Martin Luther King Jr.

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Martin Luther King Jr., also known as M.L, was in born in Atlanta, Georgia on January 15, 1929.  He lived in the large twelve-room house of his parents, and his grandparents also lived in the house.  Martin was born in a time when African Americans did not have the rights in which they do today.  During the time period he was born, African Americans did not have the rights in which they have today. (Millender, Dharathula)  Martin first experienced racial discrimination when their white neighbors refused to let him play with their sons.  It was hard for him to understand this because the boys had grown up as neighbors and had played together for years. (Martin Luther King Biography)  No one knew that these early incidents would influence Martin Luther King Jr. and lead him to change America forever.

When Martin was only 15 years old he attended Morehouse College and after two years he decided that he could best serve others by becoming a minister.  He then attended Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania where he began to study the teachings of Mahatma Ghandi.  Ghandi urged people to not fight, but to protest peacefully. Martin saw this method of non-violent resistance as the answer to the unfair treatment African Americans received in America. (Millender, Dharathula) In 1955, Dr. King accepted the leadership role of the first Negro nonviolent bus boycott.  The boycott lasted 382 days and on December 21, 1956, after the Supreme Court of the United States had declared unconstitutional the laws requiring segregation on buses, Negroes and whites rode the buses as equals.  From there, Martin was elected president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.  From 1957 to 1968, King traveled over six million miles and spoke over twenty-five hundred times, appearing wherever there was injustice, protest, and action; and meanwhile he wrote five books as well as numerous articles. (Martin Luther King Biography) He led a massive protest in Birmingham and delivered his address, “I Have a Dream,” in front of 250,000 people.  In 1964 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in Norway. He gave the $54,000 prize money to the civil rights groups, which were working to secure the rights Negroes deserved.()  Martin Luther King was put in jail 30 times for his resistance, and people tried to kill him until eventually they did.

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On April 4, 1968 a man named James Earl Ray assassinated Martin Luther King.  Martin was staying at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis in order to support the black sanitary public works employees.  Across the street in the bathroom window, James Earl Ray aimed his .30-06 rifle at the black man who was standing on the balcony of his hotel.  He had a clean shot and Reverend Ralph Abernathy saw King’s body sprawled on the balcony with a huge red wound on King’s right jaw.  He said, “Martin, Martin, this Ralph…do you hear me?”  King’s lips seemed to move but ...

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