate John F. Kennedy expressed his concern over the harsh treatment Martin received for the traffic ticket, and political pressure was quickly set in motion.

King was soon released. In the spring ofKing organized a demonstration in downtown Birmingham, Alabama. With entire families in attendance, city police turned dogs and fire hoses on demonstrators. King was jailed, along with large numbers of his supporters.

Martin luther king biography for high school

The martin luther king biography for high school drew nationwide attention. However, King was personally criticized by Black and white clergy alike for taking risks and endangering the children who attended the demonstration. The demonstration was the brainchild of labor leader A. On August 28,the historic March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom drew an estimatedpeople in the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial.

It remains one of the largest peaceful demonstrations in American history. The rising tide of civil rights agitation that had culminated in the March on Washington produced a strong effect on public opinion. This resulted in the passage of the Civil Rights Act ofauthorizing the federal government to enforce desegregation of public accommodations and outlawing discrimination in publicly owned facilities.

But the Selma march quickly turned violent as police with nightsticks and tear gas met the demonstrators as they tried to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma. The attack was televised, broadcasting the horrifying images of marchers being bloodied and severely injured to a wide audience. Not to be deterred, activists attempted the Selma-to-Montgomery march again.

This time, King made sure he was part of it. Because a federal judge had issued a temporary restraining order on another march, a different approach was taken. On March 9,a procession of 2, marchers, both Black and white, set out once again to cross the Pettus Bridge and confronted barricades and state troopers. Instead of forcing a confrontation, King led his followers to kneel in prayer, then they turned back.

Johnson pledged his support and ordered U. Army troops and the Alabama National Guard to protect the protestors. On March 21,approximately 2, people began a march from Selma to Montgomery. On March 25, the number of marchers, which had grown to an estimated 25, gathered in front of the state capitol where King delivered a televised speech.

Five months after the historic peaceful protest, President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act. Standing at the Lincoln Memorial, he emphasized his belief that someday all men could be brothers to the ,strong crowd. Six years before he told the world of his dream, King stood at the same Lincoln Memorial steps as the final speaker of the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom.

Dismayed by the ongoing obstacles to registering Black voters, King urged leaders from various backgrounds—Republican and Democrat, Black and white—to work together in the name of justice. Speaking at the University of Oslo in Norway, King pondered why he was receiving the Nobel Prize when the battle for racial justice was far from over, before acknowledging that it was in recognition of the power of nonviolent resistance.

He then compared the foot soldiers of the Civil Rights Movement to the ground crew at an airport who do the unheralded-yet-necessary work to keep planes running on schedule. At the end of the bitterly fought Selma-to-Montgomery march, King addressed a crowd of 25, supporters from the Alabama State Capitol. Offering a brief history lesson on the roots of segregation, King emphasized that there would be no stopping the effort to secure full voting rights, while suggesting a more expansive agenda to come with a call to march on poverty.

Explaining why his conscience had forced him to speak up, King expressed concern for the poor American soldiers pressed into conflict thousands of miles from home, while pointedly faulting the U. The well-known orator delivered his final speech the day before he died at the Mason Temple in Memphis, Tennessee. They were married on June 18,and had four children—two daughters and two sons—over the next decade.

The couple welcomed Bernice King in In addition to raising the children while Martin travelled the country, Coretta opened their home to organizational meetings and served as an advisor and sounding board for her husband. His lengthy absences became a way of life for their children, but Martin III remembered his father returning from the road to join the kids playing in the yard or bring them to the local YMCA for swimming.

Leery of accumulating wealth as a high-profile figure, Martin Jr. However, he was known to splurge on good suits and fine dining, while contrasting his serious public image with a lively sense of humor among friends and family. Due to his relationships with alleged Communists, King became a target of FBI surveillance and, from late until his death, a campaign to discredit the civil rights activist.

Edgar Hooverwhich urged King to kill himself if he wanted to prevent news of his dalliances from going public. Inhistorian David Garrow wrote of explosive new allegations against King following his review of recently released FBI documents. Among the discoveries was a memo suggesting that King had encouraged the rape of a parishioner in a hotel room as well as evidence that he might have fathered a daughter with a mistress.

The original surveillance tapes regarding these allegations are under judicial seal until From late throughKing expanded his civil rights efforts into other larger American cities, including Chicago and Los Angeles. He was met with increasing criticism and public challenges from young Black power leaders. To address this criticism, King began making a link between discrimination and poverty, and he began to speak out against the Vietnam War.

He sought to broaden his base by forming a multiracial coalition to address the economic and unemployment problems of all disadvantaged people. Bythe years of demonstrations and confrontations were beginning to wear on King. He had grown tired of marches, going to jail, and living under the constant threat of death. He was becoming discouraged at the slow progress of civil rights in America and the increasing criticism from other African American leaders.

In the spring ofa labor strike by Memphis, Tennessee, sanitation workers drew King to one last crusade. Longevity has its place. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord. In SeptemberKing survived an attempt on his life when a woman with mental illness stabbed him in the chest as he signed copies of his book Stride Toward Freedom in a New York City department store.