Biography+of+Martin+Luther+King,+Jr.



=**"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." **=

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**"In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: collection of the facts to determine whether injustices exist; negotiation; self purification; and direct action."**

How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of Harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. -Martin Luther King, Jr.  Martin Luther King, Jr., was born on January 25, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia. His was a middle class family that had a tradition of religious service; his father and grandfather had been Baptist ministers, as was King himself. As a six-year-old, the segregated South hit King personally when a white friend of his explained they could no longer be friends because of their skin colors. At age 15, King spent the summer working on a tobacco farm in Connecticut, where he saw whites and blacks interacting freely for the first time. He wrote home to his parents in awe of how comfortable race relations seemed comparatively.

King graduated from Morehouse College in 1948. He was inspired as a student by activists who spoke out against segregation. He pursued a path of education for some time, attending Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania, where he studied Mahatma Ghandi's theory of nonviolent protest. He later attended Boston University and received his doctorate in 1955.

He had met his wife, Coretta Scott, two years prior. The year of his graduation from Boston University was the same year Rosa Parks famously refused to give up her seat on a bus. King returned to Montgomery, Alabama, and joined a protest to boycott the bus system. He was named their leader because he was young, original, unfamiliar enough to not have enemies, and well connected.

This was the beginning of King's long history of leadership in the fight against segregation, racism, and the oppression of black Americans by the white majority. The movement gained national support when the police tactics used to stop the nonviolent protestors-such as powerful hoses, beating with clubs, attack dogs, and other definitely violent means--shocked Americans who were seeing this behavior for the first time on television. 

**We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor, it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct-action campaign that was "well timed" in view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word "wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant "Never." We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied."** // -Martin Luther King, Jr., in "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" //

In 1957, King and other ministers founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization based on nonviolent religious values that promoted the Civil Rights Cause and organized protests and action.

In 1963, King was arrested after a boycott in Alabama, along with many fellow protestors. To promote the cause and garner support not only from the entire country but from clergymen-both white and black-who refused to take part in the protests, King wrote a letter outlining his belief in nonviolent protest and his reasoning that every man deserves his freedom, and must fight for it. The letter is famous today and is known as the "Letter from a Birmingham Jail." Read it here:

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King was murdered by a sniper's bullet on April 4, 1968. He had been marching, protesting, speaking, and fighting for the equal rights of his people for 13 years. Many threats and attempts on his life, as well as his wife and children, had been made in that time. May he rest in peace...

His death solidified his place in history, and made him a martyr to the movement. He is still remembered as a great leader in the Civil Rights movement, and as a model of the power of nonviolent resistance; the power of peace.   "...though I was initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist, as I continued to think about the matter I gradually gained a measure of satisfaction from the label. Was not Jesus and extremist for love: 'Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.' Was not Amos an extremist for justice: 'Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like am ever-flowing stream.' Was not Paul an extremist for the Christian gospel: 'I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.' Was not Martin Luther an extremist: 'Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise, so help me God.' And John Bunyan: 'I will stay in jail to the end of my days before I make a butchery of my conscience.' And Abraham Lincoln: 'This nation cannot survive half slave and half free.' And Thomas Jefferson: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. . . .' **So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice?" **// -Martin Luther King, Jr. //