Martin Luther King Biography

Below is Martin Luther King's biography with the major stations :

* Martin Luther attended segregated public schools in Georgia
* 1948 : he received the B. A. degree from Morehouse College
* 1951 : Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania:he was awarded the B.D.
* 1953 . Doctorate (Won a fellowship won at Crozer, enrolled in graduate studies at Boston University, completing his residence for the doctorate)
* 1955 : Received the degree
* Boston : Met and married Coretta Scott.Two sons and two daughters were born into the family.
* 1954 : He accepted the pastorale of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama.
* December, 1955: Accepted the leadership of the first great Negro nonviolent demonstration of contemporary times in the United State.
* 1957: He was elected president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
* Between 1957 and 1968, King traveled over six million miles and spoke over twenty-five hundred times
* In these years he directed the peaceful march on Washington, D.C., of 250,000 people to whom he delivered his address, "l Have a Dream"
* April 4, 1968: He was assassinated in the evening on the balcony of his motel in Memphis,Tennessee

In one of his well known and famous speech "I have a dream" (see transcript of the speech below), Martin Luther King makes us realize that we always take for granted what we have or what we do. I.e the right to have a family, the right to go to school, to learn, to have a job, the right to have shelter, to go where ever we want to without being stopped due to the color of our skin, to our religion or our background. We also take for granted the right to live our life with dignity. Unfortunately, to this day this IS NOT yet everybody's right !

To me the most intense and important moment in Martin Luther's life as Defender of the Human Rights of all people, not just the colored, is when shared his dream with the world in his speech "I have a dream!".
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In this excellent audiobook for children, the life and work of Martin Luther Kings is described in an excellent and easy to understand fashion:

Martin Luther King, Jr. (January 15, 1929 - April 4, 1968) was a famous leader of the American civil rights movement, a political activist, and a Baptist minister.

In 1964, King became the youngest man to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work as a peacemaker, promoting nonviolence and equal treatment for different races.

On April 4, 1968, Dr. King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee.

In 1977, Marther Luther King was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Jimmy Carter.

In 1986, Martin Luther King Day was established as a United States holiday.

Dr. King often called for personal responsibility in fostering world peace.

King's most influential and well-known public address is the 'I Have A Dream' speech, delivered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.

King for Kids - Martin Luther King Biography Audio Book Download.
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- In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.

- All progress is precarious, and the solution of one problem brings us face to face with another problem.

- Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

- Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.

- Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.

- It is incontestable and deplorable that Negroes have committed crimes; but they are derivative crimes. They are born of the greater crimes of the white society.

- The quality, not the longevity, of one's life is what is important.

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check - a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. .... (cont.)

.... Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny and their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.

As we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied, as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We can never be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. ... (cont.)

... Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.

I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. ...

... With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring."

And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!

But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, When we allow freedom to 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!"

Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. gave the final speech at the March for Jobs and Freedom held in Washington DC on August 28, 1963