King's speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963, has a quality that has not been forgotten for years. The famous speech in which he expressed his dreams was met with enthusiastic applause from the audience.
Martin Luther King was born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, the largest city in the state of Georgia.
King, who completed primary school in his hometown, Atlanta, also completed his secondary and high school education here. He then went to Morehouse College and graduated from there in 1948 with a high-grade point average. During his years at the college, he was influenced by Benjamin Mayers, who was a civil rights leader as well as his rector. And little by little he was introduced to the thoughts that would later make him a political activist.
After graduating from the Department of Sociology, King entered the Faculty of Theology, graduated first in class, and then applied to Boston University to get his master's degree. The African-American, who earned a doctorate in theology, began pastoring Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery in 1953. On December 1, 1955, when Rosa Parks refused to comply with Jim Crow laws, Martin Luther King began to appear in protests as a well-known activist. Montgomery led bus boycotts after Rosa Parks was arrested after refusing to give up her seat to a white man on the bus.
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. A Black church leader and a son of early civil rights activist and minister Martin Luther King Sr., King advanced civil rights for people of color in the United States through nonviolence and civil disobedience. Inspired by his Christian beliefs and the nonviolent activism of Mahatma Gandhi, he led targeted, nonviolent resistance against Jim Crow laws and other forms of discrimination in the United States.
In this way, black uprisings began and the boycott continued for more than a year. The protest, which started on December 5, 1955, ended on December 21, 1956, with the decision of the Supreme Court that black passengers could sit wherever they wanted.
Later, King called for black churches to come together and for new regulations on civil rights. He took part in the founding of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1957 and led the movements organized by SCLC until his death. Although King, who was against violence, was known for his peaceful attitude in his demonstrations, he was followed by the FBI in 1961. Because it was feared that Martin Luther King might provoke people with pro-communist thoughts.
However, Martin Luther King made sure that the movements he initiated did not involve violence, and this approach attracted the attention of the media. During this period, its popularity increased considerably.
Representing SCLC, King participated in what they called the "March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom."
King's speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963, has a quality that has not been forgotten for years. King's famous speech, in which he expressed his dreams of a world where his four children would be judged by their characters rather than the color of their skin, where little black girls and boys would hold hands with white boys and children and grow up as brothers and sisters, and where there would be no discrimination based on religion or race, was met with enthusiastic applause from the audience.
As a result of the demonstrations, the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act were enacted in 1964 and 1965, and Martin Luther King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. During this period, great strides were made regarding the rights of black people. The African-American political figure began to frequently voice the issue of reparations for blacks. He expressed his thoughts in "Why Can't We Wait?", which he wrote in 1964. King, who openly expressed his views in his book, was harshly criticized by racist whites for the views he advocated.
King, who wanted to carry the success he achieved in the South to the North, moved to the outskirts of Chicago. He followed such a path both to support the poor and to show how difficult life was in the poor neighborhoods where black people lived. Many marches were held in Chicago during the movement led by Martin Luther King with another civil rights movement advocate, Ralph Abernathy. However, the people in the North reacted much harsher to the marches than those in the South, and King had to decide to return to the South with his allies.
King, who criticized the US role in the Vietnam War in the last years of his life, began to be seen as a supporter of communism due to his thoughts. He attracted attention with his statements such as: "America is the world's biggest provider of violence, they want to make Vietnam an American colony, and the country is responsible for the death of 1 million Vietnamese, mostly children."
King, who went to Memphis to support black healthcare workers on April 3, 1968, gave a speech at the Mason Temple there. This speech, in which he also said that he was "not afraid of death", was the last speech of the famous name.
The next day, he was shot on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel and received the wound that would cause his death. The incident took place at 6 o'clock in the evening. King, who was shot in the throat, was immediately taken to the hospital, but the black leader died in the hospital where he was taken. Approximately 300 thousand people attended the funeral ceremony held 5 days later.
Two months after King's assassination, the perpetrator, James Earl Ray, was captured at an airport in England and extradited to the USA. Although he confessed to the assassination on March 10, 1969, he claimed that he did not commit the murder three days later. Earl Ray, who was sentenced to 99 years in prison, died in 1998 while continuing to serve his sentence.