Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Biography:
Martin Luther King, Jr. was born on January 15, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia. He was the second child of Reverend Martin Luther King, Sr. and Alberta Williams King.
In 1934, he started school before reaching the legal age of six. When it was discovered, he was asked to leave until the following year. He excelled in school, skipping both ninth and twelfth grades. At the age of fifteen, Martin entered Morehouse College.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was ordained in 1948. Reverend King became Assistant Pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church. Also that year, he graduated Morehouse College with a B.A. degree in Sociology. After graduating, he attended the Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania, simultaneously attending the University of Pennsylvania. In 1951, he received a Bachelor of Divinity degree from Crozer.
Reverend King moved to Boston in 1951 to begin a doctoral program at Boston University. In 1953, he married Coretta Scott. Together, they had four children: Yolanda Denise, Martin Luther III, Dexter Scott, and Bernice Albertine. In 1954, Reverend King became the pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama.
In 1955, he received a Ph.D. in Systematic Theology from Boston University.
In 1959, Dr. King resigned from Dexter Avenue Baptist Church to move to Atlanta to direct his recently-founded Southern Christian Leadership Conference. In Atlanta, he also served as co-pastor with his father at Ebenezer Baptist Church.
Dr. King was a central figure in the Civil Rights Movement and a leading advocate of nonviolence. In 1963, at the age of 34, he was named “Man of the Year” by Time Magazine. In 1964, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, the youngest man and the first black man to receive that honor. Over the years, he was arrested thirty times for his civil rights actions. Dr. King was a member of a number of national and Atlanta-based boards of directors, in profit and non-profit organizations. Dr. King was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and other learned societies.
On April 4, 1968, Dr. King was in Memphis to help lead sanitation workers in a protest. As he stood on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel, he was shot and killed by James Earl Ray.