Martin Luther King Jr Research Paper

Martin Luther King Jr. was born on January 15th, 1929 in Atlanta Georgia. Martin was the middle child of his family with 2 siblings. His older sisters name was Willie Christine and his younger brothers name was Alfred Daniel Williams King. The King children grew up in a good home environment but were still subject to racism outside of their home. Kings father in law was a successful minister and upon his death in 1931 Martin took over and grew to become just as successful as his dad. King graduated high school at the age of fifteen and attended college at Morehouse College, Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania, and Boston University (history.com). In Boston he met and married Coretta Scott and had 2 sons and 2 daughters. He became

He traveled over 6 million miles and spoke over twenty-five hundred times to people that were in places where segregation and injustice happened (Martin Luther King Jr. (n.d.)). He made a great impact on the community and gave them a voice when they were being told hey didn’t have a say in things like where they could sit on a bus. During these 11 years he wrote 5 books and many different articles. In 1963 he helped lead the march on Washington which was attended by an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 people from all around the country. The march was about Jobs and Freedom in the state as well as shining a light on the injustices many African Americans were facing at the time to the country. During the march one Martin Luther King Jr. gave one of his most popular speeches to date called “I have a dream”. He gave the speech standing on the stairs of Lincoln Memorial because Lincoln was the president who ended slavery. During the speech King talked about how he thinks in the future “the nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created

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.” (Martin Luther King Jr.” biography.com). On the night of April 4th, 1986 Martin Luther king was assented while standing on his motel balcony in Memphis. The assassin was a man named James Earl Ray who later confessed and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. King was in Memphis to support a sanitation workers’ strike. Once word of his death got out the entire country was enraged. Riots happened all across the country in major cities and president Johnson declared April 4th a day of mourning. Martin Luther King Jr. was one of the most influential civil rights activists during the 1960’s. He gave the people hope and showed them that not everything had to be solved with violence. Without him the civil rights act might not have gotten the necessary attention and support from the nation that it needed to be passed. In 1986 Martin Luther King Day was first celebrated and became a holiday that the nation celebrates each third Monday of January. Martin Luther King Jr. will forever be known as an American Hero because of his courageous actions that lead to civil rights and the end of nationwide