Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

The Greatest Civil Leader of Our Time

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (15 January 1929 – 4 April 1968)

Martin Luther King, Jr. was an American Baptist minister, activist and prominent leader in the American civil rights movement. His main legacy was to secure progress on civil rights in the United States and today he is a human rights icon.

He was born in Atlanta, Georgia as the second child of Reverend Martin Luther King, Sr. Both King and his father was born Michael. After visiting Germany in 1934 his father changed both of their names to Martin, in honour of the German Protestant leader Martin Luther.

King entered the Christian ministry and was ordained in 1948 at the age of 19 at Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta, Georgia.

He began doctoral studies in systematic theology at Boston University and received his doctor´s degree in 1955.  

He was the pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama from 1954 to  1959, when he resigned to move to Atlanta to direct the activities of the SCLC. From 1960 until his death in 1968, he was co-pastor with his father at Ebenezer Baptist Church.

King was a pivotal figure in the Civil Rights Movement. He was elected President of the Montgomery Improvement Association, the organization that was responsible for the successful Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955-56).

In 1957, King and other civil rights activists founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). The group was created to harness the moral authority and organizing power of black churches to conduct non-violent protests in the service of civil rights reform. King led the SCLC until his death.

He visited the Gandhi family in India in 1959. The trip to India affected King in a profound way, deepening his understanding of non-violent resistance and his commitment to America’s struggle for civil rights.

His efforts led to the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, where King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech. There, he raised public consciousness of the civil rights movement and established himself as one of the greatest orators in U.S. history.

In 1964, King became the youngest person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for his work to end racial segregation and racial discrimination through civil disobedience and other non-violent means. He was awarded honorary degrees from various colleges and universities in the United States and foreign countries and he received numerous awards for his leadership in the Civil Rights Movement.

He was arrested thirty times for his participation in civil rights activities. By the time of his death in 1968, he had refocused his efforts on ending poverty and opposing the Vietnam War, both from a religious perspective.

King was assassinated on 4 April 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee.

”Martin Luther King, Jr. Day” was established as a U.S. national holiday in 1986 (on the third Monday of January).

Although extremely involved with his family, his church, the SCLC, activities for peace and justice, his world travels, and his many speaking engagements, King wrote six books and numerous articles.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is remembered as the greatest civil rights leader of our time - and the passion of his words lives on in his works and serve to celebrate the legacy of a man who gave his life for freedom.

Quotations

• Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
• We will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.
• A right delayed is a right denied.
• Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal.
• Life's most persistent and urgent question is: What are you doing for others?
• The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.
• Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
• Whatever your life's work is, do it well.
• A man should do his job so well that the living, the dead, and the unborn could do it no better.
• Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality.
• The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.
• Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.
• Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
• Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into friend.
• The time is always right to do what is right.
• If a man hasn't discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live.
• It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important.
• Means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek.
• We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.
• The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically... Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education.
• I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character.

In a radio address made during his final evening in India, King reflected:

“Since being in India, I am more convinced than ever before that the method of non-violent resistance is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for justice and human dignity. In a real sense, Mahatma Gandhi embodied in his life certain universal principles that are inherent in the moral structure of the universe, and these principles are as inescapable as the law of gravitation.”

Video: "I Have a Dream"

Links

The King Center:
http://www.thekingcenter.org/index.asp