MLK was born on January 15th, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia to an average family. Both his dad and grandpa were pastors at their local church. He attended religious colleges up north, in Philadelphia and Boston. He noticed that the segregation there was a lot less of a problem. He married Coretta Scott King. He moved to Montgomery, Alabama with his wife in 1953 and became a pastor at a church.

 

Because of his talented skill in public speaking, he made many speeches and inspired people to protest peacefully against the segregation in america. Also, on December 1, 1955, a woman named Rosa Parks was arrested for not giving her seat to a white person. A lot of people didn’t like this including MLK, so on December 5, 1955 he stated a bus boycott with a group of activists. For over a year, people walked instead of riding buses, so finally, segregated buses were ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

 

Over the next decade, MLK led many non-violent protests all over the US. The biggest was The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Over 100,000 people gathered in the capital to support civil rights. There, he made his famous “I have a Dream” speech. He inspired many people, including me, because of how he really shows how he feels about this situation. He inspired people to protest peacefully against this unjust racism.

 

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 both stopped many segregation laws. Around that time, MLK won the Nobel Peace Prize, for the Civil Rights Movement and his achievement of racial equality from non-violent protests. In 1968, he was assassinated by James Earl Ray. MLK was only 39 years old. His assassination was very depressing to people all over the world. But his short life made many people fight for their own causes peacefully.

Here is a link to my MLK timeline: http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/interactives/timeline_2/