Martin Luther King Born in Atlanta, United States, on January 15, 1929, he was a renowned Baptist church pastor and civil rights advocate. He was part of several protest movements against racial and social inequality.
Son of Martin Luther King, Sr. and of Alberta williams king, his first studies were carried out in the Booker T. Washington High School from Atlanta. Then it was received from Phd. in Philosophy, on the Boston University, where he was also trained in the field of theology.
From a very young age, he was a victim of the racial segregation that had been taking place in the United States, especially in the south of the country, where discrimination was commonplace.
In 1954, he was the senior pastor at a Montgomery city church. In his work, he had begun to demonstrate his strong charisma and his convictions in the fight for the defense of civil rights through peace.
His main sources of inspiration were Mahatma Gandhi Y Henry David Thoreau, due to their civil disobedience and their equal struggle between the ethnic groups. From there he organized his first campaign to boycott the segregation that had existed in municipal buses for many years.
Thanks to that ingenious maneuver, Martin Luther King began to become known throughout the country. After a large number of people showed their support, he was appointed director of the American peace movement, and a fundamental member of the Association for the Advancement of Colored People, from where he organized several conferences and exerted pressure on power groups in order to improve the quality of life of people affected by the social injustice that was experienced at that time.
In 1960, he launched a major campaign by taking advantage of a sit-in organized by black students in Birmingham. It was at that moment when, in the middle of a march, Luther king he was arrested and jailed. He was finally released with the intervention of the presidential candidate, John Fitgerald Kennedy. Thanks to this uprising, several goals were achieved, such as the possibility of access for blacks to libraries, dining rooms and parking lots.
In 1963, Luther king led a massive march that managed to gather around 250,000 people in Washington, in which Martin he delivered one of his most famous peace speeches in history, demanding equality among human beings. His figure was increasingly recognized by people around the world.
In that same year, he was received by the president Kennedy in order to expedite measures against segregationism in schools. In addition, he pledged to do everything possible to open up the job market to marginalized people of color: “As long as the spirit is enslaved, the body can never be free. Psychological freedom, a strong sense of self-worth, is the most powerful weapon against the long night of physical slavery. No Lincoln Emancipation Proclamation or Johnsonian Civil Rights Bill can fully bring this kind of freedom. The Negro will be free when he reaches the depths of his being and firm with the pen and ink of his humanity affirmed his own declaration of emancipation. And with a spirit tending toward true self-esteem, the Negro must proudly reject the handcuffs of self-denial and say to himself and to the world: I am someone. I am a person. I am a man with dignity and honor. And I have a rich and noble history“were his words.
Martin Luther King He claimed that violence did not lead to anything, instead civil disobedience would be the one that would give the people what was due to the people. On the subject he said: “The last weakness of violence is that it is a downward spiral, which engenders the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of weakening evil, it multiplies it. Using violence, you can kill the liar, but you cannot kill the lie, nor restore the truth. Using violence, you can kill the spiteful, but you cannot kill hatred. In fact, violence simply makes hatred grow. And this continues. Return hatred for hatred multiplied to hatred, adding a darkness even deeper than a starless night. Darkness cannot hide darkness: only light can do this. Hate cannot hide hate: only love can do this.“
Thanks to his ideas in favor of justice and peace, he was repeatedly decorated for his fight, but the most important award he received was the “Nobel Peace Prize“, in 1964, where he was decorated as:”the first person in the western world who has shown that a fight can be won without violence, the first to have made his message of brotherly love a reality throughout that fight, and the one who has brought that message to all men, to all nations and all races“.
Although various violent groups seemed to infiltrate the followers of Luther king, which caused him several problems, he continued to give his message throughout the country, obtaining many advances in the name of justice. On April 4, 1968, the struggle of Martin Luther King had a tragic end, because while he greeted his followers on a motel balcony Lorraine, was hit by a gunshot to the head.
James earl ray was the alleged murderer, although at present it is not certain whether it was really a boleo murder or if it was actually a conspiracy against the pacifist.
Martin Luther King He is currently considered one of the most important fighters for justice in the history of humanity, and his spirit lives in the heart of an egalitarian and supportive world.