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Family 1929-1944 In 1929, Martin Luther King was the first-born son to Martin Luther King, Sr. (Mike) and Alberta Williams. Martin Luther King Junior (M.L.) had an older sister, Willie Christine and a younger brother, Alfred Daniel (A.D.). |
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M.L.'s father was a minister at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, GA, two blocks from the family house. The Church was also where Alberta Williams' father, Reverend Adam Daniel Williams, was once pastor. Naturally, the family revolved around the Church. Mike gave passionate moving sermons and Alberta, the music director, played uplifting Christian songs. Together they taught their children to love God through words and music.
Mrs. Jennie Celeste
Williams, "Mama", was M.L.'s favorite grandmother. Because she lived
with the Kings, she often took care of the children while their parents were at
Church. After M.L. got into trouble and received a punishment, Mama would
always give him a kiss, a hug, or a gentle word. She was his inspiration to
always remember to a kind word goes a long way. His childhood shattered with
her death in 1941.
M.L. was considered small for his age. He enjoyed football, reading, and singing. As he matured, his voice did too. His deep baritone voice and fancy brown tweed suit kept the girls at Booker T. Washington High School interested.
When he was 14 years old and in 11th grade, he won first prize an oratorical contest sponsored by the Negro Elks. His speech was "The Negro and the Constitution." The contest was in Dublin, Ga. On the trip home, M.L. and his teacher are ordered to stand the remaining two hours to Atlanta as a white couple takes their seats. Because they didn't move quickly enough, the white driver cursed them. M.L. says "it was the angriest I have ever been in my life" (MLK, http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/index.htm).
Education
1944-1949
In 1944, M.L.
went to Morehouse College at the
age of 15. Morehouse was the
alma mater of his
father and his grandfather. His father wanted him to be a minister, but M.L.
thought about being a lawyer or a doctor. While there, he began to read the
writings of Henry David Thoreau and Civil Disobedience. He worked with racial
injustices and was fascinated by the theory of refusing to cooperate with an
injustice system. During M.L.'s senior year, he decided to go into the
ministry. He was ordained as a minister in 1948 and was made assistant pastor
at Ebenezer. He graduated from Morehouse in 1949 with a bachelor's degree in
Sociology.
The following
year he went to Crozer Seminary in Chester, PA. Crozer was the first integrated
school 
that M.L. had attended.
During these years, M.L. learned about Mahatma Gandhi and his belief in
peaceful and nonviolent actions and protests. He graduated valedictorian from
Crozer in 1951 with a bachelor's degree in divinity.
With a partial
scholarship, M.L. decided to pursue a Ph.D. at the School of Technology at
Boston University in 1951. It was in Boston that he met Coretta
Scott, a young
singer at the New England
Conservatory of Music. After courting her for a year,
they were finally married in 1953 in Marion, Alabama in front of Coretta's home
by M.L.'s father.
M.L. had definite
ideas about marriage and how a wife was to act. He expected Coretta to become a
housewife and mother. M.L. was now working on his dissertation that was an
analysis of the differing views of God. He knew he could do his writing
anywhere and believed it was time to have his own church. His father wanted him
to come to Atlanta and the Ebenezer Church, but M.L. wanted his own church and
became the new pastor at the Dexter
Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, AL in
1954.
1955-1963
In 1955, King was encouraging his congregation to vote, join the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and to resist segregation. In this year, he also finished his dissertation and was awarded a PhD. 1955 was also a year for celebration in the King household because he and Coretta had a little girl named Yolanda Denise. In 1957, Coretta gave birth to their second child Martin Luther King III. Amid the protests, prison terms, and speeches, Martin Luther King Jr and Coretta gave birth to their second son, Dexter, in January of 1962 and their second daughter Bernice in March of 1963.
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