by Belinda Brown

Created on: August 21, 2008   Last Updated: January 18, 2010

Martin Luther King Jr. Was born on the 15th January 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A. Martin Luther King was known as an activist on human rights and the greatest leader in the American Civil Rights Movement. He had a great love for humanity and powerfully believed in the equality of his people.

Born to Reverend Martin Luther King Sr. and Alberta Williams, King was the middle child in the family and was a high achiever. He had an older sister named Willie Christine and a younger brother named Alfred Daniel.

When King was fifteen years old, he attended Morehouse College, having skipped the ninth and twelfth grades at secondary school without graduating. In 1948, he graduated from college with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology. King continued with his education and enrolled at Cozier Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania. By 1951, he had graduated and obtained a Bachelor of Divinity degree. Finally, toward the end of 1951, he began studies at the University of Boston and on June 5, 1955 he obtained a Doctor in Philosophy.

King's biggest influence in his life considering the Civil Rights movement was Howard Thurman, and educator and also an avid Civil Rights leader. King often spent a lot of time with Howard while he was studying at Boston University. Another major influence of Kings was Mohandas Gandhi. In the year of 1959, King had visited Gandhi's family in India. He learnt from Gandhi how non-violent protesting for Civil Rights was the most powerful tool in the struggle for human rights.

Martin Luther King became a Civil Rights leader very early on in his career. Before becoming a leader in the Civil Rights movement, he was originally a Baptist minister. In December of 1955, King was involved in the Montgomery Bus Boycott after an African American named Rosa Parks was arrested after refusing to give her seat away to a white man under the Jim Crow laws.

The boycott had lasted for an amazing 385 days and was to become such an extreme circumstance for King that it eventually led to his arrest and the bombing of his home. The boycott had not been all in vain, however. The Jim Crow law had been abolished and racial separation was prohibited on public buses in Montgomery.

In 1957, King had established the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. (SCLC). The purpose of creating the SCLC was to bind ethical authority and to coordinate non-violent protesting for the Civil Rights movement. Martin Luther Ling had led the SCLC right up until his death in

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