Martin Luther King, Jr.: Biography And Facts About The Civil Rights Movement's Greatest Orator

 Were you alive when Martin Luther King, Jr. was marching for independence as a Baptist minister and activist or were you just inspired by his brilliant work, you should know that his life is more than marching and making speeches is. His work to end segregation and racism awarded him the Nobel Peace Prize and the post-Independence Presidential Medal, but he was more than a collection of his achievements. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a man who faced diazation during intense scrutiny from both allies and enemies.

Not always a martin, but always a king

Georgia plays an important role in the king's life, not only because of where he first became a known entity, but also because of where he was born. On January 15, 1929, Michael King, Jr. arrived in the world via Atlanta, Georgia. His family was made up of ministers and sharecroppers, and his father was the head pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church from the early 30s.

After a trip to Europe, where the king's father witnessed the rise of Nazism, he knew that he would have to reject fascist rule. He changed his and his son's names in 1934 in honor of the German protestant leader upon his return to the states, although Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birth certificate was not changed until July 23, 1957.

Most of King's early life revolved around scripture and violence. He read the Bible daily and often found himself at the wrong end of his father's belt. According to his father, whenever he faced discipline, the young king was calm and calm, abusing without a word.

The king was only a boy when he came to face the cruel truth of racism. When he was six years old, he befriended a young blond boy, but when the two tried to play at the boy's home, the boy's parents forbade the king to play with his son. When the king brought it up for his parents, he explained it to him as racist at best, and the young boy was determined to "hate every white person", until his parents Did not state that it was his Christian duty to love every person and every human being, regardless of their beliefs.

Young king

In his teens, King saw his father fight segregation, and although he rarely overcame the structural racism of the South, he never stopped fighting for equal rights. In 1936, King, Sr. led a civil rights march at City Hall in Atlanta to protest voting rights discrimination, essentially providing a blueprint for his son to spend his adult life. In high school, Chota Raja was known for his public speaking abilities, but after winning an Oration competition in 1944, he was forced to stand all the way to Georgia by a ruthless bus driver, causing him fear Gone and was disappointed. Instead of finishing high school, King took entrance exams at Morehouse College as a junior and began attending at the age of 15.

At Morehouse, King played football before deciding to study under minister Benjamin Mess, a man he called a "spiritual master". In 1948, at the age of 19, King received his BA from Morehouse. In sociology, before enrolling at Crocker Theological Seminary in Upland, Pennsylvania, where he began to understand the importance of his public image. As a black minister, he knew that he would be held at the highest moral level and would have to make tough choices, such as breaking up his relationship with a German woman who worked at school for fear of the consequences of interracial marriage.

After graduating from Crozer in 1951, King began his doctoral studies at Boston University, while working as an assistant minister at Twelfth Baptist Church under the patronage of a family friend. On June 18, 1953, King married Coretta Scott on his parents' lawn, but the young family never had their own blissful pleasures to enjoy. By 1955, inspired by the arrest of Rosa Parks, King was leading his followers in a 385-day boycott of Montgomery's public transport system, during which his house was set on fire by a white supremacist. Stepping away from the sacred relics of his former home, the king told his supporters, "I want you to love our enemies. Be good with them, love them and tell them that you love them." Immediately, he became a star of the civil rights movement.

That same year, King received his doctorate and began working as a pastor at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. In the 1980s, researchers found that King had failed some of his dissertations, but after examining the paper in 1991, there was no recommendation to revoke his degree.

Surveillance and Selma

On the national stage, the King's star led to new opportunities, both good and bad. In 1957, he began working with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a group dedicated to bringing together black churches throughout the South for non-violent demonstrations for civil rights. The group soon found themselves under government surveillance, and in 1963, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy warned King to distance himself from S.C.L.C. And his alleged communist leanings.

For King, it was barely a difference: he was already suspected of the F.B.I. Director j. Edgar was not going to do anything to change Hoover, and Hoover's insane desire to bring down the King. Under the orders of the notorious director, who considered the king a "destroyer" and tried tirelessly to "neutralize" him, the king's hotel rooms were gutted and communist, anarchist, or any other -ist "leaning" His phone call was monitored for evidence of. . When this did not work, the F.B.I. Shifting his focus to reduce the king's moral standing in the community, with his letter so far sending evidence of an extramarital affair to his wife, as well as a letter encouraging the king to commit suicide to save his legacy.

Middle-aged, Raja worked with S.C.L.C. On March 1963 in Washington to organize mass marches and peaceful protest events bringing the national march to collective problems with Jim Crow South, where he delivered his 17-minute "I Have a Dream" speech. A year later, King and S.C.L.C. It got itself to register voters in Selma, Alabama, where a head-on campaign lasted months after a local judge issued an injunction, making it illegal for more than three people associated with SLCL. Or to assemble any of their offshoot civil rights groups.

King disobeyed the injunction on March 7, 1965, when he led 600 civil rights advocates from Selma to the bridge to Montgomery, where he met state police and local white supremacists. Police threw tear gas into the crowd of marchers and then attacked the smoke and dropped them to the ground. The entire attack was seen on camera for the world, which was once a local skirmish at a national event. Confederate troops were dispatched to assist with the march, and on 21 March, the protesters moved to Selma once again, this time by soldiers under strict orders to keep them safe. The catastrophic moment pushed the Voting Rights Act on August 6, 1965.

The Mountaintop

On March 29, 1968, King checked into Room 306 of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was to address a rally of striking sanitation workers. In his last speech, the king spoke to the prophet about his death:

And then I got to Memphis. And some started saying threats, or talking about threats that were outside. What will happen to some of our sick white brothers? Well, I don't know what will happen now. We have got some hard days ahead. But it doesn't matter to me anymore. Because I have gone for mountaineering. And I don't mind. Like anyone, I would like to live a longer life. Longevity has its own place. But I am not worried anymore. I just want to do God's will. And he has given me permission to go to the mountain. And I have seen. And I have seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight that we, as a person, will get the promised land. So I'm happy, tonight. I am not worried about anything. I am not afraid of any man. My eyes have seen the glory of the Lord's coming.

The next day, on April 4, 1968, King was shot by James Earl Ray at 6:01 pm. As he stood on the balcony of his motel and spoke with musician Ben Branch. Ray's bullet passes through King's right cheek, twisting his jaw before ripping his spine and placing it in the shoulder. The king later died at the age of 39.

While the assassination broke headlines and the king's mourning followers broke into cries of riots and conspiracy, Ray booked it out of the country, but not for long. He was detained at Heathrow Airport after two months while trying to leave London with a fake Canadian passport and for shooting on March 10, 1969, less than a week before his confession was withdrawn. Was admitted. He was sentenced to life in prison, where he died in 1998, after spending the rest of his time on Earth, insisting that he had nothing to do with the King's assassination.

If the king's opponents hoped that his assassination would stall the civil rights movement or make him forget, he mistakenly missed it. He was martyred by the Episcopal Church, and on November 2, 1983, President Ronald Reagan signed a bill creating a federal holiday to honor the King, which was eventually observed by all 50 states on 17 January 2000.