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Biography
MARTIN LUTHER KING was born on 15 January 1929. His father was the minister of the Ebenezer Baptist church in Atlanta, Georgia. Being a little boy, he saw for himself the violence of racial hatred, and the oppression of African Americans at every step in their daily lives.
At the age of fifteen he entered Morehouse College in Atlanta. He met
students from all backgrounds, and matured in the company of his peers,
cultivating his gifts for intellectual life and experience.
In the 1950s African-American communities were becoming against racial
segregation and persecution. King soon formed the Southern Christian
Leadership Conference and pressed ahead in his fight for justice. The
cost that he and his own family paid for his new work was all too
evident; there were death threats and bombs. Police harassment and
imprisonment lay ahead.
Martin Luther King´s vision combined Christian language of freedom and
justice with American democracy. Peaceful protests would affirm the
dignity of African-Americans and embarrass their oppressors before the
eyes of the world. Violence bred violence only. Love must reply to hate.
The Civil Rights Movement was regional and national.
In 1967 Martin Luther King got the Nobel Peace Prize. But the violence
that had always pursued him would soon claim him. Only a year later, on
4 April 1968, he was shot dead in Memphis. He was thirty-nine years old.
Today he is widely celebrated, and his name still inspires those who
follow his call for Justice.