Martin luther king family biography
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Martin Luther King Jr.
In Focus: Martin Luther King Jr. Day
In the nearly 40 years that the United States has celebrated Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the national holiday has never coincided with the inauguration of a non-incumbent president. That changes this year.
Martin Luther King Jr. Day is celebrated annually on the third Monday in January to mark the late activist’s birthday. In , the holiday falls on January 20, the same day typically set aside for Inauguration Day every four years. Indeed, January 20 is also when Donald Trump will be sworn in as 47th president.
Bill Clinton and Barack Obama previously took presidential oaths of office on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. However, in both cases, the men were starting their second consecutive terms, much quieter occasions than the transfer of power from one president to the next.
Days after King’s assassination in , a campaign for a holiday in his honor began. U.S. Representative John Conyers Jr. of Michigan first prop
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Family History of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Even after becoming a civil rights leader and a Nobel Peace Prize winner, in the “quiet recesses” of his heart Martin Luther King, Jr., remained a Baptist preacher. “This is my being and my heritage,” he once explained, “for I am also the son of a Baptist preacher, the grandson of a Baptist preacher and the great-grandson of a Baptist preacher” (King, “The Un-Christian Christian”). The tightly knit extended family in which King, Jr., was raised had a profound influence on his worldview. “It is quite easy for me to think of a God of love mainly because I grew up in a family where love was central and where lovely relationships were ever present” (Papers ).
King, Jr.’s maternal great-grandfather, Willis Williams, who was born in , was described as “an old slavery time preacher” and an “exhorter” (Papers ). In , when Willis joined Shiloh Baptist Church in Greene County, Georgia, its congregation numbered 50 white and
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BIOGRAPHY OF DR. KING
A national figure in the Civil Rights Movement, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (–) rose to fame with his advocacy of nonviolence as a means to effect social change. From when he emerged as a leader during the Montgomery Bus Boycott until his assassination in , he was both admired and reviled in his crusade to achieve racial equality. King also served as an eloquent and potent figure bridging societal divides, as evidenced bygd his tillgång to the halls of power in both political (the vit House) and religious (the Vatican) spheres. In , at age 35, he became the youngest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize; he was also the twelfth American and third African-American to receive the honor.
Born Michael King on January 15, , in Atlanta, Georgia, he was the second child and first son of Baptist minister Michael Luther King, Sr. and his wife, the former Alberta Williams, who herself was the daughter of the Rev. Adam Daniel Williams, pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Ch