Martin+Luther+King,+Jr.

=Martin Luther King, Jr.= toc Martin Luther King, Jr. was a great leader. He was a pastor at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. Then became active in the civil rights movement, before his untimely death



Young MLK
Michael Luther King, Jr. was born on January 15, 1929. Although we know him as Martin, his birth name was Michael. He graduated a segregated public high school and started college at the age of fifteen. He became a pastor like his dad and granddad. He married Correta Scott and had two sons and two daughters.

Protests
Martin Luther King, Jr. supported non-violent protests. He knew that if African Americans used any sort of violence the white people would just have another reason to shut them out of their society. He believed that love is effective than hate.

I Have Dream
Martin Luther King gave a very famous speech on August 28, 1963, in Washington D.C. His "I Have A Dream" speech gave all African Americans and everyone that had been discriminated against hope that someday things would be better. MLK's last paragraph of his speech says this:

"And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

Boycotts
MLK organized the Montgomery Bus Boycott. After Rosa Parks was put in prison for not giving her bus seat up to a white man, he rallied the African Americans to stop riding the buses. Instead of taking the bus to get where they all needed to go they would leave extra early and walk or ride a bike. This meant bad things for the bus companies. They were losing more than half of their customers because of this boycott. The Montgomery Bus Boycott lasted 381 after that the buses were desegregated.

Martin Luther Kings, Jr.'s Death
Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot and killed on April 4, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee. He had been standing on his balcony at the Lorraine Motel when he was shot by James Earl Ray who was standing across the street. Riots broke out all over the country because of his death. This went against all the Martin Luther King had believed. Now nearly every major city in America has a street named after him. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s tombstone has one of his favorite quotes on it. "Free at last! Free at last! Thank god almighty, I'm free at last!"

=References=

Garraty, John A. the Story of America. Austin, TX: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1994 "Martin Luther King jr. The Nobel Peace Prize 1964" [] Rosenberg, Jennifer. "Martin Luther King Jr. Assassinated" []