Could Alberta Williams King have known that her middle child would become so important to the fight for equality and racial harmony around the world?
On 15 January 1929, Alberta and her husband Michael King Sr welcomed their second child into the world. Michael King Jr, who would later have his name changed along with his father, in honour of the German Protestant Martin Luther, became brother to Alberta and Michael's daughter Willie Christine, and later their second son, Alfred Daniel Williams King.
Education
The family lived in Atlanta, Georgia, and King Jr was a bright child. He skipped the ninth and the twelfth grades at his school, the Booker T. Washington High School. Attending this school, built and developed after the inspirational achievements of Booker T. Washington, King Jr was ideally placed to excel and become inspirational himself.
Booker T. Washington was born into slavery in the state of Virginia in 1856, and after emancipation worked to gain his education at what is now called Hampton University. He returned to Hampton as a teacher in 1891 and was named the first leader of the Tuskegee Institute, Alabama. Booker T. Washington was on of the last black political figures born into slavery, and was able to bring together whites and blacks to raise funds for education as well as his stance on equality through struggle and not force.
These political beliefs and ethos would have been known to King Jr as he too gained his basic education, first at High School and then, at the age of 15, when he began attending Morehouse College. Morehouse is a traditional black men's college, and has been the seat of learning for a number of well-known figures in the 20th Century such as film director Spike Lee, Olympic sprinter Edwin Moses and the first African-American Mayor of Atlanta, Maynard Jackson. King Jr.'s father had also attended Morehouse College.
King Jr graduated from Morehouse in 1948 with a Bachelors degree in Sociology, which he followed up with a Bachelor of Divinity degree in 1951 from Crozier Theological Seminary, Pennsylvania. This could be seen as a strange path for a boy who openly denied the resurrection of Christ at his Sunday School when aged 13. King had doubts, but continued to study and learn to achieve better understanding.
King Jr then took a 3 year break from his studies, during which time he married and took up the position of preacher at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. In 1954, he began a doctoral programme at Boston University in systematic theology. King Jr. received his Doctor of Philosophy degree on June 5th 1955. It has since been agreed that portions of Dr King's dissertation contained plagiarised elements, but the University has upheld the value of the document overall as contributing intelligently to scholarship.
Family life
Dr King's father, Michael King, was the eldest of nine children born to parents who were sharecroppers in Stockbridge, Georgia. The family were members of the local Baptist Church. Michael King grew interested in preaching, and was encouraged by his then fiancee's family to complete his education formally before taking up a full-time preaching position.
In 1931, Michael became leader at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, after the death of his then father-in-law. Michael took his young family to Europe and upon their return, changed his name and that of his middle son to Martin Luther King. In a very short time, the Ebenezer Baptist Church was financially secure and King Snr, was a well-respected member of the community known for his anti-segregation stance. He became head of the Civil and Political League, and head of the Atlanta branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
It was King Snr.'s refusal to accept the segregation of blacks and whites, and the Jim Crow laws, that had a strong influence on Martin Luther King Jr. Michael King studied along side Howard Thurman while at Morehouse College. Thurman was a missionary, educator and civil rights leader, who had met with Gandhi while working in India. While King Jr. was studying in Boston, he would often visit Thurman, which could only have strengthened King's passion for racial equality.
In 1953, Martin Luther King Jr. married Coretta Scott at her parent's home in Heiberger, Atlanta. Coretta was educated at the Lincoln Normal School in Marion, Alabama and then at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. Coretta's sister Edyth had been the first black female student at Antioch as part of their Interracial Education programme which offered full scholarships to black students.
It was the racial discrimination that she had experiences during her education and subsequent attempts to find a teaching position that drove Coretta Scott to join the NAACP. She studied music and was as well known for her singing as she later became for her civil rights work. It was while singing at New England Conservatory of Music in Boston that she met Martin Luther King Jr.
Together, the Kings had four children: Yolanda Denise, Martin Luther III, Dexter Scott and Bernice Albertine (named after Coretta's and King Jr.'s mothers). The raising of the children was a source of disagreement between the couple despite their committed love for each other. Dr King wanted Coretta to focus on the home and family, while Coretta was keen to become even more involved in the civil liberty movement.
Both King and Coretta were involved in the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955. Claudetta Colvin was 15, unmarried and pregnant, and refused to give up her seat on a bus for a white man. Although the local civil liberties activists had been considering bringing a legal challenge to the segregation laws, they decided that Claudetta was not the right choice of plaintiff in such a case. Later in 1955, Rosa Parks, elected secretary of the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a bus, and from that moment the wheels that were already in motion to end racial segregation began to move faster.
The Kings, along with Edgar Nixon and others began a boycott of the buses which lasted 385 days. Tensions in Montgomery ran high between whites and blacks, and the King's home was bombed. King was arrested during the protests, but with the help of his father and the politician Robert Kennedy, King was released.
Violence and non-violence
In 1959, Martin Luther King Jr. visited India and was profoundly affected by his experiences there. He became convinced that non-violent protest was the only way to achieve his vision of civil rights and harmony.
Despite having experienced at first hand the danger to his own life and to those in his family during the Montgomery Bus Boycott, King spoke continually about the power of non-violent civil disobedience and protest.
He continued to preach at the Baptist Church in Dexter Avenue and elsewhere his message of non-violent assertion of the black community. His sermons and speeches revolved around the concepts of harmony and equality, but also looked intelligently for the reasons behind the actions and intolerance of others. His sermon “Loving Your Enemies” delivered in November 1957 encouraged the congregation to look inside themselves in order to identify some reason, presumed or actual, that may have contributed to the hatred they had experienced from others, and to remedy that if it was possible.
Almost a year after this sermon was given, King Jr. was attacked at a book signing event in Harlem, new York. A black woman, Izola Curry, stabbed Dr King in the chest with a steel letter opener. King recovered after being admitted to hospital, yet the knife had been left in the wound and doctors worked for over 3 hours to remove it safely in a delicate operation. Dr King spoke from hospital of his wish that Curry would be given the care that she needed by society, and a month later Curry was declared mentally incompetent to stand trial and was committed to the Matteawan State Hospital for the criminally insane.
In 1961, Dr King was again arrested after becoming invloved in the Albany Movement demonstrations in Albany, Georgia. He declined bail until the city agreed to consessions, which were then withdrawn as soon as Dr King left the area. Dr King returned to Albany the following year and was re-arrested, and given the option of a $178 fine or 45 days jail time. He chose jail, but his fine was paid discretely by a city official after just 3 days.
During the Birmingham Campaign in 1963, Dr King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) that he had helped to form in 1957 organised a 2-month period of mass non-violent disobedience in Birmingham, Alabama. The Campaign was aimed at forcing the local police to arrest and detain an unsustainable number of protesters. As numbers of adults able to continue protesting declined due to the arrests, children were brought in by strategist James Bevel in a move that became known as the Children's Crusade.
The Alabama police used high-pressure water cannon and dogs to control the protests, some of which did not maintain the non-violent stance that Dr King had insisted on. However, despite the accusations of using children to further their political ambitions, eventually the Chief of police in Birmingham lost his job and more of the city became available to blacks as the Jim Crow law signs were taken down.
In 1963, during the March on Washington, more than a quarter of a million people converged on the capitol and heard Dr King's seminal “I have a dream” speech. It is arguably this speech that facilitated the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
1965 saw Dr King's stance on non-violent protest again tested by the authorities. The SCLC had wanted to march from Selma Alabama to the capitol Montgomery on 7th March. Dr King decided almost at the last minute not to attend, and the marchers clashed with the police before they could achieve their aim. The police brutality displayed towards the protesters led to this day becoming known as Bloody Sunday.
On 9 March a second attempt was made by Dr King to hold the protest, but it was blocked by a court injunction. Dr King led his marchers to the bridge at the city limits of Selma and led the protesters in a short prayer before asking the everyone to disperse. The full march was finally held on 29 March 1965, where Dr King reached the steps of the capitol building and gave what has come to be known as his “How Long, Not Long” speech.
Dr King was a vocal objector to the continued United States' presence in Vietnam. While he opposed the fighting, Dr King also took issue with the recruitment of young black men to fight for a country that still prevented them from so many freedoms at home.
It was on a motel balcony in Memphis, Tennessee that Dr Martin Luther King Jr.'s life came to an abrupt and violent end. Assassinated while he stood taking the evening air by a single bullet, Dr King was pronounced dead at 7.05pm on 4 April 1968. His death led to numerous riots across the United States, and calls from James Farmer Jr. and Robert Kennedy to maintain Dr King's non-violent mission in the midst of despair.
Parts of Dr King's “Drum Major” sermon were read at his funeral, where he had asked that he not be remembered for any honours he had received, including the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. Instead, he wanted to be remembered as someone who had fed the hungry, clothed the naked and loved and served humanity.
While controversy surrounded the arrest and conviction of James Earl Ray for Dr King's murder, no other individual has been prosecuted.
Legacy
Dr King's legacy is one of compassion, education and understanding. While his focus was essentially on racial segregation and discrimination, his teachings encompassed discrimination wherever it is found. The basic sentiment that violence does not achieve lasting results is ironically illustrated in the accomplishments of all black African-Americans and all other disadvantaged groups since Dr King's untimely death.
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King,_Jr.
Carson, Clayborne (1998). The Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr.. Warner Books. p. 6.
http://www.mlkonline.net/enemies.html