Martin Luther King Jr. was born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia, the second child of Martin Luther King Sr., a pastor, and Alberta Williams King, a former schoolteacher. He was raised in Sweet Auburn, Georgia, which at the time, was an affluent suburb in the peach state.
King was a student during segregation in public schools until his middle teen years. An exceptional student, he was admitted to Morehouse College at the early age of 15, his father’s alma mater, where he studied both law and medicine. He never intended to take up ministry, but changed his mind early on, under the mentorship of Dr. Benjamin Mays, the President of Morehouse College.
Upon graduating from Morehouse in 1948, he entered Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania, where he subsequently earned his Bachelor of Divinity degree. He continued his pastoral pursuit and enrolled in a program at Boston University, earning his doctorate in systematic theology. It was there he met Coretta Scott, a music student from Alabama, and the couple married shortly thereafter. Once married, the couple settled in Montgomery, Alabama, where King became pastor of the now famous Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.
Unbeknownst to King, Montgomery, Alabama would become the epicenter of the civil rights movement when in 1955, a young lady by the name of Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a public bus; and was subsequently arrested and fined for her actions. Dr. King led a massive and coordinated boycott of the public bus system that lasted 381 days, which placed a severe economic strain on public transportation and local businesses.
By the time the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that segregated seating was unconstitutional, King was suffused in peaceful activism concerning civil rights, and a leader in non-violent resistance. Despite his non-violent approach, King and many other activists were the targets of vicious attacks. On September 20, 1958, a woman approached Dr King during a book signing in Harlem, N.Y., where she proceeded to stab him in the chest.
The attack only reinforced his commitment to nonviolence. He was quoted as saying, “The experience of these last few days has deepened my faith of the spirit of nonviolence.”
After achieving success with the Montgomery Bus Boycott, King and fellow ministers formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). They committed themselves to achieving full equality for African Americans though nonviolent resistance and peaceful protest. He remained as the group’s leader until his assassination in 1968.
MLK traveled the world speaking and teaching activism through nonviolence. He met with United States presidents, political leaders, religious figures, and activists from across the spectrum, preaching resistance through peaceful means. “It is no longer a choice my friends, between violence and nonviolence; it is either nonviolence or nonexistence,” King stated.
At the age of 35, he was the youngest man to ever receive the Nobel Peace Prize. True to King’s character, he donated the Nobel prize money to the civil rights movement.
During his life he would father four children, earn five honorary degrees, and become Time Magazine’s Man of the Year He was arrested over twenty times, violently assaulted four times, and became the symbolic leader of the African American community.
On April 4, 1968, Dr. King was set to lead a solidarity protest march with striking garbage workers in Memphis, Tennessee. As he stood on the balcony of his Memphis hotel, a shot rang out just after 6 PM and killed the Reverend Martin Luther King.
In the sickest of ironies, an act of violence took the life of one of the most peaceful men on earth. While we celebrate the life of MLK on the third Monday in January, it’s also a reminder of the stain perpetrated on America’s soul.
Thanks, and God bless,
- Councilman Vincent Cavaleri
