Martin Luther King Jr. (15 January 1929-4 April 1968) was President of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference from 1957 to 1968, preceding Ralph Abernathy. Dr. King was a Protestant African-American minister and a major leader of the Civil Rights movement during the 1950s and 1960s, leading the Birmingham campaign, March on Washington, and the Selma to Montgomery marches and meeting with presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson to press for civil rights legislation. During the last few years of his life, Dr. King led opposition to the Vietnam War and fought against poverty, and he identified as a "democratic socialist". In 1968, while visiting Memphis, Tennessee to organize a workers' occupation of Washington DC, Dr. King was assassinated by James Earl Ray with a sniper rifle on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel.
Biography[]
Early life[]
A young MLK during the Montgomery bus boycott
Martin Luther King Jr. was born in Atlanta, Georgia on 15 January 1929, the son of a Baptist minister, Martin Luther King Sr., and his wife Alberta Williams King. Interestingly, both Martin Luther Kings were born "Michael King", and both would change their names to honor the Protestant Reformation leader Martin Luther. King was abused by his father, being whipped until he was fifteen years old, and he suffered depression for much of his life; he initially hated whites for the racial humiliation inflicted upon him and his family, he lost his white childhood friend because his father did not want the two boys to spend time together, and he attempted to kill himself in 1941 at the age of 12 after blaming himself for his grandmother's death. He would become known as a precocious child, however, skipping the ninth and twelfth grades. King entered the historically-black Morehouse College, and he decided to enter the ministry in 1947, following in his father's footsteps. He married Coretta Scott King in 1953, and he became a pastor in 1954.
Civil Rights movement[]
King during his "I Have a Dream" speech on 28 August 1963
MLK during "Bloody Sunday" in Selma, Alabama in 1965.
In 1955, Reverend King decided to assist Rosa Parks in her defiance of segregation by calling for the Montgomery bus boycott, in which pro-integration people in Montgomery, Alabama refused to ride segregated buses. King became the spokesman of the Civil Rights movement after the boycott led to the passage of a desegregation law in Browder v. Gayle, and King became president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957. King was arrested several times for "parading without a permit" or for taking part in sit-ins, the latter of which landed him in prison in 1960. Robert F. Kennedy persuaded the judge to free King, leading to King switching his vote from Republican Party candidate Richard Nixon to Democratic Party candidate John F. Kennedy and landing Kennedy the black vote. King would become involved with the successful 1963 Birmingham campaign, and he also led the famous March on Washington, which led to him giving the famous "I Have a Dream" speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC. King met with President Kennedy at the White House, and Kennedy made it his goal to fight for civil rights; however, the FBI was simultaneously spying on King in its COINTELPRO program to investigate any signs of communist infiltration in the SCLC. Dr. King would also led the 1964 Selma to Montgomery marches, which persuaded President Lyndon B. Johnson to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and Johnson passed several civil rights laws as a party of his "Great Society".
Socialist leader[]
MLK giving a speech
Starting in 1967, King began to criticize the Vietnam War, a topic that he had previously avoided to not attack President Johnson as he passed civil rights laws. King spoke out against African-Americans being drafted in the US Army so that they could kill Viet Cong guerrillas in Southeast Asia, as the Viet Cong had done nothing wrong to African-Americans. King said that the USA was the "greatest purveyor of violence in the world today" and that it intended to make Vietnam a colony, and he accused the USA of killing half a million Vietnamese people, mostly children. King made his socialist views known, saying that capitalism was a thing of the past and that democratic socialism was needed to fix American society. In 1968, he began to assemble "a multiracial army of the poor" to march on Washington to engage in civil disobedience at the Capitol building until an "economic bill of rights" was passed by the US Congress, starting the Poor People's Campaign. On 29 March 1968, King arrived in Memphis, Tennessee to support striking black garbagemen, and he delivered his "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech on 3 April 1968, and he prophetically said, "...I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land."
Assassination[]
At 6:01 PM on 4 April 1968, King was shot in the jaw as he stood on the balcony of his room on the second floor of the Lorraine Motel, with James Earl Ray using a Remington sniper rifle to shoot King. King died at St. Joseph's Hospital at 7:05 PM, and the 39-year-old King was said to have had the heart of a 60-year-old due to the stress caused by the Civil Rights movement's struggles. King's assassination led to race riots in Washington DC, Chicago, Baltimore, Louisville, Kansas City, and dozens of other cities, and Robert F. Kennedy managed to convince rioters in Indianapolis to disband after telling them of how King would have told them to protest nonviolently. King's murderer has often been identified as Ray, but many remain skeptical about this, instead claiming that the US government may have killed King due to his threatened march on Washington and his socialist views. The third Monday of each January has been celebrated as "Martin Luther King Jr. Day" since 1986, three years after Ronald Reagan made the day a federal holiday.