Transcript A Courageous Leader - Kentucky Department of Education

Create by Amanda Hayes
EDOL 562
King was born on January 15, 1929 in
Atlanta Georgia.
He was the son of Michael King, Sr. and
Alberta Williams King.
He had an older sister named Willie
Christine and a younger brother
named Alfred Daniel Williams King.
Martin Luther King’s given name was
Michael, which he later changed.
Martin’s father fought against racial
prejudice, not just because his race
suffered, but because he considered
racism and segregation to be an
affront to God's will. He strongly
discouraged any sense of class
superiority in his children which left a
lasting impression on Martin Jr.

Martin Luther King Jr.
began public school at
the age of 5. He was a
very intelligent young
man. He skipped
ninth and eleventh
grade and graduated
from Book T.
Washington High
School at the age of 15.
 He
continued his education at Morehouse
College and received his BA in 1948.
 He then decided to attend the liberal
Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester,
Pennsylvania. He was valedictorian of his
class in 1951.
 On
June 18, 1953,
he married
Coretta Scott.
 They had two
daughters and
two sons.
In 1954, King became pastor of the Dexter
Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama.
 He was worked hard for civil rights for members
of his race.
 He was a member of the executive committee of
the National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People, which was the leading
organization of its kind in the nation.
 King led many protests against unfair treatment
of African Americans, but he did not believe in
violence.

In early December of1955, he accepted the
leadership of the bus boycott.
 It lasted 382 days.
 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.
 This was hard, long battle for King as well as his
family. Within the 382 days, King was arrested,
his home was bombed, he was subjected to
personal abuse.

 During
the following eleven-years
between 1957 and 1968, King traveled
over six million miles and spoke over
twenty-five hundred times, appearing
wherever there was injustice, protest, and
action.

He led a protest in Birmingham, Alabama, that
caught the attention of the entire world. He
called a coalition of conscience. and inspiring his
"Letter from a Birmingham Jail". He planned the
drives in Alabama for the registration of Negroes
as voters; he directed the peaceful march on
Washington, D.C., of 250,000 people to whom he
delivered his address, "l Have a Dream", he
conferred with President John F. Kennedy and
campaigned for President Lyndon B. Johnson; he
was arrested at least twenty times and assaulted
at least four times
 The
day before King was assassinated he
gave a speech in a Memphis, Tennessee
church, and referred to freedom as the
promise land.
 He said, "I may not get there with you. But I
want you to know....we, as people will get to
the Promised Land."
 On the evening of April 4, 1968, while
standing on the balcony of his motel room in
Memphis, Tennessee, Martin Luther King Jr.
was shot and killed by a man named James
Earl Ray.
Berson, M., Howard, T. & Salinas, C. (2008) Harcourt Social Studies A
Child’s View. Harcourt School Publishers.
Holland, Leslie. (2009) Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s I Have A Dream Speech in
Translation What It Really Means. Mankato, Minnesota, Capstone
Press.
Hyatt, Michael. (January 18, 2010). Eight Leadership Lessons from Martin
Luther King, Jr. Intentional Leadership.
http://michaelhyatt.com/eight-leadership-lessons-from-martinluther-king-jr.htm
Martin Luther King Jr. - Biography". Nobelprize.org.5 Dec 2012
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1964/kingbio.html
Martin Luther King Jr. (2012). The Biography Channel website. Retrieved
04:03, Dec 05, 2012, from http://www.biography.com/people/martinluther-king-jr-9365086.