Martin Luther King Jr

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Martin Luther King , Jr was born on January 15, 1929. He was the son and the grandson of a pastor, so it is perhaps no surprise that he became a pastoras well. He also became a leader of the civil rights movements and one of the most famous people America has ever produced.

His name at birth was Michael, but he later changed it toMartin. When he was born his grandfather was pastor of Atlantis Ebenezer Baptist Church. When Martin was 2, his father took over the pulpit and served for a great many years.

Young Martin grewup in the segregated South. He attended, David T. Howard Elementary School and Atlanta University Laboratory School, which were full of African –American students, who at that time were not able toattend school with white children. Martin graduated from Brooker T. Washington High School when he was just 15 and went right to college. Following in his grandfather’s and father’s footsteps, heattended Atlanta’s important Morehouse College, graduating in 1948 with a degree in sociology. He then moved north to Pennsylvania to study religion at the Crozer Theological Seminary. During his stay atthe seminary he studied the teachings of Indian spiritual leader Mohandas Gandhi, who cautioned against violence as a way to bring about social change. The seminary classes included students of varyingcolors of skin, and Martin was elected president of his senior class, a class that had mostly white students in it. He received his seminary degree in 1951 and then moved on to Boston University,from which he graduated in 1955 with a doctorate degree.

With his doctorate in hand, King became pastor at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery Ala. He also was on the executivecommittee of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. King was a spiritual man who wanted to advance the cause of civil rights yet didn’t want to use violence to do so. King...