Biography childhood jr king luther martin

1929-1968

In Focus: Martin Luther King Jr. Day

In the nearly 40 years that the United States has celebrated Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the national holiday has never coincided with the inauguration of a non-incumbent president. That changes this year.

Martin Luther King Jr. Day is celebrated annually on the third Monday in January to mark the late activist’s birthday. In 2025, the holiday falls on January 20, the same day typically set aside for Inauguration Day every four years. Indeed, January 20 is also when Donald Trump will be sworn in as 47 president.

Bill Clinton and Barack Obama previously took presidential oaths of office on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. However, in both cases, the men were starting their second consecutive terms, much quieter occasions than the transfer of power from one president to the next.

Days after King’s assassination in 1968, a campaign for a holiday in his honor began. U.S. Representative John Conyers Jr. of Michigan first proposed a bill on April 8, 1968, but the first vote on the legislation didn’t happen until 1979. King’s widow, Coretta Scott King, led the lobbying effort to drum up public support. Fifteen years after its introduction, the bill finally became law.

In 1983, President Ronald Reagan’s signature created Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service as a federal holiday. The only national day of service, Martin Luther King Jr. Day was first celebrated in 1986. The first time all 50 states recognized the holiday was in 2000. Had he lived, King would be turning 96 years old this year.

See Martin Luther King Jr.’s life depicted onscreen in the 2018 documentary I Am MLK Jr. or the Oscar-winning movie Selma.

Who Was Martin Luther King Jr?

Martin Luther King Jr. was a Baptist minister and civil rights activist who had a seismic impact on race relations in the United States, beginning in the mid-1950s. Among his many efforts, King headed the Southern Christian Leadership Conferenc

American civil rights leader (1929–1968)

"Martin Luther King" and "MLK" redirect here. For other uses, see Martin Luther King (disambiguation) and MLK (disambiguation).

Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister, activist, and political philosopher who was one of the most prominent leaders in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968. King advanced civil rights for people of color in the United States through the use of nonviolent resistance and nonviolent civil disobedience against Jim Crow laws and other forms of legalized discrimination.

A black church leader, King participated in and led marches for the right to vote, desegregation, labor rights, and other civil rights. He oversaw the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott and later became the first president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). As president of the SCLC, he led the unsuccessful Albany Movement in Albany, Georgia, and helped organize some of the nonviolent 1963 protests in Birmingham, Alabama. King was one of the leaders of the 1963 March on Washington, where he delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, and helped organize two of the three Selma to Montgomery marches during the 1965 Selma voting

• = Key moments in MLK's life and beyond
• = Key moments in the Civil Rights Movement and beyond

I was born in the late twenties on the verge of the Great Depression, which was to spread its disastrous arms into every corner of this nation for over a decade. I was much too young to remember the beginning of this depression, but I do recall, when I was about five years of age, how I questioned my parents about the numerous people standing in breadlines. I can see the effects of this early childhood experience on my present anticapitalistic feelings.

My birthplace was Atlanta, Georgia, the capital of the state and the so-called "gateway to the South." Atlanta is home for me. I was born on Auburn Avenue. Our church, Ebenezer Baptist, is on Auburn Avenue. I'm now co-pastor of that church, and my office in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference is on Auburn Avenue.

I went through the public schools of Atlanta for a period, and then I went to what was then known as the Atlanta University Laboratory High School for two years. After that school closed, I went to Booker T. Washington High School.

The community in which I was born was quite ordinary in terms of social status. No one in our community had attained any great wealth. Most of the Negroes in my hometown who had attained wealth lived in a section of town known as "Hunter Hills." The community was characterized with a sort of unsophisticated simplicity. No one was in the extremely poor class. It is probably fair to class the people of this community as those of average income. It was a wholesome community, notwithstanding the fact that none of us were ever considered members of the "upper-upper class." Crime was at a minimum, and most of our neighbors were deeply religious.

From the very beginning I was an extraordinarily healthy child. It is said that at my birth the doctors pronounced me a one hundred percent perfect child, from a physical point of vie