Martin Luther King Jr.

Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American civil rights activist and Baptist minister who was a prominent leader of the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968. He advanced civil rights in the United States through nonviolence and sometimes civil disobedience against Jim Crow laws and other forms of legalized discrimination, which most commonly affected African Americans.

A Black church leader, King took part in and led marches for the right to vote, desegregation, labor rights, and other civil rights. He oversaw the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott and was the first president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). He led the unsuccessful Albany Movement in Albany, Georgia and helped organize nonviolent protests in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963. King was one of the leaders of the 1963 March on Washington, where he gave his "I Have a Dream" speech. He also helped organize two of the three Selma to Montgomery marches during the 1965 Selma voting rights movement. There were dramatic standoffs with segregationist authorities, who often responded violently. The civil rights movement achieved important laws, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968.

King was jailed several times. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) director J. Edgar Hoover considered King a radical and made him a target of COINTELPRO beginning in 1963. FBI agents investigated him for possible communist ties, spied on his personal life, and secretly recorded him. In 1964, the FBI mailed King a threatening anonymous letter, which he believed was an attempt to hurt him. That same year, King won the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize for fighting racial inequality through nonviolent resistance. In his final years, he expanded his focus to include opposition to poverty and the Vietnam War.

In 1968, King was planning a national gathering in Washington, D.C., called the Poor People's Campaign, when he was assassinated on April 4 in Memphis, Tennessee. James Earl Ray was convicted of the assassination, though it remains the subject of conspiracy theories. King's death led to riots in US cities. King was honored after his death with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977 and the Congressional Gold Medal in 2003. Martin Luther King Jr. Day was established as a holiday in cities and states across the United States beginning in 1971, and the federal holiday was first observed in 1986. The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., was dedicated in 2011.

Early life and education

Michael King Jr. was born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta. He was the second of three children of Michael King and Alberta King (née Williams). His older sister was Christine King Farris, and his younger brother was Alfred Daniel King. His father had been born to sharecroppers in Stockbridge, Georgia, and later became pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church. In 1934, he traveled to Berlin for the Baptist World Alliance Congress, which spoke out against the rise of Nazism. He also visited places linked to the Reformation leader Martin Luther. After he returned home, his father changed both of their names, so the five-year-old became Martin Luther King Jr. At home, the children read the Bible each day, and Martin Jr. learned that his Christian duty was to love everyone. When he was young, he learned about slavery and racism in America, and he was hurt when a white friend's family stopped him from playing with their son. He also saw his father stand up against segregation and discrimination. In 1936, his father led a march to city hall in Atlanta to protest voting rights discrimination. Martin Jr. also loved hymns, learned to play the piano and violin, and sang in his church choir.

As a teenager, Martin Jr. went to Booker T. Washington High School, the only high school in Atlanta for African American students. He became known for his public speaking and joined the debate team. He was most interested in sociology and English. In 1944, at the age of 15, he won an oratorical contest and began attending Morehouse College, a historically black college that his father and grandfather had attended. The school had opened to high school juniors because World War II had drawn many black college students into service. That summer, he worked on a tobacco farm in Simsbury, Connecticut, his first trip into the integrated north. He noticed that there was no discrimination there. In 1947, he chose to enter the ministry, guided by Morehouse president Benjamin Mays. He graduated in 1948 with a Bachelor of Arts in sociology.

Religious education

See also: Martin Luther King Jr. authorship issues

King attended Crozer Theological Seminary in Upland, Pennsylvania and took classes at the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied with William Fontaine and Elizabeth F. Flower. At Crozer he was elected president of the student body. He also worked with J. Pius Barbour, a family friend who was a pastor at Calvary Baptist Church in Chester, Pennsylvania. King became known as one of the "Sons of Calvary," an honor he shared with William Augustus Jones Jr. and Samuel D. Proctor, who both later became well-known preachers. For a time, King was interested in Walter Rauschenbusch's "social gospel." He earned a Bachelor of Divinity in 1951 and had applied to the University of Edinburgh for a doctorate in its School of Divinity, but he chose Boston instead. In 1951 he began doctoral studies in systematic theology at Boston University and worked as an assistant minister at Twelfth Baptist Church. There he befriended Michael E. Haynes, a young minister.

King once told a student who kept beer in his room that they shared a responsibility to bear "the burdens of the Negro race." During his third year at Crozer, he became involved with Betty Moitz, who was white. He planned to marry her, but friends and his father advised against it, saying an interracial marriage would bring anger from both Black and white people and could hurt his chances of leading a church in the South. King ended the relationship six months later. Friends said he never fully recovered, and Harry Belafonte said Betty had been "the love of King's life." In 1954, at the age of 25, King was called as pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. He received his PhD on June 5, 1955, with a dissertation supervised by Edgar S. Brightman and later by Lotan Harold DeWolf, titled A Comparison of the Conceptions of God in the Thinking of Paul Tillich and Henry Nelson Wieman. In October 1991, an academic inquiry found that parts of the dissertation were plagiarisms and that he had acted improperly. The committee still said the degree should not be taken away, and that the dissertation "makes an intelligent contribution to scholarship."

Marriage and family

While studying at Boston University, King asked a friend from Atlanta named Mary Powell, a student at the New England Conservatory of Music, if she knew any nice Southern women. Powell spoke to fellow student Coretta Scott. Scott was not interested in dating preachers, but she eventually agreed to let King call her, based on Powell's description and recommendation. On their first call, King told Scott, "I am like Napoleon at Waterloo before your charms," and she replied, "You haven't even met me."

King married Scott on June 18, 1953, on the lawn of her parents' house in Heiberger, Alabama. They had four children: Yolanda King (1955–2007), Martin Luther King III (born 1957), Dexter Scott King (1961–2024), and Bernice King (born 1963). King limited Coretta's role in the civil rights movement, expecting her to be a housewife and mother.

Activism and organizational leadership

King became known for his powerful preaching in Montgomery. In 1955, Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a city bus. This led to the Montgomery bus boycott, which King led. The boycott lasted 385 days and ended when a court ruled that racial segregation on Montgomery public buses was not allowed. In 1957, King helped found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a group that used the power of Black churches to organize peaceful protests for civil rights. King believed that nonviolent protest against Jim Crow laws would bring wide attention to the struggle for Black equality.

King organized and led marches for the right to vote, desegregation, and other basic civil rights. Many of these rights became law with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. In 1963, the SCLC began a campaign in Birmingham, Alabama, and King spoke at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, where he gave his "I Have a Dream" speech. Later, King spoke out against American involvement in the Vietnam War. In 1968, he organized the Poor People's Campaign to address economic justice.

Assassination and aftermath

Main article: Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

On March 29, 1968, King went to Memphis, Tennessee, to support the Black sanitation workers, who were represented by American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Local 1733. The workers had been on strike since March 12 for higher wages and better treatment. On April 3, King gave his "I've Been to the Mountaintop" address at Mason Temple. On April 4, 1968, King was fatally shot by James Earl Ray at the Lorraine Motel, where he was staying. Ralph Abernathy told the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations that King's room was known as the "King-Abernathy suite." According to Jesse Jackson, King's last words were to musician Ben Branch, asking him to play "Take My Hand, Precious Lord" that night. King died at St. Joseph's Hospital. Biographer Taylor Branch said King's autopsy showed he "had the heart of a 60 year old," which Branch linked to stress. King was first buried in South View Cemetery, and in 1977 his remains were moved to a tomb at the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park.

Further information: King assassination riots

The assassination led to race riots in Washington, D.C., Chicago, Baltimore, Louisville, Kansas City, and other cities. Robert F. Kennedy gave a short, improvised speech to supporters in Indianapolis and urged them to keep King's ideal of nonviolence, then gave a prepared response the next day. James Farmer Jr. and other leaders also called for nonviolence, while Stokely Carmichael called for a stronger response. Memphis quickly settled the strike on terms that favored the sanitation workers. The planned shantytown campaign went ahead in Washington, D.C., with demonstrators camping on the National Mall in a camp called "Resurrection City." President Johnson declared April 7 a national day of mourning, and Vice President Hubert Humphrey attended the funeral. King's last sermon at Ebenezer Baptist Church was played there, and Mahalia Jackson sang his favorite hymn. The assassination helped spur the Civil Rights Act of 1968. Two months later, Ray was captured at London Heathrow Airport while trying to reach white-ruled Rhodesia on a false passport. On the advice of his lawyer Percy Foreman, Ray pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. Ray later claimed that a man he met in Montreal was involved and that the killing was a conspiracy. Ray died in 1998.

Ray's lawyers said he was a scapegoat, similar to how Lee Harvey Oswald is seen by conspiracy theorists. Some supporters said Ray's confession was forced, but prison records showed he had been jailed several times for armed robbery. In a 2008 interview with CNN, Ray's brother Jerry described James as bold. Those who suspect a conspiracy point to ballistics tests showing that a rifle like Ray's Remington was the murder weapon, though the tests did not match Ray's specific rifle. Ray's fingerprints were found in the bathroom where investigators believed the shot came from, and an examination found that at least one shot was fired from his rifle. In 1997, King's son Dexter Scott King supported Ray's effort to get a new trial. In 1999, a jury found Loyd Jowers and "other unknown co-conspirators" responsible in a wrongful death claim brought by King's family, represented by William F. Pepper. In 2000, the U.S. Department of Justice investigated Jowers' claims and found no evidence of a conspiracy, and Jowers' sister later said he had made up the story for money. In 2002, The New York Times reported claims by Ronald Denton Wilson that his father killed King, but Wilson offered no evidence. Historians David Garrow and Gerald Posner disagreed with Pepper's claims. On January 23, 2025, Donald Trump signed an order declassifying records about the assassination.

Legacy

See also: Memorials to Martin Luther King Jr. and List of streets named after Martin Luther King Jr.

King's legacy reached beyond the United States. In South Africa, he inspired Albert Luthuli, who fought for racial justice during apartheid and later won the Nobel Peace Prize. His work also influenced the Black Consciousness Movement. In the United Kingdom, John Hume, former leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party, said King's legacy was important to the Northern Ireland civil rights movement and the Good Friday Agreement. A charity called the Martin Luther King Fund and Foundation was set up in the UK in 1969, after a visit by King's widow, Coretta King. King visited Newcastle University in 1967 to receive an honorary degree, and in 2017 the university unveiled a bronze statue of him.

In the United States, King became an icon of American liberalism and American progressivism. His main legacy was progress on civil rights. Just days after his assassination, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1968, which banned discrimination in housing. This law was seen as a tribute to King's work against housing discrimination. His wife, Coretta Scott King, founded the King Center in Atlanta, Georgia in 1968 to preserve his legacy. Later, their children Martin Luther King III and Bernice King led the center. In 1983, President Ronald Reagan signed a bill creating a federal holiday to honor King, and it was first observed in 1986.

Veneration

On September 9, 2016, King was canonized by Archbishop Timothy Paul of the Holy Christian Orthodox Church, which means he was made a saint. His feast day, a day set aside to honor him, was set as April 4, the date of his assassination.

King is also honored with a Lesser Feast on the liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church, on April 4 or January 15, the anniversary of his birth. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America remembers King in its church services on January 15.

Ideas, influences, and political stances

As a Christian minister, King's main influence was Jesus Christ and the Christian gospels. His faith was based on the Golden Rule, and his ideas about nonviolence came partly from the teaching to turn the other cheek in the Sermon on the Mount. In his Letter from Birmingham Jail, he urged action based on the love he saw in Jesus. He learned about nonviolence from advisers such as Bayard Rustin, Harris Wofford, and Glenn Smiley, and he studied the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi. At first, King believed in self-defense and even obtained guns, but the pacifists showed him nonviolent resistance, and he then vowed to stop personally using arms. He was also influenced by Henry David Thoreau's essay On Civil Disobedience, and by Reinhold Niebuhr and Walter Rauschenbusch. King criticized both laissez-faire capitalism and communism, and he was often criticized by other black leaders, including Malcolm X, Ella Baker, and Stokely Carmichael. King supported Native American rights, and he inspired the Native American rights movement of the 1960s. He did not publicly support a political party, but he praised Democratic Senator Paul Douglas for his work on civil rights. King said that black Americans and other disadvantaged Americans should be compensated for historical wrongs. When actress Nichelle Nichols planned to leave Star Trek, King encouraged her to stay, and the show's creator, Gene Roddenberry, was deeply moved by his support.

See also: Reparations for slavery debate in the United States

State surveillance and coercion

FBI director J. Edgar Hoover personally ordered surveillance of Martin Luther King Jr. to weaken his power as a civil rights leader. A 1975 investigation by the U.S. Congress, called the Church Committee, found that the FBI ran an intensive campaign from December 1963 until King's death in 1968 to "neutralize" him. In the fall of 1963, Robert F. Kennedy approved wiretapping King's phones, mainly because of King's link with Stanley Levison. Hoover later extended this permission, and agents placed wiretaps and hidden microphones to watch King. Local police also kept watch on King, including at the March on Washington and in Memphis in 1968, where officers were nearby when he was shot. The National Security Agency also monitored King's communications in a secret program called "Minaret" that targeted people who opposed the U.S. war in Vietnam. Hoover suspected that communists might influence civil rights groups, and the FBI's efforts to link King to communism did not find proof that King or the SCLC were involved with any communist organization. King denied any connection to communism, and the CIA also looked into possible links between King and communism, as shown in files released in 2017. Mail from King and other activists was intercepted by the CIA program HTLINGUAL.

The FBI also tried to damage King's reputation by spreading reports about his private life, which it hoped would make people turn against him. These reports were shared with government leaders, reporters, and groups that supported the SCLC. The FBI also sent King an anonymous letter, called the FBI–King letter, just before he received the Nobel Peace Prize, and it threatened to reveal information about his personal life. King believed the letter was meant to push him toward ending his own life, but William Sullivan said it may have only been meant to make King resign from the SCLC. In 2014, Yale historian Beverly Gage noted that the letter also praised other civil rights leaders, including Roy Wilkins. In 1977, Judge John Lewis Smith Jr. ordered the FBI's recordings of King to be sealed in the National Archives until 2027. Historians have questioned claims made in some FBI files about King's private life. In his 1989 autobiography And the Walls Came Tumbling Down, Ralph Abernathy said King was "weak" when it came to temptation, and he later said the matter was more emotional than physical. In the 1986 book Bearing the Cross, David Garrow wrote about King's relationships, and Howell Raines praised the book but said some of Garrow's claims were "sensational."

Awards and recognition

Main article: List of memorials to Martin Luther King Jr.

King received at least fifty honorary degrees from colleges and universities, including Morehouse College, Howard University, and Yale University. On October 14, 1964, he became the youngest winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, which was given to him for leading nonviolent resistance to racial prejudice in the United States. In 1965, the American Jewish Committee gave him the American Liberties Medallion for his advancement of the principles of human liberty. In 1957, he received the Spingarn Medal from the NAACP. In 1966, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America gave him the Margaret Sanger Award. In November 1967, he traveled to the UK to receive an honorary Doctorate in Civil Law from Newcastle University, becoming the first African American the institution had recognized in this way. In his speech there, he named three great problems: racism, poverty, and war.

King was nominated for three Grammy Awards and won one after his death, for Best Spoken Word Recording in 1971. In 1977, President Jimmy Carter posthumously awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. King and his wife received the Congressional Gold Medal in 2004. In 1963, he was named Time Person of the Year. Many memorials have been built to honor him, including the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library in Washington, D.C., and the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in West Potomac Park next to the National Mall. In 2016, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew announced that images from King's "I Have a Dream" speech were planned for the redesigned $5 bill. King has received several honorary doctorates.

Works

Martin Luther King Jr.'s words were shared in many books. Some of the books written by him include Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story (1958), The Measure of a Man (1959), Strength to Love (1963), Why We Can't Wait (1964), Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? (1967), and The Trumpet of Conscience (1968).

Other books gather his writings, speeches, and prayers. These include A Testament of Hope (1986) and The Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr. (1998), edited by Clayborne Carson. Books from 2011 include "All Labor Has Dignity", edited by Michael Honey, "Thou, Dear God": Prayers That Open Hearts and Spirits, edited by Lewis Baldwin, and MLK: A Celebration in Word and Image, photographed by Bob Adelman and introduced by Charles Johnson.

Discography

Albums

Singles