Where Do We Go From Here

Martin Luther King Jr. was a Baptist minister and social activist. He was one of the major leaders of the 1950s and 1960s civil rights movement. Through the practice of nonviolent resistance and peaceful protest, King fought for human rights and equality for African Americans, and justice for all disadvantaged people. His legacy in activism and political thought still impacts discourse on race relations.

King was born was born as Michael Luther King Jr. on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia. His father, Michael King Sr., and his maternal grandfather were Baptist ministers. His mother, Alberta Williams, was a schoolteacher. His father changed his name to Martin Luther in honor of the German religious leader of the Protestant Reformation. The family resided in a prosperous Black neighborhood, which was home to several successful Black businesses and churches. Despite a loving and secure childhood, King could not be shielded from the reality of racism. His father viewed racial discrimination as an insult to God. King attended segregated public schools and excelled academically. He was admitted to Morehouse College, a prestigious all-male Black college, to study law and medicine at the age of 15. King initially did not wish to follow his father into the ministry, but the mentorship of Dr. Benjamin Mays, Morehouse’s president, changed his mind. A theologian and philosophy professor, Mays was a strong advocate for racial equality. King graduated in 1948 with a degree in sociology. He later attended the integrated Crozer Theological Seminary, earning a bachelor of divinity degree. At Crozer, King became acquainted with Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy of nonviolent resistance, which influenced his own political thought. In 1955, King earned a PhD in systematic theology from Boston University. The same year, protests against racial segregation began in the South.

The Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955—which began in Montgomery, Alabama after Rosa Parks refused to give her bus seat to a white man—thrust King into the civil rights struggle. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, in which Parks served as a secretary, chose King as the leader and spokesman for the boycott. King put his philosophy of nonviolence into practice, gaining national prominence as a key leader of the civil rights movement. After a year, segregation in public transportation became unconstitutional. Civil rights activists in the South founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SLCL) in 1957, with King as the president. The group sought to achieve equality for Black people through nonviolent protest. King gave speeches throughout the country and participated in international racial debates. He led major demonstrations in the South, such as the Greensboro sit-ins against lunch counter segregation. He was arrested during a demonstration, and during his incarceration, he wrote the “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” a fervent defense of civil disobedience and nonviolent resistance. In 1963, he was a key organizer of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, during which he gave his emblematic “I Have a Dream” speech. The event led to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which banned discrimination based on race, sex, religion, or national origin. King earned the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. He also led the Selma to Montgomery marches for voting rights, leading to the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Despite those seminal changes in legislation, African Americans still struggled against racism. From the mid to late 1960s, resentment among young activists over the lack of substantial social change grew. In 1965, the Watts riots in Los Angeles signaled the social unrest among urban African Americans. By 1967, King expanded his activism to Northern cities, emphasizing urban poverty, while openly opposing the Vietnam War. Young Black leaders like Stokely Carmichael contested the effectiveness of nonviolent resistance and began to address systemic racism. King realized that the movement would have to fight not just against legal segregation but also against entrenched, systemic forms of oppression. He increasingly addressed the intersection of race and class, for instance, noting how housing discrimination in Northern cities prevented Black families from building wealth. With the SLCL, he initiated the Poor People’s campaign as an effort for economic justice and improvement of working and living conditions. Consistent resistance from white society and violent confrontations discouraged King. While on the campaign, King visited Memphis, Tennessee to support the Black sanitation worker’s strike in April 1968. While in Memphis for the strike, he was assassinated on April 4 while on the balcony of his motel. Following his death, uprisings against racism broke out in cities across the country. Throughout his life, King remained a passionate advocate of nonviolence.