Dr. Martin Luther King JR. On April 4, 1968, an American clergyman and civil rights leader was shot at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. The man was Dr. Martin Luther King JR. An examination of primary and secondary sources will reveal the significance of this key event in American history. Martin Luther King JR. was born on January 15, 1929. He was the middle child of Michael King Sr. and Alberta Williams King. His father was a pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church, and Alberta was a stay at home mother. Young Martin entered the Atlanta, Georgia public schools at the age of 5, and was baptized at the age of 7. When Martin was 12 his grandmother, Jennie, died of a heart attack this event hit young Martin hard because when she died he was out watching a parade when his parents told him he couldn’t. Young Martin jumped from the second story window at his home, and tried to commit suicide. King attended Booker T. Washington High School. He skipped both the ninth and eleventh grades, and attended Morehouse College in Atlanta at age 15, in 1944. Martin was a very popular student, He floated through his first two years of college because he was unmotivated. But in his junior year, Martin took a Bible class, and began his journey on a career in ministry. He told his father he …show more content…
She was a young singer and musician, who went to New England Conservatory School in Boston. They married in June 1953 and later had4 children. A year later king became a pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church of Montgomery. King was elected to lead the bus boycott because he was young, well trained with strong family connections. Martin Luther King put a fresh, new energy into the civil rights struggle in Alabama. The bus boycott consisted of 382 days of walking to work, and was filled with harassment, violence, and intimidation for African Americans. Martin participated in many more movements and non-violent