Martin Luther King Biography
Fast Facts
Civil rights leader and Baptist minister.
He was actually given the name Michael Luther King, but later changed his name to Martin.
In 1963 he became Time magazine's Man of the Year.
In 1964 ( at the age of 35 ) he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, becoming the youngest recipient of that prize in history.
Between 1957 and 1968 he traveled over 6 million miles and spoke more than 2500 times, showing up wherever he was needed to help overcome injustice and oppression.
He authored 5 books as well as writing numerous articles.
Martin Luther King Jr.: The Man and the Dream DVD
A&E's Martin Luther King Jr. Biography
Martin Luther King Biography
"If a man hasn't found something he will die for, he isn't fit to live."
These are the words of an extraordinary man who lived an incredible life. Martin Luther was born on January 15, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia and was assassinated April 4,1968 in Memphis, Tennessee. He called on people to practice non-violent forms of protesting violent, oppressive laws that treated people of color unworthily.
He chose to follow his father and grandfather's footsteps by becoming a Baptist minister and serving in the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, but not before much deliberation. He was concerned that the pulpit would not allow him the freedom to express all his feelings and opinions on political issues of the day, and so he considered going into medicine, law and other professions before finally making up his mind to enter into the Seminary.
As a boy, Martin attended segregated schools in Georgia and he graduated from high school at the age of fifteen; he received his B.A. degree, majoring in sociology, in 1948 from Morehouse College, a distinguished Negro institution of Atlanta from which both his father and grandfather had graduated from. He studied for three years at Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania where he was elected president of a predominantly white senior class, and he was awarded the B.D. in 1951.
Voicing his opinion on the role of education, he wrote, "The function of education ... is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. But education which stops with efficiency may prove the greatest menace to society.... The most dangerous criminal may be the man gifted with reason, but with no morals."
While at Crozer, he attended a lecture delivered by Mordecai Johnson, president of Howard University. He talked about the great spiritual leader Mahatma Gandhi who practiced radical non-violence...King was deeply affected....he had found the direction he needed for his life. "His message was so profound and electrifying," King later said, "that I left the meeting and bought a half dozen books on Gandhi's life and works."
page 2 martin luther king biography
biography and biographies home page
Who Killed Martin Luther King, Jr.?
Profiles of five influential pastors illuminate the important role of these
figures in American society.