Influential American - Marin Luther King

“I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places shall be made plain, and the crooked places shall be made straight and the glory of the Lord will be revealed and all flesh shall see it together…we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children--black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Catholics and Protestants--will be able to join hands and to sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, �Free at last, free at last; thank God Almighty, we are free at last.” These words were spoken by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in his “I Have A Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial in 1963 during the Civil Rights Movement. Little did he know how much those words would mean today.

Dr. Marin Luther King, Jr. was born on January 15, 1929 to Reverend Martin Luther King, Sr. and Alberta Christine Williams in Atlanta, Georgia. He was a rather smart individual and was able to skip his high school grades without having to graduate. He attended Morehouse College and graduated in June of 1948 with a B.A. in sociology. Later that year, he enrolled in Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania. He graduated in June 1951 with a B.D. King later attended Boston University. In between that time, he married Coretta Scott King on June 18, 1953 in Alabama. Having earlier obtained his license to preach in 1947, King was installed as the 20th pastor of the Dexter Avenue Church in Montgomery by his father. In June of 1955, King received his doctorate in Systematic Theology from Boston University. One can take from this that King was not just a man on the street speaking of Civil Rights, but he was an educated man who knew what he was talking about and how he wanted things done: a Civil Rights activist who wanted nothing more than peace in America.

The beginning of King’s involvement in the Civil Rights movement came about in 1955 when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man on a bus in Montgomery. She was arrested for doing so. This caused the bus boycott. The boycott lasted for full year and 3 months, when it was only planned to last for one day. The U.S. Supreme Court declared that bus segregation was unconstitutional. In December of 1956, the buses in Montgomery became integrated. The outcome of the boycott prompted King and other African-Americans to fight for more changes in the law. More and more people began to look up to King for guidance and leadership throughout the movement. He was almost seen as the answer to all of the problems.

The next event to take place with King’s leadership were the sit-ins. During the sit-ins, students went to white-only restaurants and sat at the bar where they were not permitted to sit. This was to desegregate the restaurants. Students all over the south were being arrested and taken to jail, as well as King. While in jail, King wrote a memoir titled “Letters from A Birmingham Jail”. This letter defended him from those that did not agree with what he was doing. Most people thought that King would react in a violent manner, but because he promoted non-violence, others were stunned.

Not only did King lead many protests and marches, but he also was involved in different organizations that upheld the cause he was promoting. The SCLC(Southern Christian Leadership Conference), the NAACP(National Association for the Advancement