Cathleen galgiani biography of martin luther king
He later attended Booker T. Washington High School, where he was said to be a precocious student. He skipped both the ninth and eleventh grades and, at age 15, entered Morehouse College in Atlanta in He was a popular student, especially with his female classmates, but largely unmotivated, floating through his first two years. Influenced by his experiences with racism, King began planting the seeds for a future as a social activist early in his time at Morehouse.
At the time, King felt that the best way to serve that purpose was as a lawyer or a doctor. Although his family was deeply involved in the church and worship, King questioned religion in general and felt uncomfortable with overly emotional displays of religious worship. But in his junior year at Morehouse, King took a Bible class, renewed his faith, and began to envision a career in the ministry.
In the fall of his senior year, he told his father of his decision, and he was ordained at Ebenezer Baptist Church in February Later that year, King earned a sociology degree from Morehouse College and began attended the liberal Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania. He thrived in all his studies, was elected student body president, and was valedictorian of his class in He also earned a fellowship for graduate study.
He became romantically involved with a white woman and went through a difficult time before he could break off the relationship. Mays was an outspoken advocate for racial equality and encouraged King to view Christianity as a potential force for social change. After being accepted at several colleges for his doctoral study, King enrolled at Boston University.
He completed his doctorate and earned his degree in at age A committee of scholars appointed by Boston University determined that King was guilty of plagiarism inthough it also recommended against the revocation of his degree. As explained in his autobiographyKing previously felt that the peaceful teachings of Jesus applied mainly to individual relationships, not large-scale confrontations.
It was in this Gandhian emphasis on love and nonviolence that I discovered the method for social reform that I had been seeking. Led by his religious convictions and philosophy of nonviolence, King became one of the most prominent figures of the Civil Rights Movement. He was a founding member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and played key roles in several major demonstrations that transformed society.
The effort began on December 1,when year-old Rosa Parks boarded the Cleveland Avenue bus to go home after work. As more passengers boarded, several white men were left standing, so the bus driver demanded that Parks and several other African Americans give up their seats. Three other Black passengers reluctantly gave up their places, but Parks remained seated.
The driver asked her again to give up her seat, and again, she refused. Parks was arrested and booked for violating the Montgomery City Code. On the night Parks was arrested, E. King was elected to lead the boycott because he was young, well-trained, and had solid family connections and professional standing. He was also new to the community and had few enemies, so organizers felt he would have strong credibility with the Black community.
The Montgomery Bus Boycott began December 5,and for more than a year, the local Black community walked to work, coordinated ride sharing, and faced harassment, violence, and intimidation. In addition to the boycott, members of the Black community took legal action against the city ordinance that outlined the segregated transit system. They argued it was unconstitutional based on the U.
Board of Education After the legal defeats and large financial losses, the city of Montgomery lifted the law that mandated segregated public transportation. The boycott ended on December 20, Flush with victory, African American civil rights leaders recognized the need for a national organization to help coordinate their efforts. In JanuaryKing, Ralph Abernathyand 60 ministers and civil rights activists founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to harness the moral authority and organizing power of Black churches.
The SCLC helped conduct nonviolent protests to promote civil rights reform. The SCLC felt the best place to start to give African Americans a voice was to enfranchise them in the voting process. King met with religious and civil rights leaders and lectured all over the country on race-related issues. ByKing was gaining national exposure.
He returned to Atlanta to become co-pastor with his father at Ebenezer Baptist Church but also continued his civil rights efforts. His next activist campaign was the student-led Greensboro Sit-In movement. The movement quickly gained traction in several other cities. King encouraged students to continue to use nonviolent methods during their protests.
By Augustthe sit-ins had successfully ended segregation at lunch counters in 27 southern cities. On October 19,King and 75 students entered a local department store and requested lunch-counter service but were denied. When they refused to leave the counter area, King and 36 others were arrested. Soon after, King was imprisoned for violating his probation on a traffic conviction.
The news of his imprisonment entered the presidential campaign when candidate John F. Kennedy expressed his concern over the harsh treatment Martin received for the traffic ticket, and political pressure was quickly set in motion. King was soon released. In the cathleen galgiani biography of martin luther king ofKing organized a demonstration in downtown Birmingham, Alabama.
With entire families in attendance, city police turned dogs and fire hoses on demonstrators. King was jailed, along with large numbers of his supporters. The event drew nationwide attention. However, King was personally criticized by Black and white clergy alike for taking risks and endangering the children who attended the demonstration. The demonstration was the brainchild of labor leader A.
On August 28,the historic March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom drew an estimatedpeople in the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial. It remains one of the largest peaceful demonstrations in American history. The rising tide of civil rights agitation that had culminated in the March on Washington produced a strong effect on public opinion.
He stated, "It should benefit the disadvantaged of all races. Actress Nichelle Nichols planned to leave the science-fiction television series Star Trek in after its first season. King explained that her character signified a future of greater racial cooperation. Keep doing what you're doing, you are our inspiration. Star Trek was one of the only shows that [King] and his wife Coretta would allow their little children to watch.
And I thanked him and I told him I was leaving the show. All the smile came off his face. And he said, 'Don't you understand for the first time we're seen as we should be seen. You don't have a black role. You have an equal role. The series' creator, Gene Roddenberrywas deeply moved upon learning of King's support. FBI director J. Edgar Hoover personally ordered surveillance of King, with the intent to undermine his power as a civil rights leader.
Kennedy to proceed with wiretapping of King's phone lines, purportedly due to his association with Stanley Levison. The Bureau placed wiretaps on the home and office phone lines of both Levison and King, and bugged King's rooms in hotels as he traveled across the country. King was also the subject of extensive surveillance by cathleen galgiani biography of martin luther king police agencies throughout the United States, including years before the FBI initiated wiretaps on the SCLC leader.
The Memphis Police Department also spied on King in the spring ofas the civil rights leader was taking part in a campaign to support striking sanitation workers in the Tennessee city. A fire station was located across from the Lorraine Motel, next to the boarding house in which James Earl Ray was staying. Police officers were stationed in the fire station to keep King under surveillance.
Marrell McCollough, an undercover police officer, was the first person to administer first aid to King. In a secret operation code-named " Minaret ", the National Security Agency monitored the communications of leading Americans, including King, who were critical of the U. For years, Hoover had been suspicious of potential influence of communists in social movements such as labor unions and civil rights.
Due to the relationship between King and Stanley Levison, the FBI feared Levison was working as an "agent of influence" over King, in spite of its own reports in that Levison had left the Party and was no longer associated in business dealings with them. Despite the extensive surveillance, by the FBI had acknowledged that it had not obtained any evidence that King himself or the SCLC were actually involved with any communist organizations.
For his part, King adamantly denied having any connections to communism. In a Playboy interview, he stated that "there are as many Communists in this freedom movement as there are Eskimos in Florida. The attempts to prove that King was a communist was related to the feeling of many segregationists that blacks in the South were content with the status quo but had been stirred up by "communists" and "outside agitators".
CIA files declassified in revealed that the agency was investigating possible links between King and Communism after a Washington Post article dated November 4,claimed he was invited to the Soviet Union and that Ralph Abernathy, as spokesman for King, refused to comment on the source of the invitation. The FBI attempted to discredit King through revelations regarding his private life.
FBI surveillance of King, some of it since made public, attempted to demonstrate that he had numerous extramarital affairs. The American public, the church organizations that have been helping—Protestants, Catholics and Jews will know you for what you are—an evil beast. So will others who have backed you. You are done. King, there is only one thing left for you to do.
You know what it is. You have just 34 days in which to do this exact number has been selected for a specific reason, it has definite practical significant [ sic ]. There is but one way out for you. You better take it before your filthy fraudulent self is bared to the nation. The letter was accompanied by a tape recording—excerpted from FBI wiretaps—of several of King's extramarital liaisons.
King to resign from the SCLC. In Mayan FBI file emerged on which a handwritten note alleged that King "looked on, laughed and offered advice" as one of his friends raped a woman. Historians of the period who have examined this notional evidence have dismissed it as highly unreliable. The professor of American studies at the University of NottinghamPeter Ling, pointed out that Garrow was excessively credulous, if not naive, in accepting the accuracy of FBI reports during a period when the FBI was undertaking a massive operation to attempt to discredit King.
Theoharis commented "Most scholars I know would penalize graduate students for doing this. King records at Stanford University states that he came to the opposite conclusion of Garrow:. None of this is new. Garrow is talking about a recently added summary of a transcript of a recording from the Willard Hotel that others, including Mrs.
King, have said they did not hear Martin's voice on it. The added summary was four layers removed from the actual recording. This supposedly new information comes from an anonymous source in a single paragraph in an FBI report. You have to ask how could anyone conclude King looked at a rape from an audio recording in a room where he was not present.
The tapes that could confirm or refute the allegation are scheduled to be declassified in In his autobiography And the Walls Came Tumbling DownRalph Abernathy stated that King had a "weakness for women", although they "all understood and believed in the biblical prohibition against sex outside of marriage. It was just that he had a particularly difficult time with that temptation.
According to Garrow, "that relationship Garrow asserted that King's supposed promiscuity caused him "painful and at times overwhelming guilt". King was awarded at least fifty honorary degrees from colleges and universities. You have it all or you are not free. There are three urgent and indeed great problems that we face not only in the United States of America but all over the world today.
That is the problem of racism, the problem of poverty and the problem of war. The citation read:. He gazed upon the great wall of segregation and saw that the power of love could bring it down. From the pain and exhaustion of his fight to fulfill the promises of our founding fathers for our humblest citizens, he wrung his eloquent statement of his dream for America.
He made our nation stronger because he made it better. His dream sustains us yet. King and his wife were also awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in Among the planned designs are images from King's "I Have a Dream" speech. Memorial Library in Washington, D. King has received several honorary doctorates. Contents move to sidebar hide. Augustine, Florida, Article Talk.
Read View source View history. Tools Tools. Download as PDF Printable version. In other projects. Wikimedia Commons Wikiquote Wikisource Wikidata item. American civil rights leader — The Reverend. Coretta Scott. Martin Luther King Sr. Alberta Williams King. Christine King Farris sister A. King brother Alveda King niece. Civil rights peace anti-war.
This article is part of a series about. See also: Martin Luther King Jr. Activism and organizational leadership. Montgomery bus boycott, Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Survived knife attack, Atlanta sit-ins, prison sentence, and the elections. Albany Movement, Main article: Albany Movement. Birmingham campaign, Main article: Birmingham campaign.
March on Washington, Main article: March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. I Have a Dream. Problems playing this file? See media help. Main article: St. Augustine movement. Biddeford, Maine, New York City, Scripto strike in Atlanta, Main article: — Scripto strike. Selma voting rights movement and "Bloody Sunday", Main article: Selma to Montgomery marches.
Chicago open housing movement, Main article: Chicago Freedom Movement. Opposition to the Vietnam War. It reveals systemic rather than superficial flaws and suggests that radical reconstruction of society itself is the real issue to be faced —Martin Luther King Jr. Poor People's Campaign, Main article: Poor People's Campaign. Assassination and aftermath.
I've Been to the Mountaintop. Further information: King assassination riots.
Cathleen galgiani biography of martin luther king
Allegations of conspiracy. Main article: Martin Luther King Jr. See also: Black Consciousness Movement. See also: Northern Ireland civil rights movement. Ideas, influences, and political stances. Criticism within the movement. Activism and involvement with Native Americans. See also: Reparations for slavery debate in the United States.
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Despite facing numerous challenges and obstacles, King was determined to fight for justice and equality for all. He became a prominent leader in the civil rights movement, using nonviolent methods to bring about social change. Educational Resources Biography. The Martin Luther King, Jr. His actions and ideals continue to shape global events and cultures today, as we see ongoing fights for equality and justice all over the globe.
His message of nonviolence and peaceful protest has inspired countless activists and leaders to stand up against oppression and discrimination. Furthermore, King's belief in the power of education and knowledge to bring about change has influenced policies and initiatives that aim to provide equal opportunities for all individuals, regardless of their background.
This has led to advancements in education, employment, and political representation for marginalized groups. King's impact can also be seen in the arts, as his words and actions have inspired countless works of literature, music, and film that continue to touch the hearts and minds of people around the world. His message of love, unity, and acceptance has transcended generations and continues to resonate with people of all ages.
He was the middle child of three siblings, with an older sister and a younger brother. Growing up in a loving and religious household, King's family instilled in him the values of equality, justice, and compassion. King was heavily influenced by his father, who was a prominent Baptist minister and civil rights activist. He attended segregated public schools in Georgia and excelled academically, skipping grades 9 and 12 before enrolling in Morehouse College at the age of He graduated with a bachelor's degree in sociology in