1. 1. Martin Luther King, Jr.By: Benedict S. Gombocz
2. 2. Childhood and Education, 1929-1951 Martin Luther King, Jr., was born onTuesday, January 15, 1929, in Atlanta,Georgia. His birth certificate listed his birth name asMichael Luther King, Jr., but it was laterchanged to Martin; his father arranged thischange in 1935 in honor of German reformerand leader of the Protestant ReformationMartin Luther. His grandfather and father were both pastorat Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. King was only fifteen when he graduatedfrom high school, having skipped from 9th to12th grade; he attended Morehouse Collegeand graduated in 1948 with a degree inSociology. In 1951, he got a Bachelors of Divinityfollowed by a Ph.D. from Boston College in1955. In Boston, he met Coretta Scott and marriedher in 1953; they had four children: YolandaDenise (1955-2007), Martin Luther III (b.1957), Dexter Scott (b. 1961), and BerniceAlbertine (b. 1963).
3. 3. Becoming a Civil Rights leader, 1955 Martin Luther King, Jr. became co-pastor of Dexter Avenue BaptistChurch in Montgomery, Alabama, in1954. While he was serving as pastor ofthe church, 42-year-old Rosa Parkswas arrested for refusing to give herseat on a Montgomery bus to awhite man; this occurred onThursday, December 1, 1955. On Monday, December 5, 1955, agroup of African Americans gatheredto discuss the situation, whichstarted the Montgomery BusBoycott.
4. 4. Montgomery Bus Boycott, 1955-1956 As the Montgomery Bus Boycott began, 26-year-old Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was unanimouslyelected president of the MontgomeryImprovement Association; because of his youngage, he was chosen to lead the boycott. African Americans participated in the boycott byrefusing to ride public buses; as the boycottprogressed, the buses started losing money andnearly went out of business. The situation often involved so much risk that Dr.Kings home was bombed on Tuesday, January30, 1956; fortunately, his wife and two-month-olddaughter who were at home were unhurt. In February, Dr. King was arrested on charges ofconspiracy. The boycott, meanwhile, lasted 1 year and 16days (382 days). On Friday, December 21, 1956, the SupremeCourt ruled that racial segregation on publictransportation was unconstitutional; blacks couldnow ride on buses wherever theywanted, alongside whites.
5. 5. Southern Christian LeadershipConference, 1957 The Southern Christian LeadershipConference (SCLC) was established in 1957with Dr. King named as its leader. Its objective was to provide leadership andorganization in the struggle for civil rights. Dr. King adopted the ideas of civildisobedience and peaceful protests basedon the works of Henry David Thoreau andthe actions of Mohandas Gandhi to lead theorganization and the struggle to endsegregation and discrimination; thesedemonstrations and acts of non-violencehelped lead to the passing of the Civil RightsAct of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of1965. Leading non-violent demonstrations rarelywere without incident; onSaturday, September 20, 1958, while goingon a book tour in New York to promote hisbook Strive Toward Freedom, Dr. King facedthe first attempt on his life- a dementedAfrican-American woman named Izola Currystabbed him in his chest with a letter opener.
6. 6. Dr. King undergoing surgery at HarlemHospital in New York, September 1958
7. 7. Letter from a Birmingham Jail, April 1963 As leader of the Civil Rights Movement, Dr.Martin Luther King, Jr., was a major part andcentral figure of many non-violent protestsas he helped in leading the fight fordesegregation and equal rights; he wasarrested several times, which inspired,motivated, and encouraged African-Americans to engage in acts of civildisobedience by also going to jail. The 60s turned the ride of the Civil RightsMovement, beginning with the staging of thefirst sit-in on Monday, February 1, 1960, ata Woolworths lunch counter in Greensboro,North Carolina. Later sit-ins were also staged in 1963 inBirmingham, Alabama, (known that year asBombingham) to protest segregation inrestaurants and eating facilities. During one of these, Dr. King was arrested;while he was imprisoned, he wrote hisfamous letter Letter from a BirminghamJail, in which he argued that visible protestswould guarantee progress; he also arguedthat it was an individuals obligation toprotest and in fact refuse to obey unjustlaws: Injustice anywhere is a threat tojustice everywhere.
8. 8. I Have a Dream Speech, August 1963 On Wednesday, August 28, 1963, Dr. King and otherCivil Rights leaders led the March on Washington forJobs and Freedom; it was the biggest demonstrationof its kind in Washington, D.C., up to this time and anestimated 250,000 demonstrators participated. In this march, King delivered his inspiring I Have aDream speech, his most famous one, whilespeaking from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Following the success of the march, Dr. King andother leaders met with President John F. Kennedyand asked him for many things like an end tosegregation in public schools, greater protection forAfrican-Americans, more effective civil rightslegislation, and on down the line. Unfortunately, tragedy struck three and a half weekslater when another bombing, again inBirmingham, this time at the 16th Street BaptistChurch, killed four young black girls onSunday, September 15. On Friday, November 22, President Kennedy wasassassinated by a Communist sympathizer, LeeHarvey Oswald, in Dallas, Texas; Texas GovernorJohn B. Connally was wounded, but survived. VicePresident Lyndon B. Johnson, a supporter of theCivil Rights movement like Kennedy, became the36th President.
9. 9. Man of the Year and Nobel Peace Prize, 1964 Dr. King was named Time MagazinesMan of the Year in 1964; with thishonor, he had become part of theworld stage. Also in 1964, he met with Pope PaulVI and was honored as the recipientof the Nobel Peace Prize onWednesday, October 14, (ironicallycoinciding with the change ofleadership in the Soviet Union fromNikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev toLeonid Ilyich Brezhnev) becoming theyoungest to receive it at the age of 35. He was awarded the prize onThursday, December 10, saying in hisacceptance speech, I accept theNobel Prize for Peace at a momentwhen 22 million Negroes of the UnitedStates of America are engaged in acreative battle to end the long night ofracial injustice. Dr. King gave the whole amount of theprize money to aid with the Civil Rightsmovement.
10. 10. Dr. King sitting along the pulpit of EbenezerBaptist Church, Sunday, November 8, 1964
11. 11. Dr. Kings Nobel Peace Prize AcceptanceSpeech, Thursday, December 10, 1964
12. 12. Selma, Alabama, 1965 On Sunday, March 7, 1965, a group ofdemonstrators attempted to organize amarch from Selma to Montgomery; Dr. Kingdid not attend because he preferred delayingit to the following day. The march was very important because itwas met with police brutality, which wascaptured on film; these images had a bigimpact on those who were not directlyinvolved in the resulting fight in a publicoutcry for change. Two weeks later, the march was reattemptedand the demonstrators made it toMontgomery on Thursday, March 25, wherethey heard Dr. King speak at the Capital. With the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the victoryof Lyndon B. Johnson over his Republicanopponent Barry M. Goldwater in the 1964presidential election, the peaceful marchfrom Selma to Montgomery, and the VotingRights Act of 1965, both 1964 and 1965were successful years for the Civil RightsMovement in many respects.
13. 13. Dr. King with President Johnson, March 1966
14. 14. Opposition to the Vietnam War andBeyond Vietnam Speech, 1967 After 1965, Dr. King retained hiscommitment to non-violence and thefight for Civil Rights, in spite ofconstant death threats; he was struckby a stone in Chicago in the summerof 1966 during the Chicago FreedomMovement. By 1967, Dr. King had become a criticof the War in Vietnam and wasstrongly opposed to Americaninvolvement in that war. On Tuesday, April 4, 1967, hedelivered a speech Beyond Vietnamto a crowd of 3,000 at the RiversideChurch in New York; in it, he said thereis a mutual link forming between thecivil rights and peace movements. He put forward a plan where theUnited States would cease bombing inNorth and South Vietnam.
15. 15. Opposition to the Vietnam War andBeyond Vietnam Speech, 1967 cont. Despite being sympathetic to President Johnsons GreatSociety, Dr. King became increasingly critical of U.S. involvementin Vietnam; as the public became more aware of Dr. Kingscriticism, his relationship with the Johnson administrationworsened. Dr. King came to regard U.S. intervention in Southeast Asia asmore than imperialism; in addition, he believed the Vietnam Warcaused money and attention to turn away from domesticprograms created to help poor blacks. Furthermore, King said in Beyond Vietnam: The war was doingfar more than devastating the hopes of the poor at home Wewere taking the black young men who had been crippled by oursociety and sending them eight thousand miles away toguarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found insouthwest Georgia and East Harlem.
16. 16. Poor Peoples Campaign, 1967-1968 Early in 1968, Dr. King and other civil rightsleaders organized and planned the PoorPeoples Campaign (it was set up inNovember 1967) in Washington, D.C. , forthe spring of that year; the campaign wasorganized to demand that PresidentJohnson aid the poor in getting jobs, healthcare and good homes. In March, Dr. King, along with advisorsRalph Abernathy, Jesse Jackson, andAndrew Young, went to Memphis; a marchwas held on Thursday, March 28, whichturned violent. Dr. King returned to Memphis onWednesday, April 3, and skipped a rally thatwas held in the afternoon; that night, hedelivered what would be his lastspeech, Ive Been to the Mountaintop, inwhich he said: Like anybody, I would like tolive - a long life; longevity has its place. ButIm not concerned about that now. I just wantto do Gods will. And Hes allowed me to goup to the Mountaintop. And Ive looked over.And Ive seen the Promised Land. I may notget there with you. But I want you to knowtonight, that we, as a people, will get to thePromised Land. So Im happy, tonight. Imnot worried about anything. Im not fearingany man. Mine eyes have seen the glory ofthe coming of the Lord!.
17. 17. Assassination, April 1968 On Thursday, April 4, as he stoodon the second-floor balcony of theLorraine Motel, Dr. King wasstruck by a single bullet, whichdamaged more than half of hisface and cut into his neck. Only an hour later, he waspronounced dead at St. JosephsHospital after a failed surgery. In the wake of Dr. Kingsdeath, riots erupted in severalcities across the country. In Indianapolis, Senator Robert F.Kennedy, brother of the slainPresident Kennedy, managed toprevent a riot by asking thepeople to say a prayer for thecountry. Dr. Kings funeral was held inAtlanta on Tuesday, April 9, atEbenezer Baptist Church.
18. 18. Dr. Kings funeral procession in Atlanta, April1968
19. 19. Poor Peoples Campaign after Dr.Kings death, May 1968 After Dr. King died, Ralph Abernathy was chosen to succeed him asleader of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and tolead the Poor Peoples Campaign in Dr. Kings place. Thousands of people took part in the march on Sunday, May 12,1968. As he led the way for demonstrators, Abernathy said: We comewith an appeal to open the doors of America to the almost 50 millionAmericans who have not been given a fair share of Americaswealth and opportunity, and we will stay until we get it. Even though as many as 50,000 people marched, the PoorPeoples campaign was viewed as a failure by those who had growntired of protesting and did not see these protests meet withchanges.
20. 20. Posthumous awards and federal holiday Dr. King was posthumouslyawarded the Presidential Medal ofFreedom in 1977 by PresidentJimmy Carter, in the presence ofDr. Kings wife and father and theCongressional Gold Metal in2004. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day wassigned into law as a federalholiday on Monday, January20, 1986, almost 18 years afterhis death; it was observed for thefirst time in all 50 states onMonday, January 17, 2000.
21. 21. Bibliography http://americanhistory.about.com/od/afamerpeople/p/mlking.htm http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/martin-luther-king-jr-speaks-out-against-the-war http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91626373 Tribute to Dr. King:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56mjwycKuXA