Short Biography and Philosophy of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Civil Rights and Responsibilities
Prepared for Use with Your Students
Martin Luther King, Jr. was born in Atlanta, Georgia, on January 15, 1929. (Martin Luther, for whom he was named, was the founder of the Protestant religion more than 300 years earlier.)
Young Martin's father and grandfather were ministers. They had made the Ebenezer Baptist Church one of the best known in the South.
What was it like to grow up in Atlanta? This was the city that used law and custom to keep the Negro "in his place." Martin Luther King went to a segregated school. The family tried not to use public buses, for they were marked with such signs as "Colored Exit by Rear Door" and "Colored Seat from the Rear."
When Martin was fifteen he had completed high school and was ready to enter Morehouse College in Atlanta in 1944. This is one of the best known and oldest of the Black colleges. At Morehouse he studied history and sociology, the study of how people live in groups. He found that he had real talent as a public speaker.
In 1947 he was ordained a minister in his father's church. He was only eighteen! He had made the decision to spend his life leading and guiding his people.
He went to Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania, to continue his studies as a minister. Martin finished his studies at the top of his class and won a scholarship for further study.
The highest degree one can earn for his studies is the doctor's degree. Martin Luther King used his scholarship at Boston University where he received his doctor's degree.
In June 1953 he met and married Coretta Scott. She had graduated from Antioch College and was studying music in Boston.
Dr. King and Coretta returned to Montgomery where he became pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.
Like all of Alabama, Montgomery was a city of hatred and violence. Dr. King spoke out against it in his Sunday sermons. Then the bus boycott came. Dr. King was soon its leader. Dr. King said that unjust laws and customs would not be obeyed. He called his way of fighting injustice "nonviolent direct action." He said that physical force should be met with soul force. "We will not hate you, but we cannot...obey your unjust laws."
Dr. King spoke all over the country. Everyone listed to him. Those who followed him became freedom riders. They joined in the sit-ins. They came to the March on Washington.
On December 10, 1964, Martin Luther King went to Stockholm, Sweden. He went there to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, the award that can be won each year by the person who has done the most for peace in the world. Dr. King was 35 years old, the youngest person ever to win the prize. He gave the $54,000 that came with it to the civil rights movement.
In March 1968, Dr. King was in Memphis, Tennessee. There the sanitation workers were on strike for higher wages. Most of these men were Black. The leaders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, SCLC, had decided to aid them. Meetings were held night after night. On the night of April 3, Martin Luther King spoke at one of them.
April 4, 1968, Dr. King was staying in a motel in Memphis. He stepped out on the balcony for a breath of fresh air. A shot came from a nearby building. A bullet hit the right side of his neck, killing him.
Dr. King always knew that he had set forth on a dangerous road. He was jailed many times. He was struck; he was stabbed; in the end a bullet killed him. Yet, he never called for violence.
What Dr. King Believed
Dr. King thought there were three ways you could act when you feel you are being treated unfairly.
First, you could just accept the way you are being treated and not complain. But, Dr. King did not think this is what you should do. If you do not complain, then people may not realize they are not treating you properly.
Second, you could act violently, that is, by fighting. But, Dr. King did not think that this was a good way to act either. He believed in the power of love. When you fight people, you are forcing them to fight back against you. And when people fight each other, they usually do not understand each other. This causes more trouble and unhappiness.
Finally, Dr. King thought you could act by objecting to the way you are being treated - not by fighting, but by doing what you think is right. Sometimes this might mean disobeying a law and going to jail. For example, if a law said that you had to sit in the back of the bus because of the color of your skin, and you thought you should be able to sit anywhere on the bus, then you would just sit wherever you wished. If someone asked you to move, you would keep sitting there, even if it meant going to jail.
Dr. King helped us learn that it is important to respect each other - that freedom is for all people and we must work together to keep it.