Who Was Martin Luther King, Jr.?

A Baptist minister, activist, and political philosopher, Martin Luther King, Jr., played a crucial role in the American civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. The book centers on his life and activism as a leader of the freedom struggle that defined race relations in the US. King was born in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1929 to Michael King, Sr., a minister, and Alberta Williams, a teacher. Michael soon adopted the name Martin Luther for both him and his son in honor of the German Protestant religious leader. King grew up in a loving and protective family in the Sweet Auburn neighborhood, a relatively prosperous community of Black businesses and churches. King’s parents could not completely shield him from the reality of racism, and he felt the influence of racial prejudice as his white friends from school stopped talking to him. Still, his parents nurtured King’s self-confidence and taught him that racial superiority is a fraudulent ideology.

An exceptional student, King entered public school at age five. He attended Booker T. Washington High School and, at age 15, enrolled at Morehouse College, where he studied medicine and law. Though King was reluctant to follow his father’s profession, he was inspired to do so by one of his mentors in college, Dr. Benjamin Mays, an influential theologian and advocate for racial equality and justice. King started seeing Christianity as a force for social change. After graduating in 1948, King enrolled in Crozer Theological Seminary, receiving a Bachelor of Divinity degree in 1951. He excelled academically, becoming the valedictorian of his class and winning a fellowship for graduate studies. He enrolled in a graduate program at Boston University, earning a doctorate in systematic theology in 1955. In 1953, King met and married Coretta Scott, who studied at the New England Conservatory of Music. The couple settled in Montgomery, Alabama, and had four children.

King emerged as a leading figure in the civil rights struggle in the South. Henry David Thoreau’s ideas of civil disobedience and Mahatma Gandhi’s teachings on nonviolent resistance as activist strategies greatly influenced his approach. In 1955, after Rosa Parks was arrested for sitting in the front seat on a bus and refusing to move, inciting the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) chose King as the demonstration’s leader and spokesman. As the protests intensified, King recognized the importance of a mass movement and allied with other activists to found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). In 1960, he and his family moved to Atlanta, where he joined his father as a pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church. King led other major protests against segregation in the South, such as the Greensboro sit-in movement, the 1963 March on Washington (where he gave his emblematic “I Have a Dream” speech), and the 1965 Selma to Montgomery march for voting rights. King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. The movement’s efforts led to the passing of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

King was a gifted orator and spoke about racism and gave lectures on nonviolent resistance nationally and internationally. As an active participant in protests, he was imprisoned several times and became the target of intimidation and terrorism. His leadership brought national attention to the violence against Black people in the South. Despite the movement’s achievements, King continued to push for legal and social change as activists confronted increasing violence. King was under FBI surveillance, and officials in the South organized a campaign to discredit him. From 1965 to 1967, King expanded his activism beyond the South, directing his attention to Black urban communities in the North, in cities like Chicago and Los Angeles. He began focusing on the class struggle and issues like housing discrimination, connecting such matters with his opposition to the Vietnam War. Due to constant persecution, the movement’s young activists started challenging King’s nonviolent strategies and embraced a new militancy. King understood youths’ impatience with the slow social progress but insisted on the value of nonviolent resistance and direct action. As Black Power gained prominence, King expanded his work further, addressing economic inequality among all races and embarking on the Poor People’s Campaign program with the SCLC.

By 1968, King was mentally and physically exhausted but remained active in the civil rights struggle. That year, he visited Memphis to support the sanitation workers’ strike and was assassinated while on a motel balcony. After his death, riots spread throughout the country. King remains one of the most important activists for social justice who fought to redefine race relations in the US. In 1983, President Ronald Reagan established Martin Luther King Day as a national holiday to honor King’s memory. The nation celebrates this holiday day every third Monday of January.

Born in 1927 in Marion, Alabama, Coretta Scott was a gifted singer and violinist. After graduating from Lincoln High School in 1945, she enrolled at Antioch College in Ohio, receiving a bachelor’s degree in music and education in 1951. She was awarded a fellowship for graduate studies and attended the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, where she met Martin Luther King, Jr. The couple married in 1953 and, after finishing their studies, moved to Montgomery, Alabama.

Coretta worked alongside King throughout the 1950s and 1960s as a community organizer and fundraiser for the SCLC. She also participated in protests and marches during the civil rights movement and was an activist in her own right. Following King’s assassination, she founded the Center for Nonviolent Social Change in her late husband’s name, becoming the organization’s president and chief executive officer. She traveled throughout the US and the world, advocating for peace, racial and economic justice, women’s rights, LGBTQ+ rights, religious freedom, and gun control. In addition, she was a spokesperson against the apartheid system in South Africa. Coretta carried King’s message of nonviolence around the globe and was one of the most influential Black leaders in the US. She died in 2006.

Born in 1913 in Tuskegee, Alabama, Rosa Parks was an African American civil rights activist. Her parents separated when she was two years old, and she lived on a farm with her mother and maternal grandparents, both of whom were formerly enslaved people and advocates for racial justice. Homeschooled until age 11, Parks attended an industrial school for girls and enrolled at Alabama State Teachers College but abandoned her studies after her mother became ill. Parks experienced racial discrimination and violence early on.

After her marriage to Raymond Parks, a barber who was involved in the local chapter of the NAACP, Parks finished school and started her work in civil rights organizations. She was elected secretary of the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP. In 1955, already an established activist and organizer in Alabama, Parks demonstrated her resistance to racism by sitting in the front seat on a bus and refusing to relinquish her seat to a white man. She was arrested for her act, which sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The collective effort led to the desegregation of public transport in the state. For this reason, many historical accounts describe Parks as the “mother” of the civil rights movement.

After the boycott, Parks was imprisoned and lost her job, and she and her husband received death threats. Unable to find employment in the South, they moved to Detroit, Michigan. Parks continued her activist work throughout her life, facing personal and political struggles. She died in 2005.

Civil rights leader and Muslim minister Malcolm X was born Malcolm Little in 1925 in Omaha, Nebraska. He had eight siblings; his parents, Louise and Earl Little, were activists and supported the nationalist leader Marcus Garvey. The family often experienced harassment from white supremacist groups. In 1931, Earl was found dead, and though the family was certain that he was murdered, officials declared his death an accident. Louise experienced a mental health crisis and entered a mental health institution in 1937. Malcolm and his siblings grew up in foster homes.

Malcolm was an excellent student but lost interest in education after experiencing racial prejudice from his teachers. He quit school and moved in with his sister in Boston. He was imprisoned from 1946 to 1952 after being arrested for robbery. While incarcerated, he spent his time reading and converted to the Nation of Islam. Malcolm embraced the ideology of Black nationalism, which supported Black people’s social, cultural, and political independence from white society.

A gifted orator, Malcolm supported Black militancy and radicalism. By the early 1960s, he emerged as a leading figure in the civil rights struggle, opposing Martin Luther King, Jr.’s, philosophy of nonviolence and advocating for Black people’s right to self-defense. In 1963, Malcolm left the Nation of Islam, disillusioned with its leader. He embarked on a journey in the Middle East, which was a turning point for his political consciousness and spirituality. He became familiar with the anticolonial struggles in Africa and Pan-Africanism. When Malcolm returned to the US, he was more optimistic about social change. However, in 1965, just as he was experiencing an ideological renewal, he was assassinated. Malcolm’s ideas and activism were highly influential in the 1970s Black Power Movement.

Mahatma Gandhi was the leader of the nonviolent movement for India’s independence from British colonial rule. He was born Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi in 1869 in Porbandar, India, then part of the British Empire. (Mahatma is an honorific title given to him.) In 1888, Gandhi left for England to study law, but he struggled to adjust to Western culture in London. He was committed to the Hindu religion and espoused nonviolence, fasting, and vegetarianism. Gandhi returned to India but struggled to find work as a lawyer and eventually found a job in South Africa. There, he was shocked by the racial discrimination against Indian immigrants. Gandhi became an advocate for Indian rights.

In 1906, Gandhi engaged in political action via the satyagraha, his method for nonviolent resistance. His success in South Africa made him internationally famous. Upon returning to India in 1915, he led a national struggle for freedom from British rule, organizing walks and mass boycotts and urging people to stop working for the colonial government and students to stop attending governmental schools. Gandhi became the head of the Indian National Congress and reinforced a strategy of nonviolence and noncooperation to dismantle the colonial rule. Gandhi also supported unity between India’s Muslim and Hindu population. While India’s independence was under negotiation after World War II, unity could not prevail despite Gandhi’s efforts. He was assassinated by a Hindu extremist in 1948. Many books are available on Gandhi’s life, including the autobiography The Story of My Experiments With Truth.