Martin Luther King Jr.

What I Already Know About My Topic:

Every year in January, the nation celebrates the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. We get a day off from school and our parents get a day off from work. There are usually shows on TV and articles in magazines during the month of January commemorating Martin Luther King Jr. and his many accomplishments. The holiday is the celebration of equality, the celebration of freedom, and the celebration of a wonderful man!

Martin Luther King Jr. was a famous American and a leader of the Civil Right movement. His speech, “I Have A Dream” is famous and I have read it several times in some of my classes. I have always remembered the line “Free at last! Thank God almighty we are free at last!" I also know that many Americans did not like Martin Luther King Jr. because they did not want black people to have all the rights and privileges as white people. This hatred led to his assignation.

What I Want to Find Out:

What led Martin Luther King Jr. to become an activist, leader, and orator for the black communities across the United States? What moral and ethical beliefs did he have that brought people together for a common cause? Why was he chosen among all black men and women to lead the charge for equality? The speeches he made were impassioned, thought provoking and inspiring. How was he able to bring together a nation without violence with his words? Martin Luther King Jr. was a man of courage and vision and a man who gave hope and dignity to people of color in America. This is a man who understood the persuasiveness of speech and its impact on others. This is a man I want to know more about.

Martin Luther King Jr. was born on January 15, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia. His father was a pastor and his mother was a school teacher. He attended Ebenezer Baptist church where his grandfather, father and later he served as ministers. Throughout his life, even as a young boy, Martin disliked violence, preferring his ability to persuade and influence others with language. His early years were comfortable but he knew at an early age that there were some places blacks could not go such as swimming pools, rest rooms, certain seats on buses, restaurants and businesses. Discrimination was alive and well in the South even though the Supreme Court had ruled it unconstitutional.

Martin was a gifted student and was accepted at Morehouse College at the age of 15. At the age of 19 Martin graduated from Morehouse and accepted a scholarship to Crozer Theological Seminary near Philadelphia. He studied ethics, social philosophy and church history. He was influenced by the work of theologian Walter Rauschenbusch, whose social ideas helped form Martin’s conviction that “any religion which professes to be concerned about the souls of men and is not concerned about the social and economic conditions that scar the soul is a spiritually moribund religion.” Martin also embraced the ideas of Gandhi, who believed that the pathway to social change was through love and peacefulness. The Gandhi method of nonviolence was one of the most potent weapons available to the Negro in his struggle for freedom. The tactics of Gandhi and the ethics of Jesus Christ would serve as the guiding forces of Martin’s leadership.

Martin earned a Ph.D. at Boston University. In the northern states there was a strong and secure black community where Martin could participate in sports, philosophical discussions and go to local nightclubs. Martin came to realize that he would have to return to the South. He had a moral obligation to help his people rise above poverty and segregation. The South was his home and the blacks there were his people. He wrote once that “despite the existence of Jim Crow which kept reminding us at all times of the color of our skin, we had the feeling that something remarkable was unfolding in the South, and wanted to be on hand to witness it.” After marrying Coretta Scott, the two of them moved to Montgomery, Alabama where Martin became the pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

The turning point in Martin’s life came when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white person. She was arrested on December 1, 1955 and this action became the starting point of a revolutionary nonviolent protest movement. On December 5, 1955, five days after Rosa Parks refused to obey the city's rules mandating segregation on buses, black residents launched a bus boycott and elected Martin as president of the newly-formed Montgomery Improvement Association. As the boycott continued during 1956, King gained national prominence as a result of his exceptional oratorical skills and personal courage.