MLK Biography

MLK’s Life

Martin Luther King Junior was born on January 15, 1929. No one knew the he would later in his life become one of the most well know African Americans in our country. Martin Luther King Junior was born in Atlanta, Georgia in the family home at, 501 Auburn Avenue.

Martin Luther King Junior (MLK Jr.) grew up in Atlanta, Georgia and in 1935 MLK Jr. began school at the all black Yonge Street Elementary School. As MLK Jr. was growing up he had a lot of questions. He was told at age 6 that two of his friends weren’t allowed to play with him because of the differences in their race.

MLK Junior’s family was religious, so every Sunday MLK Jr. would go to church and hear his father speaking. MLK Jr. studied and before he was 15 he had already started college. By the time he was 18 he had followed his father and had become a minister.

When MLK Jr. finished collage he went to Boston to study some more. It was in Boston that he met his future wife, Coretta Scott. Martin Luther King Junior and Coretta Scott got married in June of 1953. A year after their marriage Martin Luther King Junior accepted a job as a minister at a church in Montgomery, Alabama. A year after that, he finished his research and became Dr. King.

It was on the familiar date December 1, 1955 that Dr. King decided to lead a protest, a protest for the rights of African Americans. Almost all of the Africans were not riding the local Montgomery buses. Dr. King led the boycott with pride; he made speeches and did everything he could to get fair rights. Dr. King was leading the boycott with peace, the people were angry, they wanted to fight. But Dr. King said, “We must meet hate with love.”

Finally when the boycott ended on December 21, 1956, Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Junior rode on the bus, and guess what, they sat in the very front seat! When the over 1 year of boycotting was over the new law was that it was against the law to make African Americans give up their seats to whites, and to keep the blacks in the back of the bus. The boycott was a success!

The biggest march of all for freedom was the “March on Washington” on August, 28 1963. Dr. King gave his speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. The speech he recited was his famous “I have a Dream” speech, because of the very powerful speech Dr. King won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. But that wasn’t Dr. King greatest prize. It was the laws that were passed, The Civil Rights Act o f1964 and The Voting Rights Act of 1965.

In 1968 Dr. King went to Tennessee to march there for equal pay for black and white garbage workers. He was standing on his motel balcony when he got shot by James Earl Ray.

When Dr. King died he left behind his four children and his wife. The marker on his gravestone says “I’m free at last.”

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