Who is ml king. Who is martin luther king

Martin Luther King Jr. Born January 15, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA - died April 4, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee, USA. Famous African-American Baptist preacher, bright speaker, leader of the Black Civil Rights Movement in the United States. King has become a national icon in the history of American progressivism.

Martin Luther King became the first black activist in the United States and the first prominent black civil rights activist in the United States, fighting against discrimination, racism and segregation. He also actively opposed the colonial aggression of the United States, in particular, in Vietnam. Per important contribution in the democratization of American society in 1964, Martin was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Murdered in Memphis, Tennessee, believed to be James Earl Ray.

In 2004 (posthumously) he was awarded the highest award US Congressional Gold Medal.

Martin Luther King Jr. was born on January 15, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia, the son of a Baptist pastor. The Kings' home was located on Auburn Avenue, a middle-class black neighborhood in Atlanta. At the age of 13, he entered the Lyceum at the University of Atlanta. At the age of 15, he won a public speaking contest held by an African-American organization in Georgia.

In the fall of 1944, King entered Morehouse College. During this period, he became a member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Here he learned that not only blacks, but also many whites oppose racism.

In 1947, King was ordained as a minister, becoming his father's assistant in the church. After receiving a bachelor's degree in sociology from college in 1948, he entered Crowther Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania, where he received a bachelor's degree in divinity in 1951. In 1955, he was awarded a doctorate in theology from Boston University.

King very often attended the Ebenezer Baptist Church, where his father served.

In January 1952, after living in Boston for about five months, King met fellow conservatory student Coretta Scott. Six months later, King invited the girl to go with him to Atlanta. Having met Coretta, the parents gave their consent to their marriage.

Martin Luther King and his wife Coretta Scott King married at her mother's home on June 18, 1953. The bridegroom's father crowned the newlyweds. Coretta received a diploma in vocal and violin from the New England Conservatory of Music. After graduating from the conservatory, she and her husband moved to Montgomery, Alabama in September 1954. The King couple had four children: Yolanda King - daughter (November 17, 1955, Montgomery, Alabama - May 15, 2007, Santa Monica, California); Martin Luther King III - son (born October 23, 1957 in Montgomery, Alabama); Dexter Scott King - son (born January 30, 1961, Atlanta, Georgia); Bernice Albertine King - daughter (born March 28, 1963, Atlanta, Georgia).

In 1954, King became the pastor of a Baptist church in Montgomery, Alabama. In Montgomery, he led a major black protest against racial segregation in public transport, after the December 1955 incident with Rosa Parks. The Montgomery bus boycott, which lasted more than 380 days, despite the resistance of the authorities and racists, led to the success of the action - the US Supreme Court declared segregation in Alabama unconstitutional.

In January 1957, King was elected head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization created to fight for the civil rights of the African American population. In September 1958, he was stabbed in Harlem. In 1960, King visited India by invitation, where he studied activities.

In his speeches (some of which are now considered classics of oratory), he called for achieving equality by peaceful means. His speeches gave energy to the civil rights movement in society - marches began, economic boycotts, mass exoduses in prisons and so on.

Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I have a dream" speech, which during the March on Washington in 1963 at the foot of the Lincoln Monument, was listened to by about 300,000 Americans was widely known. In this speech, he glorified racial reconciliation. King redefined the essence of the American democratic dream and kindled a new spiritual fire in it. King's role in the non-violent struggle to pass a law prohibiting racial discrimination has been noted Nobel Prize peace.

As a politician, King was a truly unique figure. Outlining the essence of his leadership, he operated mainly in religious terms. He defined the leadership of the civil rights movement as an extension of past pastoral service and drew on African-American religious experience in most of his messages. By the traditional standard of American political thinking, he was a leader who believed in Christian love.

Like many other bright personalities American history, King resorted to religious phraseology, thereby evoking an enthusiastic spiritual response from his audience.

From 1963 until the death of Martin Luther King, Jr. was pursued by the FBI as part of secret program COINTELPRO.

On March 28, 1968, King led a 6,000-strong protest march in downtown Memphis, Tennessee, in support of striking workers. On April 3, speaking in Memphis, King said: “We have a hard days. But it does not matter. Because I've been to the top of the mountain... I've looked ahead and seen the Promised Land. Maybe I won't be there with you, but I want you to know now that all of us, all the people will see this Earth." On April 4, at 6:01 p.m., King was mortally wounded by a sniper while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis.

The killer, James Earl Ray, received 99 years in prison. It was officially accepted that Ray was a lone killer, but many believe that King fell victim to a conspiracy. The Episcopal Church of the United States recognized King as a martyr who gave his life for the Christian faith, his statue is placed in Westminster Abbey(England) among the martyrs of the XX century. King was promoted to the anointed of God, and was considered to be at the forefront of the democratic achievements of the civil rights movement.

King was the first black American to have a bust erected in the Great Rotunda of the Capitol in Washington. The third Monday in January is celebrated in America as Martin Luther King Day and is considered a national holiday.

In 1964, Martin Luther King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his achievements in the democratization of American society. He really wanted to completely destroy racial prejudice so that black and white people could finally coexist in America on completely equal terms.

His father Michael King was the pastor of a Baptist church in Atlanta, Georgia. One day in 1934, Father Michael went to travel around Europe, visited Germany. There he became acquainted with the teachings of the German reformer Martin Luther and was so impressed by his work that he decided to take his name for himself and his five-year-old son. Since then, their names were Martin Luther King Sr. and Martin Luther King Jr. By this act, King the Elder obliged his son and himself to follow the teachings of an eminent German priest and theologian.

Later, college and school teachers noted that in terms of ability, Martin Jr. was significantly superior to other peers. He passed all the exams with excellent marks, studied well, sang in the church choir.

At the age of 10, he was invited to the premiere of Gone with the Wind and sang a song there. At 13, Martin managed to enter the Lyceum at the University of Atlanta, 2 years later he became the winner of the speakers, held by the African American organization of Georgia. He once again proved his outstanding abilities by entering Morehouse College, passing the exams high school externally.

In 1947, Martin became a minister and assistant in Father Martin Luther King Jr. Baptist Church. At the same time, he decided not to leave his studies and the next year he entered the theological seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania. There, in 1951, he was awarded a bachelor's degree in theology. At Boston University, he received his Ph.D. in June 1955.

Life after school and the beginning of active work

After graduation, Martin Luther took over. At the Montgomery Baptist Church, he became a black protest leader against racial segregation. The root cause was an incident that happened to black Rosa Paquet when she was asked to leave the bus. She refused to do this, drawing the attention of opponents to the fact that an equal citizen of America is. This woman was supported by the entire black population of the city. A boycott of all buses was declared for a year. King Jr. took the case to the Supreme Court. Segregation was declared unconstitutional by the court, and then the authorities surrendered.

The above situation is a bloodless and non-violent resistance to the authorities. Further, Martin Luther decided to fight for the equal rights of blacks regarding education. A lawsuit was filed in the US Supreme Court against the authorities of those states where blacks were not allowed to study on an equal basis with whites. The court recognized the correctness of this claim, since the separate education of whites and blacks was contrary to the American constitution.

The first serious problems and danger to life

The opponents of the unification of blacks and whites began to prey on King Jr., as his speeches brought thousands of blacks and whites together and were very effective. He became for many influential people like a bone in the throat.

In 1958, at one of his many performances, he was stabbed in the chest. Martin was immediately taken to the hospital, his life was saved, and after treatment he continued his campaign. He was often shown on television, wrote about him in newspapers. Martin Luther became a very popular politician and leader, the pride of the black population in absolutely all states.

In 1963 he was arrested and charged with disturbing the peace. Once in the Birmingham prison, he was soon released, as no crime was found. In the same year, Martin Jr. was received by US President John F. Kennedy. After meeting him, he climbed the steps of the Capitol and gave his famous speech to the crowd of thousands, which everyone today knows as "I have a dream."

Last performance

In 1968, during a speech to demonstrators in Memphis, he was shot at and this shot turned out to be fatal. At this moment, dark-skinned America lost its most faithful defender, who dreamed of equality in the country and gave for it own life. Since then, the third Monday of January is celebrated in the United States as Martin Luther King Day and is a national holiday.

The work of Martin Luther the Younger was continued by his wife Coretta Scott King. She continued her nonviolent resistance to segregation, discrimination, colonialism, racism, and the like.

Martin Luther King

Martin Luther King, 1984

Baptist theologian

King (King) Martin Luther (1929-1968) - one of the leaders of the struggle for the civil rights of blacks in the United States, a Baptist theologian. King's tactics of "direct non-violent action" played a decisive role in undermining the system of segregation and discrimination against black Americans. King's socio-religious views were formed primarily on the basis of his own experience as a Negro, with early years faced with a system of everyday violence and humiliation, with police brutality and the injustice of the courts that dominated the southern states. In an effort to find the causes and ways to overcome racism, King studies theological and philosophical literature. W. Rauschenbush's ideas about the duty of the church and the Christian to fight against social injustice made a special impression on him. At the same time, he acknowledges the validity of the criticism of his views by R. Niebuhr: calls for conscience, for self-improvement in an “immoral society” cannot give serious results. However, according to King, the neo-orthodox go to the other extreme, being too pessimistic about human capabilities. Both liberalism and neo-orthodoxy offer only partial truth. As a result, King leans towards Gandhism tactics. “One of the powerful means acceptable to an oppressed people in their struggle for freedom is Christian love, which works through the “Gandhi method”. Negroes, King argues, are opposed not by individual racists, but by social system, in which racist ideology dominates - the result of sin, which manifests itself "at all levels of human existence." King defends modernist positions and criticizes the attempts of the so-called. traditionalists reject the latest achievements of science with references to biblical sayings. However, advances in science have given rise to the widespread illusion that "scientific laboratories can replace altars" and bring about social progress. But “if a person is not guided by the spirit of God, then the power of his scientific discoveries will become the destructive spirit of the monk Frankenstein, which will turn earthly life into the ashes." Man has powerful forces and a desire to create a just society, but he owes his origin to God, and without his help man himself is not capable of putting an end to racism. However, people cannot just wait and pray, it is necessary to act, to be "not just a thermometer of society, but its thermostat." Here, the “power of love”, awakened in man by God, is called upon to play a key role. A Christian should never reconcile himself to unjust orders, but his heart should not harden, violence cannot be eliminated by violence, it should be opposed by the "strength of the soul." In line with such reflections, the well-known tactics of “direct non-violent actions” are concretized. First of all, King sharply condemns the "suicidal" passivity and conciliatory attitude towards racism of most American churches and puts forward a categorical demand: "Freedom immediately!" In order to achieve it, it is necessary to create such a tense situation by active (“direct”) actions that would force the racist authorities to negotiate. Such tactics will inevitably lead to repressive measures, but the fighters for justice cannot, in turn, respond with violence, they must consistently be guided by the principle of evangelical love for all, awakening it in the hearts of their opponents. For the first time this tactic was successfully applied by King against the discriminatory orders in urban transport in Montgomery (1955). King soon formed the "Southern Christian Leadership Conference", which launched a wide activity in the southern states, and King's tactics became dominant in the mass anti-racist speeches in the early 60s. Notable milestones in King's activities were the fight against segregation in Birmingham, the campaign in Selma and the campaign against Washington (1963). In 1964, the Negro Civil Rights Act was passed, followed a year later by the Voting Rights Act. The fight, however, continued. Actively participating in it, King strongly opposed nationalist programs such as the slogan of "black power" and the activities of "black Muslims." In 1968, King was killed by racists in Memphis. In 1988, King's birthday was declared a national holiday in the United States.

Protestantism. [Dictionary of an atheist]. Under total ed. L.N. Mitrokhin. M., 1990, p. 128-130.

Negro religious and social activist

King (King) Martin Luther (January 15, 1929, Atlanta - April 4, 1968, Memphis) - Negro religious and public figure United States, which played an outstanding role in the fight against racism. He attended Atlanta Baptist College (1945-48), Chester Theological Seminary (1948-51), and Boston University (1951-55), where he received his Ph.D. In 1955, he led the "bus boycott" of Montgomery Negroes, which marked new stage struggle against segregation and discrimination of blacks. King led mass demonstrations for equal rights for blacks, which culminated in the passage of the Civil Rights Act (1964) and the Negro Voting Rights Act (1965). In 1964 King won the Nobel Peace Prize. In 1968 he was killed in Memphis. 20 years later, a national holiday was established in his honor (the third Monday in January).

King's social philosophy is the theologically interpretable and easily recognizable experience of an educated hereditary Negro Baptist pastor who, from an early age, was confronted with a system of everyday violence and humiliation, with police brutality and arbitrariness of the courts. Already in seminary, King, he said, was preoccupied with "an intellectual search for a way to eliminate social evils." He enthusiastically accepted the doctrine of the social evangelist W. Rauschenbush, who argued that the duty of the church is not only to save people, but also to transform all social relations - in "transferring heavenly harmony to earth" - carried out with God's help. Any religion, King concluded, that claims to care for the souls of people, but shows complete indifference to the terrible conditions in which they live, is dead and really is the "opium of the people." It is the Christian's duty to fight against racism, because "racial segregation is a blatant denial of the unity we have in Christ."

In the 50s. the program of building the "Kingdom of God" on earth, appealing to the conscience of believers, has already revealed its practical inefficiency, all the more obvious when it comes to the elimination of the system of segregation that prevails in the southern states. "We know from bitter experience," King wrote, "that the oppressors will never grant freedom to the oppressed—it must be demanded." King was deeply impressed by Reinhold Niebuhr's criticism of the concept of the ability for moral self-improvement of an individual living in an "immoral society", and his concept of ineradicable sin, which goes back to M. Luther. Niebuhr made me realize, King recalled, "the illusory nature of lightweight optimism and the reality of collective evil." But the black theologian, seeking to find a way to eliminate racism, could not fully accept the social pessimism of neo-orthodoxy, in particular the concept of a transcendent God, who is on the other side of the world. The desire to solve this dilemma, which has a sharp practical meaning for him (the responsibility of the church for the state of society and the practical ineffectiveness of appeals to the conscience of individuals) explains the originality of King's interpretations of key Christian dogmas and categories.

King clearly understood that the naves were opposed not by individual immoral individuals, but by a "system of evil", which he, as a Protestant theologian, deduced from the fall of the first people, as a result of which "sin manifests itself at all levels of human existence"; he sought to combine this fact with the recognition of the possibility of overcoming racism, in other words, to find a reasonable middle ground between the concepts of the immanent God in Rauschenbusch and the transcendent God in Niebuhr. Two logics collide here. On the one hand, the evangelical ideals, according to King, forgotten by the Americans, serve as his decisive argument against reconciliation with racist reality, on the other hand, these “external” ideals in relation to earthly reality cannot be adequately embodied in earthly life. In other words, God is both immanent (to the extent that His moral precepts act as a motive and guarantee of success in the fight against racism) and transcendent, insofar as His precepts "transcend" human capabilities. But these problems of "high" theology interested King primarily in practical terms - as a religious justification for the most effective fight with segregation.

King opposed the orthodox Protestant notion that the image of God in man was completely destroyed by the fall of Adam. No, King argued, he was only distorted and "terribly frightened." Powerful forces for creation have been preserved in man, but he himself is not able to fully manifest them. This can only be done by faith, which "opens the door to the work of God", providing a wonderful unity of divine and human will to eliminate sinful racism. Americans cannot just wait and pray, it is necessary to act, to be not just a thermometer, but a society thermostat. It is the duty of the Christian not to reconcile himself to the discrimination of blacks, but his heart must not be hardened, violence cannot be eliminated by force. Violence should be opposed to the "ability of love" awakened in man by God.

King proposed a clear program for the elimination of racism, and most importantly, he led the practical struggle for its implementation. The decisive role in its design was played by the experience of non-violent resistance of M. Gandhi, who suggested to King how to make "Christian love an effective tool for social transformation." "Christ gives the spirit, the motivation for protest, and Gandhi the method, the technique of expression," he wrote. Sharply condemning the "suicidal" passivity and conciliatory attitude towards racism of most American churches, King puts forward a categorical demand: "Freedom immediately!" In order to achieve it, it is necessary to create a tense situation by active (“direct”) actions that would force the racist authorities to negotiate. Such actions will inevitably cause repressive measures, but the fighters against discrimination should not respond with violence, they should fully embody the principle of gospel love for everyone, including enemies, trying to awaken it in the hearts of the persecutors. It was this tactic, pioneered in Montgomery, that dominated the mass anti-racist uprisings of the early 1960s. and ensured the passage of a number of anti-discrimination laws. However, it could not change the actual inequality. An explosive situation was created: the growing militancy of the Negroes ran into more and more fierce resistance from the authorities. In the mid 1960s. a wave of violent riots in Negro ghettos took place across the country, accompanied by vandalism, bloody clashes, and mass arrests. The new leaders, who put forward the slogan "Black Power!", denounced King in collusion with the authorities; in the eyes of the latter, he remained an instigator of social unrest, especially after he publicly denounced the Vietnam War. King himself was tormented by the crisis of his movement. Consistently defending the principle of non-violence, he recognized the need to develop new tactics corresponding to the "increased impatience of the Negroes and the growing resistance of the whites", in particular, strengthening the alliance of all the poor - both white and black.

L. N. Mitrokhin

New Philosophical Encyclopedia. In four volumes. / Institute of Philosophy RAS. Scientific ed. advice: V.S. Stepin, A.A. Huseynov, G.Yu. Semigin. M., Thought, 2010, vol. II, E - M, p. 243-244.

Read further:

Philosophers, lovers of wisdom (biographical index).

Compositions:

I have a dream. M., 1970; A pilgrimage to non-violence. - In the book: Ethical thought. Scientific and journalistic readings. M., 1991; Stride Toward Freedom. The Montgomery Story. N.Y., 1958; Strength to Love. N.Y., 1964; Why We Can "t Wait. N. Y., 1964; The Tmmpet of Conscience. N. Y., 1967; Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? N. Y., 1967.

Literature:

Nitoburg E. L. The Church of African Americans in the USA. M., 1995; Mitrokhin LN Martin L. King: the ability to love. - In the book: Baptism: history and modernity. SPb., 1997; Miller Keith D. Voice of Deliverance: The Language of Martin Luther King. J., and Its Sources. N.Y., 1992.

King Martin Luther (1929-1968), American clergyman and public figure, one of the leaders in the struggle for the civil rights of African Americans.

At age 15, he entered Morehouse College in Atlanta, graduated from Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania in 1951, and received a doctorate in theology from Boston University in 1955. In 1954, he became the minister of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, and became widely known as a black civil rights activist.

In January 1957, King took part in the creation of the "Southern Christian Leadership Conference", the purpose of which was to coordinate the efforts of human rights associations. He moved to Atlanta (1960) and devoted himself entirely to this organization.

In 1960-1961 King initiated sit-ins and "freedom marches"; was arrested several times for violating laws that he considered discriminatory. He was a highly educated man and saw racial segregation (the policy of forcibly separating a population group along racial or ethnic lines) as the most acute moral and social problem in America.

In 1963, King wrote a letter from a Birmingham prison (Alabama), in which he called on the clergy to support the struggle for equal rights for all citizens. In 1964, the United States passed the Negro Civil Rights Act, and a year later, the Voting Rights Act.

King's role in the non-violent struggle to pass a law that destroyed the remnants of racial discrimination in the United States was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize (1964). Starting out as a bourgeois liberal, King last years life came to an understanding of the social essence of the racial problem and the need for social reforms; urged African Americans to unite with white workers. In 1968, he created the Poor People's Campaign to unite the poor of all races in the fight against poverty.

King was assassinated on April 4, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee by racist James Earl Ray.
Mass Negro unrest - "April riots" (April riots), which broke out after the assassination of King, were brutally suppressed by the authorities.

King, whose biography deserves a place on the pages world history last century, embodied vivid image principled struggle and resistance to injustice. Fortunately, this man is not at all unique in his kind. The biography of Martin Luther King, to some extent, is comparable to the biographies of other famous freedom fighters: Mahatma Gandhi and At the same time, the work of our hero's life was in many ways special.

Biography of Martin Luther King: childhood and youth

The future preacher was born in January 1929 in Atlanta. His father was a Baptist minister. The family lived in the Atlanta area, populated predominantly by black residents, but the boy went to the lyceum at the city university. So from an early age he had to experience discrimination against blacks in the United States in the middle of the 20th century.

Already at a young age, Martin showed remarkable talent in oratory, winning at the age of fifteen in the corresponding competition held by the African-American organization of the state of Georgia. In 1944, the young man entered Morehouse College. Already in his first year, he enters National Association promoting the progress of people of color. It was during this period that worldview beliefs were formed and the further biography of Martin Luther King was laid.

In 1947, the guy becomes a clergyman, starting

his spiritual career as a paternal assistant. A year later, he entered the seminary in Pennsylvania, from where in 1951 he graduated with a doctorate in theology. In 1954, he became the priest of a Baptist church in the town of Montgomery, in A, a year later, the entire African-American community literally exploded with unprecedented protests. The biography of Martin Luther King is also changing dramatically. And the event that gave impetus to the demonstrations is connected precisely with the town of Montgomery.

Martin Luther: biography of a fighter for equal rights of the black population

Such an event was the refusal of a black woman, Rosa Parks, to give up her seat on the bus to a white passenger, for which she was arrested and fined. This action of the authorities deeply revolted the Negro population of the state. An unprecedented boycott of all bus lines began. Very soon an African-American protest against was led by clergyman Martin Luther King Jr. The bus boycott lasted over a year and led to the success of the action. Under pressure from demonstrators, the US Supreme Court was forced to declare segregation in Alabama unconstitutional.

In 1957, the Southern Christian Conference was formed to fight for equal civil rights for African Americans across the country. The organization was led by Martin Luther King. In 1960, he visits India, where he adopts the best practices from Jawaharlal Nehru. The Baptist minister's speeches, in which he called for relentless and non-violent resistance, struck a chord in the hearts of people across the country. His speeches filled civil rights activists with energy and enthusiasm. The country was engulfed in marches, mass jailbreaks, economic demonstrations, and so on. Luther's most famous speech in Washington in 1963 began with the words "I have a dream...". It was listened to live by more than 300 thousand Americans.

In 1968, Martin Luther King led another protest march through downtown Memphis. The purpose of the demonstration was to support the workers' strike. However, he was never brought to the end, becoming the last in the life of the idol of millions. A day later, on April 4, exactly at 18:00, the priest was wounded by a sniper positioned on the balcony of one of the hotels in the city center. Martin Luther King died the same day without regaining consciousness.