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BORN TO PREACH<o:p></o:p>I was born in Atlanta, Georgia in 1929. Although the name ‘Michael’ appeared on my birth certificate, my name was later changed to Martin Luther in honour of the German reformer Martin Luther. I came from a comfortable middle-class family, and both my father and grandfather were Baptist preachers. My father was a disciplinarian, but my mother was gentle and kind and balanced out my father’s strictness. I learned from an early age that there is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. Therefore, we need to have the capacity to forgive, or we will never have the power to love.<o:p></o:p>Despite the secure, loving environment of my family home, I saw and experienced racism and discrimination that existed because of the Jim Crow laws. <o:p></o:p>I finished high school when I was just 15 years old and I attended Morehouse College, where my father and grandfather had gone. There, I was introduced to Mahatma Gandhi’s way of non-violence. I thought perhaps by becoming a minister, I could use these non-violent methods to help in the fight against racism and discrimination. I then went on to graduate study at Boston University. <o:p></o:p>LEADING A CAUSE<o:p></o:p>I got married in 1953 to Coretta Scott. The next year our family moved to Montgomery, Alabama. There, I became pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. Soon after, on 1 December 1955, a woman named Rosa Parks was arrested after refusing to give up her seat to White passengers on a Montgomery city bus. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) chose me to lead a citywide bus boycott.<img src="https://cdn.builder.io/api/v1/image/assets%2Fb3b13b7f131f44b8b9040dab74852379%2Fc102560dcff140ee8eef40a0380d8a50" alt="" style="width: 393px; height: 424.311px;"> <o:p></o:p>For 381 days, members of the Black community walked or carpooled to work. Many of them were attacked, and I became aware of the danger that my family and I were in.<o:p></o:p>After the bus boycott, Ralph Abernathy and I decided we needed a national organisation to co-ordinate efforts in the fight for civil rights. We started the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1957. The group decided that we would only use non-violence. Our motto was ‘Not one hair of one head of one person should be harmed’. The SCLC chose me as its president.<o:p></o:p>In the spring of 1963, I organised a protest in Birmingham, Alabama. The police blasted the protesters with fire hoses and let attack dogs loose. Many of us were arrested and jailed. All in all, I was arrested 29 times in my life, so forgiveness became my constant attitude, not just an occasional act.<div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><img src="https://cdn.builder.io/api/v1/image/assets%2Fb3b13b7f131f44b8b9040dab74852379%2Fdad441c4cefc409d96be64aa7bc392ee" alt="" style="width: 405.973px; height: 343.172px;"></div><o:p></o:p>A HISTORICAL SPEECH<o:p></o:p>After our release, other civil rights leaders and I made plans for a demonstration in the nation’s capital. On 28 August 1963, The March on Washington attracted more than 200,000 people. It was the largest demonstration ever held in our nation’s capital.I began my speech by declaring “I have a dream”. I went on to say that I dreamed that my children would one day live in a country where they would not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character. I had faith that someday all men would be brothers.<img src="https://cdn.builder.io/api/v1/image/assets%2Fb3b13b7f131f44b8b9040dab74852379%2Fc8177bc8869d4ba287485d715389fe8f" alt="" style="width: 404.157px; height: 306.562px;"> As I had hoped, public opinion began to change, and in 1964 the Civil Rights Act was introduced. It was no longer legal to keep Black people separate (called segregation) in public places. It also meant we had equal rights at work too. It was an eventful year, as I was also awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo in December. <o:p></o:p>The fight for equal rights, however, was far from over. I organised another protest, and on 7 March 1965, protesters set off on a 54-mile march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. Police met marchers with batons and tear gas on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma. <o:p></o:p>I was not there, but I watched events unfold on TV. ‘Bloody Sunday’ was a tragic day, with many badly injured and one of our pastors killed. Two days later, we marched again and afterwards another minister was killed. <o:p></o:p>Our struggle had become one of life or death. <o:p></o:p>MAKING PROGRESS<o:p></o:p>What price would we all have to pay for racial equality? Would these civil protests prevent or provoke another civil war? I wanted to keep to our non-violent approach, but others saw my approach as weak and wanted to take more direct action.<o:p></o:p>Soon after, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The law stated that all citizens had a right to vote, no matter the colour of their skin.<o:p></o:p>I continued working as hard as I could. On 3 April 1968, I travelled to Memphis, Tennessee, in support of striking workers. In what would be my last speech, I announced,&nbsp;“I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land”.<o:p></o:p>Violence will never solve the problems of social injustice. Only discussion and negotiation will help us move forward. I hoped I had done enough to leave a legacy of non-violence, and that one day all Americans would live side by side, with equal rights and opportunities for all.&nbsp;GLOSSARY<o:p></o:p>Disciplinarian – a person who is very strict about punishing bad behaviour.<o:p></o:p>Jim Crow laws – a collection of state and local laws in the southern US that legalised racial segregation. Most of these laws were put in place in the late1800s and early 1900s, and many of them were enforced until the Civil Rights Act of 1964.LEGACY AND RECOGNITION<ul><li>On 4 April 1968, one day after giving his prophetic ‘I Have Been to the Mountaintop’ speech, Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated while standing on the balcony outside his second-story room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. He was 39 years old.&nbsp;</li><li>Martin Luther King, Jr. is remembered as a courageous civil rights leader, who stood up for what he believed in. He resolutely campaigned for racial equality, despite threats and intimidation, using a non-violent approach.</li><li>His leadership contributed to the overall success of the civil rights movement in the mid-1900s and continues to impact civil rights movements to this day.</li><li>The Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial is situated on a four-acre site in Washington DC, near where he delivered his famous ‘I Have a Dream’ speech. It shares a direct line of sight between the Lincoln and Jefferson memorials, and the centrepiece is a 30-foot statue of Dr King.</li><li>The Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change, or The King Center, was established in Atlanta in 1968 by Coretta Scott King and is the official memorial to his vision of a fair and equal society. It is dedicated to fighting all forms of racism and discrimination.</li><li>The third Monday in January marks Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, a US holiday that honours Dr King’s legacy and challenges citizens to engage in volunteer services within their communities.</li><li>Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Atlanta birthplace is registered as a National Historic Site with the National Park Service.</li><li>His philosophy was inspired by Gandhi’s non-violent methods to end British rule in India. In turn, King inspired others to change their own societies through nonviolent means, from Poland’s Solidarity movement to rid the country of Soviet occupation, to Nelson Mandela’s struggle to end apartheid in South Africa.</li></ul>IMAGE CAPTIONS AND CREDITSMartin Luther, Coretta Scott, and Yolanda Denise King, Jet Magazine, 1956,&nbsp;Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons<o:p></o:p>Martin Luther King Jr.’s arrest in Montgomery,1958,&nbsp;Associated Press, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons<o:p></o:p>Martin Luther King Jr. at the Lincoln Memorial where he delivered his famous, “I Have a Dream,” speech,&nbsp;Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

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