Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an African American minister and activist who became the most visible spokesperson and leader in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968. King is best known for advancing civil rights through nonviolence and civil disobedience, inspired by his Christian beliefs and the nonviolent activism of Mahatma Gandhi.
King led the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott and later became the first president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). As president of the SCLC, he then led an unsuccessful 1962 struggle against segregation in Albany, Georgia, and helped organize the nonviolent 1963 protests in Birmingham, Alabama. He helped organize the 1963 March on Washington, where he delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
On October 14, 1964, King won the Nobel Peace Prize for combating racial inequality through nonviolent resistance. In 1965, he helped organize the Selma to Montgomery marches. In his final years, he expanded his focus to include opposition towards poverty, capitalism, and the Vietnam War. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover considered him a radical and made him an object of the FBI's COINTELPRO from 1963 on. FBI agents investigated him for possible communist ties, recorded his extramarital liaisons and reported on them to government officials, and, in 1964, mailed King a threatening anonymous letter, which he interpreted as an attempt to make him commit suicide.[1]
King was planning a national occupation of Washington, D.C., to be called the Poor People's Campaign, when he was assassinated on April 4 in Memphis, Tennessee. His death was followed by riots in many U.S. cities. Allegations that James Earl Ray, the man convicted of killing King, had been framed or acted in concert with government agents persisted for decades after the shooting.
King was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal. Martin Luther King Jr. Day was established as a holiday in cities and states throughout the United States beginning in 1971; the holiday was enacted at the federal level by legislation signed by President Ronald Reagan in 1986. Hundreds of streets in the U.S. have been renamed in his honor, and a county in Washington was rededicated for him. The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., was dedicated in 2011.
Early childhood
At his childhood home, King and his two siblings would read aloud Biblical scripture as instructed by their father.[23] After dinners there, King's grandmother Jennie, who he affectionately referred to as "Mama", would tell lively stories from the Bible to her grandchildren.[23] King's father would regularly use whippings to discipline his children.[24] At times, King Sr. would also have his children whip each other.[24] King's father later remarked, "[King] was the most peculiar child whenever you whipped him. He'd stand there, and the tears would run down, and he'd never cry."[25] Once when King witnessed his brother A.D. emotionally upset his sister Christine, he took a telephone and knocked out A.D. with it.[24][26] When he and his brother were playing at their home, A.D. slid from a banister and hit into their grandmother, Jennie, causing her to fall down unresponsive.[27][26] King, believing her dead, blamed himself and attempted suicide by jumping from a second-story window.[28][26] Upon hearing that his grandmother was alive, King rose and left the ground where he had fallen.[28]
King became friends with a white boy whose father owned a business across the street from his family's home.[29] In September 1935, when the boys were about six years old, they started school.[29][30] King had to attend a school for black children, Younge Street Elementary School,[29][31] while his close playmate went to a separate school for white children only.[29][31] Soon afterwards, the parents of the white boy stopped allowing King to play with their son, stating to him "we are white, and you are colored".[29][32] When King relayed the happenings to his parents, they had a long discussion with him about the history of slavery and racism in America.[29][33] Upon learning of the hatred, violence and oppression that black people had faced in the U.S., King would later state that he was "determined to hate every white person".[29] His parents instructed him that it was his Christian duty to love everyone.
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King witnessed his father stand up against segregation and various forms of discrimination.[34] Once, when stopped by a police officer who referred to King Sr. as "boy", King's father responded sharply that King was a boy but he was a man.[34] When King's father took him into a shoe store in downtown Atlanta, the clerk told them they needed to sit in the back.[35] King's father refused, stating "we'll either buy shoes sitting here or we won't buy any shoes at all", before taking King and leaving the store.[14] He told King afterwards, "I don't care how long I have to live with this system, I will never accept it."[14] In 1936, King's father led hundreds of African-Americans in a civil rights march to the city hall in Atlanta, to protest voting rights discrimination.[24] King later remarked that King Sr. was "a real father" to him.[36]
King memorized and sang hymns, and stated verses from the Bible, by the time he was five years old.[28] Over the next year, he began to go to church events with his mother and sing hymns while she played piano.[28] His favorite hymn to sing was "I Want to Be More and More Like Jesus"; he moved attendees with his singing.[28] King later became a member of the junior choir in his church.[37] King enjoyed opera, and played the piano.[38] As he grew up, King garnered a large vocabulary from reading dictionaries and consistently used his expanding lexicon.[26] He got into physical altercations with boys in his neighborhood, but oftentimes used his knowledge of words to stymie fights.[26][38] King showed a lack of interest in grammar and spelling, a trait which he carried throughout his life.[38] In 1939, King sang as a member of his church choir in slave costume, for the all-white audience at the Atlanta premiere of the film Gone with the Wind.[39][40]
On May 18, 1941, when King had snuck away from studying at home to watch a parade, King was informed that something had happened to his maternal grandmother.[36] Upon returning home, he found out that she had suffered a heart attack and died while being transported to a hospital.[18] He took the death very hard, and believed that his
King's Assasssination
On March 29, 1968, King went to Memphis, Tennessee, in support of the black sanitary public works employees, who were represented by AFSCME Local 1733. The workers had been on strike since March 12 for higher wages and better treatment. In one incident, black street repairmen received pay for two hours when they were sent home because of bad weather, but white employees were paid for the full day.[208][209][210]
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On April 3, King addressed a rally and delivered his "I've Been to the Mountaintop" address at Mason Temple, the world headquarters of the Church of God in Christ. King's flight to Memphis had been delayed by a bomb threat against his plane.[211] In the prophetic peroration of the last speech of his life, in reference to the bomb threat, King said the following:
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And then I got to Memphis. And some began to say the threats, or talk about the threats that were out. What would happen to me from some of our sick white brothers? Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. So I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.[212]
King was booked in Room 306 at the Lorraine Motel (owned by Walter Bailey) in Memphis. Ralph Abernathy, who was present at the assassination, testified to the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations that King and his entourage stayed at Room 306 so often that it was known as the "King-Abernathy suite."[213] According to Jesse Jackson, who was present, King's last words on the balcony before his assassination were spoken to musician Ben Branch, who was scheduled to perform that night at an event King was attending: "Ben, make sure you play 'Take My Hand, Precious Lord' in the meeting tonight. Play it real pretty."[214]
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King was fatally shot by James Earl Ray at 6:01 p.m., April 4, 1968, as he stood on the motel's second-floor balcony. The bullet entered through his right cheek, smashing his jaw, then traveled down his spinal cord before lodging in his shoulder.[215][216] Abernathy heard the shot from inside the motel room and ran to the balcony to find King on the floor.[217] Jackson stated after the shooting that he cradled King's head as King lay on the balcony, but this account was disputed by other colleagues of King; Jackson later changed his statement to say that he had "reached out" for King.[218]
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After emergency chest surgery, King died at St. Joseph's Hospital at 7:05 p.m.[219] According to biographer Taylor Branch, King's autopsy revealed that though only 39 years old, he "had the heart of a 60 year old", which Branch attributed to the stress of 13 years in the civil rights movement.[220] King is buried within Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park