No Name in the Street

Martin Luther King Jr. was born in 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia. The most prominent leader of the civil rights movement in the United States, he remains one of the most influential figures in the history of race relations.

King came from a Black, middle-class family rooted in the traditions of the southern Black church. His father, also a minister, stood against discrimination and segregation on racial as well as religious grounds. King grew up in a protective and loving environment, which did not prevent him from experiencing racism. He attended a segregated school and was separated from the white children in the neighborhood. King graduated from Morehouse College in Atlanta with a degree in sociology in 1948. He then attended the Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania, obtaining a degree in theology in 1951. During his studies, King was introduced to contemporary Protestant theology and Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy of nonviolence. King went on to study theology at Boston University, receiving a doctorate in 1955. He became a pastor at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama.

In 1955, Rosa Parks, an African American woman, refused to give her seat on a bus to a white man, violating segregation laws. The incident initiated the NAACP’s Montgomery Bus Boycott, and the group of civil rights advocates decided that King should lead the action. During the long boycott, the African American community in Alabama faced harassment and violence. King’s inspiring rhetoric shaped the advocacy for freedom and justice, and established him as a leader of the civil rights struggle. One year after the boycott, public transportation was desegregated. King also led the organizing of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to help coordinate nonviolent protests. King began giving lectures on race across the country, meeting with religious and civil rights leaders nationally and internationally. Influenced by Gandhi, King promoted nonviolence as a form of resistance. King actively supported the sit-in demonstrations initiated in 1960 by African American students in North Carolina who contested segregated lunch counters. From the sit-in protests, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) emerged, which allied with the SCLC. King’s activism gained national attention.

In 1963, King led a demonstration in Birmingham, Alabama, to draw attention to the African American struggle for equality in the South. The police violently repelled demonstrators and arrested King. In his notable letter from the Birmingham jail, King explained his philosophy of nonviolent direct action and continued to defend his strategy. The same year, King and other civil rights leaders organized the emblematic March on Washington, in which people of all races marched to the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, to demand equality and justice for all. During the march, King gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. Ultimately, civil rights activism resulted in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which banned segregation and discrimination. King received the Nobel Prize for Peace the same year. King continued his struggle for civil rights in 1965, participating in the march from Selma to Montgomery, which turned violent when police attacked the demonstrators. Months later, the government passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which secured Black Americans’ right to vote.

In the later years of the movement, King faced criticism for his strategy of nonviolent resistance, and the Black Power movement emerged, demanding more immediate and effective tactics to combat racism. In 1968, King was planning another march when he visited Memphis, Tennessee, to support the sanitation workers’ strike. King was fatally shot while on the balcony of the motel where he was staying. His assassination caused nationwide demonstrations.

A complex figure, King remains one of the most important leaders in the civil rights movement, and his legacy continues to influence activism for equality and freedom.