King was born in Atlanta, Ga., on Jan. 15, 1929, the eldest son of Martin Luther King, Sr. (1899-1984), a Baptist minister, and Alberta Williams King (1904-74). He entered Morehouse College at the age of 15 and was ordained a Baptist minister at the age of 17. He graduated from Crozer Theological Seminary as class president in 1951; three years later, he received a Ph.D. from Boston University.

King's studies at Crozer and Boston led him to explore the works of the Indian nationalist Mohandas K. Gandhi, whose ideas became the core of his own philosophy of nonviolent protest. King married Coretta Scott (1927-    ) of Marion, Ala., in June 1953, and the following year he accepted an appointment as pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Ala.

The Montgomery Bus Boycott

That same year the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed all segregated public education, and in the wake of that decision the segregated South was soon challenged in every area of public accommodation. In Montgomery, the black community was outraged when a woman on her way home from work, Rosa Lee Parks (1913-    ), was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a municipal bus to a white man. King was chosen to organize a boycott (1955-56) to end racial segregation in public transportation. In the course of the 381-day action he was arrested and jailed, his home was bombed, and many threats were made against his life. The boycott ended with a mandate from the Supreme Court outlawing all segregated public transportation in the city. The Montgomery boycott was a clear victory for nonviolent protest, and King emerged as a highly respected leader. Mindful of this, black clergymen from across the South organized the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), with King as its president.

Civil Rights Leadership

On a visit to India in 1959 King was able to work out more clearly his understanding of Satyagraha, Gandhi's principle of nonviolent persuasion, which he had determined to use as his main instrument of social protest. The next year he gave up his pastorate in Montgomery to become copastor (with his father) of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, enabling him to participate more effectively in the burgeoning national civil rights movement.

At that time black leadership was undergoing a radical transformation. Having once focused on litigation and reconciliation, it was now demanding change "by any means possible." Differences of ideology and jurisdiction between the SCLC and other groups were inevitable, but King's prestige ensured that nonviolence, although not universally popular, remained the official mode of resistance. In 1963 he led a massive civil rights campaign in Birmingham, Ala., and organized drives for black voter registration, desegregation, and better education and housing throughout the South. During these nonviolent campaigns he was arrested several times. He led the historic March on Washington, Aug. 28, 1963, where he delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech. In 1964 King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Broadening of Concerns

As time passed, King became increasingly sensitive to the variety of forms violence could take. It also had become clear that scores of northern cities that had sent protest marchers to the South were themselves remiss in correcting racial discrimination. Finally, King believed that the war then raging in Vietnam poisoned the whole atmosphere and made the solution of local problems of human relations unrealistic.

On the last two issues, King's strategies were severely challenged. In Chicago, where his first major northern campaign was launched, he was publicly opposed by local black Baptists. There, too, his marchers were met by mobs of whites, armed with clubs and led by uniformed neo-Nazis and members of the Ku Klux Klan. As for the war in Vietnam, most blacks felt that their own problems deserved priority and that the black leadership should concentrate on fighting racial injustice at home. By early 1967, nevertheless, King had become associated with the antiwar movement and its national white leadership.

Assassination

King's subsequent preoccupation with Vietnam and his determination to lead a Poor People's March on Washington combined with shifting public priorities to challenge his leadership. He was near exhaustion from stress, and his speeches increasingly alluded to his possible death. He was undeterred, however, for as he put it on April 3, 1968, he had "been to the mountain top and seen the Promised Land." The following day he was shot and killed in Memphis, Tenn. Some 100,000 people attended his funeral in Atlanta. A white escaped convict, James Earl Ray (1929-98), was arrested for the murder; he pleaded guilty and in March 1969 was sentenced to 99 years in prison.

In 1983 the third Monday in January was designated a federal legal holiday in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday; his Atlanta birthplace and gravesite were made a national historic site.        C.E.L.

For further information on this person, see the section Biographies and the Bibliography, sections Christian doctrines, Blacks in the Americas, African American history, Post-World War II.