Marin Luther King
Martin Luther King Jnr. was born on 15 January 1929. His father, 'Daddy' King, was the pastor at the Ebenezer Baptist Church. King took his duties beyond serving his church, and was involved with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. This was probably the influential thing in king's (jnr.) early life that later made him accomplish what he did.King first met racism at the age of six, when a white friend's father said that they could no longer play together because King was 'coloured'. His own parents explained about slavery and also made an important point: 'Don't let it make you feel you are not as good as white people.King's progress through school was fast. At 15' he went to Morehouse College, a theological college in Connecticut. Here, he expressed doubt about the value of religion, but was eventually convinced of its relevance to the civil-rights struggle. At 19 he was ordained. With a degree in sociology he went to Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania, to study for a degree in divinity He came top of his class and graduated in 1951. He went on to study for a doctorate in systematic theology at Boston University.
H deliberately kept the race issue to the fore not clouding his message by associating,witth other radical political movements. 'The crowd responded ecstatically but Southern whites did not easily surrender a system that favoured them. Accompanied by his new wife, Coretta, he began work at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery Alabama. King was tried locally, and convicted of criminal contempt. The bus company and the city refused to agree to their demands, so the MIA organized a car pool, which the police harassed, arresting black drivers, including King. The Vietnam War was absorbing the Government's attention at this time. The local sheriff, Jim Clark, was a typical redneck. The church was attended mainly by the educated black middle class. We may never know who conspired to assassinate him -- it has been suggested that the FBI was involved, as it feared his becoming a black Messiah. Johnson was furious, as was most of the media. King accused the FBI of supporting Southern segregationists making him a marked man in the eyes ofJ. Thousands of black schoolchildren converged on the starting-point for the demonstration.
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