Martin Luther King Jr.

EARLY LIFE AND MINISTRY Martin Luther King Jr. was born in Atlanta, Georgia, on January 15, 1929. He grew up in a family closely connected with the African American Baptist church. His religious upbringing became an important foundation for his later public leadership. King studied at Morehouse College, Crozer Theological Seminary and Boston University. He married Coretta Scott in 1953 and became pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1954. He completed his doctoral studies in 1955. MONTGOMERY AND NONVIOLENT ACTION King became a prominent civil rights leader during the Montgomery bus boycott, which began in 1955. The campaign challenged racial segregation on public buses and brought together churches, local organisers and residents committed to sustained protest. His approach joined Christian beliefs with ideas of nonviolent resistance associated with Mahatma Gandhi. Nonviolence meant organised action against injustice through protest and civil disobedience. It demanded discipline from participants even when they faced intimidation, arrest or physical attack. King subsequently became president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, working with other leaders to coordinate campaigns across the South. BIRMINGHAM AND THE MARCH ON WASHINGTON In 1963, King helped lead the Birmingham campaign against segregation. While imprisoned, he wrote Letter from Birmingham Jail, explaining the need for direct action against racial injustice. Later that year, at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, he delivered the address known as I Have a Dream from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. The speech placed the struggle for equality before a large national audience. NOBEL PEACE PRIZE AND VOTING RIGHTS King received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 for his nonviolent work for African American civil rights. The award recognised a struggle carried forward by many organisations and ordinary participants, as well as its internationally known leaders. In 1965, he helped organise the Selma to Montgomery marches in support of Black voting rights. Such campaigns pressed the country to confront exclusion from political participation and racial discrimination in public life. POVERTY, WAR AND HIS FINAL YEARS During the later 1960s, King increasingly addressed poverty and opposed the Vietnam War. His activism faced powerful resistance, including surveillance and harassment by the FBI. He helped develop the Poor People’s Campaign and supported striking sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee. On April 4, 1968, he was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. He was 39. LEGACY Coretta Scott King continued work associated with his commitment to nonviolent social change and helped secure a national holiday in his honour. First observed federally in 1986, Martin Luther King Jr. Day commemorates his life and public service. King remains an influential figure in the history of civil rights and nonviolent protest. His work connected racial equality with political participation, economic justice and peace.