5 Things To Know About Martin Luther King Jr.
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#1 Family
Martin Luther King Jr. was born January 15, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia. He was born into a good middle class family. Both of his parents were college educated. His father and grandfather were both Baptist ministers. He had a good childhood with a loving extended family and church life. He would go on to marry Corretta Scott in 1953 and they would have 4 children together.
#2 Education
Martin Luther King Jr. was an excellent student growing up. King was able to take advantage of a special wartime program to boost enrollment and attended Moorehouse college at the age of 15. He studied medicine and the law before switching the ministry his senior year. After graduating in 1948, he would go on to divinity school at Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania and then to Boston University for his doctorate. 
#3 Montgomery Bus Protest
After Rosa Parks was arrested in Montgomery Alabama on December 1, 1955, Martin Luther King Jr. organized the Montgomery Bus Protest. Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery City Bus to a white woman after being asked by the driver to do so. African Americans made up around 70% of the bus riders. King knew that if African Americans stuck together in their protest, they could hit the city where it hurt; in their pocketbook. The protest lasted a little over a year. The boycott ended after the Supreme Court declared the city's segregated bus seating unconstitutional.
#4 Letter from Birmingham Jail
In 1963 Martin Luther King Jr. led a campaign in Birmingham, Alabama against segregated lunch counters and unfair hiring practices. The police turned dogs loose on the protesters and hit them with fire hoses. King was among those arrested which also included hundreds of school children. While he was in jail he would write the famous “Letter from Birmingham Jail” which laid out his philosophy on non violence. Later in the year he would join forces with over 200,000 people including black and white leaders at The March on Washington where he gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. In 1964 he would go on to win the Nobel Peace Prize for his fight for civil rights and equality. His work also helped lead to the Civil Rights act of 1964.
#5 Opposition
Not everyone supported Martin Luther King Jr.’s fight or how he fought. Of course he was opposed by those who wanted to keep the status quo when it came to segregation and Jim Crow laws. But he was also opposed at times by other clergy members including black clergy. King’s non-violent tactics did not sit well with radicals from the north like the Black Panthers, Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam. Malcolm X believed that African Americans needed to take matters into their own hands and defend themselves by any means necessary. He even called King’s theory of non-violence, “criminal”.
Bonus
April 4, 1968 Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on his hotel balcony by James Earl Ray. His non-violent campaign for civil rights broke Jim Crow and segregation in America. The observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day was signed into law by President Ronald Reagan November 2, 1983 and was first observed January 20. 1986. The Martin Luther King Jr. monument in Washington D.C. was finished in 2011.
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