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When was Dr. King born?
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.was the son and grandson of ministers. His mother's father, the Reverend A.D. Williams, was the pastor of Ebenezer Baptist church, and a founder of Atlanta's NAACP chapter. Martin Luther King Sr. followed his father-in-law as pastor at Ebenezer and was active in the civil rights movement. When young Martin was five or six, his father led a boycott of the elevators in the county court building.King went to college when he was 15, and at age 24 was finished with his studies. King read about nonviolent protest in the writing of "Mahatma" (Great Soul) Gandhi while in college. He's called Dr. King because he received his doctorate at Boston University. By then he was already pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. Rosa Parks, secretary of the local NAACP chapter, sent Dr. King a letter to let him know that he was to be one of the local leaders of the NAACP. In December of 1955, she was arrested and Dr. King was elected president of the group which led the famous bus boycott.
After the success of the bus boycott, King and other ministers founded SCLC, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. As president of SCLC, King emphasized
voting rights. In 1959, King went to India where he learned more about the non-violent strategies with which Mohandas Gandhi rid India of the British Empire. Gandhi practiced satyagraha, which King translated as soul force. King kept a picture of Gandhi by his desk. Many people had pressed for change in the racism and unjust laws which oppressed African-Americans, but it was King's genius to apply pressure with nonviolent tactics as well as continued appeal to the federal courts. See some powerful photographs of the struggle for civil rights by Charles Moore.
Dreamlink
Dr. King was an incredibly powerful speaker.
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Coretta Scott King and her children in April, 1968Mrs. King founded the King Center to ensure that her husband's struggle for justice would be continued by the rest of us.
