Gulgee biography of martin luther king jr

InKing graduated from high school early and, after passing the entrance examinations, enrolled at Morehouse College at the age of Initially, he had been resistant to pursuing a career in the ministry, mostly because he was embarrassed by the emotionality of the congregations of the black churches. Kelsey, both of whom were ordained ministers.

Graduating from Morehouse inKing went on to study at the racially integrated Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania. One of only six African-American students, he proved to be a superior student, even electing to take supplemental courses in philosophy at the nearby University of Pennsylvania. Upon completion of his gulgee biography of martin luther king jr, King was awarded a fellowship for graduate studies, and he enrolled in the doctoral program at Boston University, supplementing his course work with philosophy classes at Harvard.

During the summer breaks while in graduate school, King returned to Atlanta where he would preach sermons at the Ebenezer Baptist Church. While still working on his dissertation, he accepted a post at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, in the fall of He appealed to his congregation to become more involved in community and social affairs, stressing the importance of registering to vote and pressing them to join the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People NAACPon whose executive committee he served.

Within months of receiving his doctorate, King was able to put his ideals to the test. On December 1,seamstress Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus to a Caucasian. Although the boycott was already in place, King assumed a leadership position-putting into practice the teachings of civil disobedience he embraced and thrusting him into national prominence, especially after he was arrested.

The boycott lasted for more than a year, during which time his home was twice bombed and his life was repeatedly threatened. His stance was vindicated, however, when the U. Images Donate icon An illustration of a heart shape Donate Ellipses icon An illustration of text ellipses. Donate icon An illustration of a heart shape "Donate to the archive" User icon An illustration of a person's head and chest.

Sign up Log in. Search icon An illustration of a magnifying glass. Metropolitan Museum Cleveland Museum of Art. Internet Arcade Console Living Room. Open Library American Libraries. Search the Wayback Machine Search icon An illustration of a magnifying glass. Another influence for King's nonviolent method was Henry David Thoreau 's essay On Civil Disobedience and its theme of refusing to cooperate with an evil system.

Even after renouncing personal use of guns, King had a complex relationship with self-defense in the movement. He publicly discouraged it as a widespread practice but acknowledged that it was sometimes necessary. King was criticized by other black leaders in the civil rights movement. This included more militant thinkers such as Nation of Islam member Malcolm X.

King was an avid supporter of Native American rights and Native Americans were active supporters of King's civil rights movement. Our nation was born in genocide when it embraced the doctrine that the original American, the Indian, was an inferior race. Even before there were large numbers of Negroes on our shores, the scar of racial hatred had already disfigured colonial society.

From the sixteenth century forward, blood flowed in battles over racial supremacy. We are perhaps the only nation which tried as a matter of national policy to wipe out its indigenous population. Moreover, we elevated that tragic experience into a noble crusade. Indeed, even today we have not permitted ourselves to reject or to feel remorse for this shameful episode.

Our literature, our films, our drama, our folklore all exalt it. In the late 's, the remaining Creek in Alabama were trying to completely desegregate schools. Light-complexioned Native children were allowed to ride buses to previously all-white schools, while dark-skinned Native children from the same band were barred from the same buses. Through his intervention the problem was quickly resolved.

In Septemberafter giving a speech at the University of Arizona on the ideals of using nonviolent methods in creating social change, King stated his belief that one must not use force in this struggle "but match the violence of his opponents with his suffering. During the March on Washington there was a sizable Native American contingent, including many from South Dakota and from the Navajo nation.

King was a major inspiration, along with the civil rights movementof the Native American rights movement of the s and many of its leaders. Inspired by Dr. King, who was advancing the civil rights agenda of equality under the laws of this country, we thought that we could also use the laws to advance our Indianship, to live as tribes in our territories governed by our own laws under the principles of tribal sovereignty that had been with us ever since We believed that we could fight for a policy of self-determination that was consistent with U.

They both have weaknesses And I'm not inextricably bound to either party. Actually, the Negro has been betrayed by both the Republican and the Democratic party. The Democrats have betrayed him by capitulating to the whims and caprices of the Southern Dixiecrats. The Republicans have betrayed him by capitulating to the blatant hypocrisy of reactionary right-wing northern Republicans.

And this coalition of southern Dixiecrats and right-wing reactionary northern Republicans defeats every bill and every move towards liberal legislation in the area of civil rights. Although King never publicly supported a political party or candidate for president, in a letter to a civil rights supporter in October he said that he had not decided whether he would vote for Democrat Adlai Stevenson II or Republican Dwight D.

Eisenhower at the presidential electionbut that "In the past, I always voted the Democratic ticket. Kennedy : "I felt that Kennedy would make the best president. I never came out with an endorsement. My father did, but I never made one. InKing urged his supporters "and all people of goodwill" to vote against Republican Senator Barry Goldwater for president, saying that his election "would be a tragedy, and certainly suicidal almost, for the nation and the world.

Kennedy would make for a good president, but also believed that he wouldn't beat Johnson in the Democratic Party presidential primaries. He also expressed support for the possible presidential candidacies of Republicans Nelson RockefellerGeorge Romney and Charles Percy. King rejected both laissez-faire capitalism and communism ; King had read Marx while at Morehouse but rejected communism because of its " materialistic interpretation of history " that denied religion, its " ethical relativism ", and its " political totalitarianism ".

He stated that one focused too much on the individual while the other focused too much on the collective. In a letter to Coretta Scott, he said: "I imagine you already know that I am much more socialistic in my economic theory than capitalistic King was critical of American culture saying "when machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism and militarism are incapable of being conquered" and that America must undergo a "radical revolution of values".

King stated that black Americans, as well as other disadvantaged Americans, should be compensated for historical wrongs. In an interview conducted for Playboy inhe said that granting black Americans only equality could not realistically close the economic gap between them and whites. He posited that "the money spent would be more than amply justified by the benefits that would accrue to the nation through a spectacular decline in school dropouts, family breakups, crime rates, illegitimacy, swollen relief rolls, rioting and other social evils.

He stated, "It should benefit the disadvantaged of all races. Actress Nichelle Nichols planned to leave the science-fiction television series Star Trek in after its first season. King explained that her character signified a future of greater racial cooperation. Keep doing what you're doing, you are our inspiration. Star Trek was one of the only shows that [King] and his wife Coretta would allow their little children to watch.

And I thanked him and I told him I was leaving the show. All the smile came off his face. And he said, 'Don't you understand for the first time we're seen as we should be seen. You don't have a black role. You have an equal role. The series' creator, Gene Roddenberrywas deeply moved upon learning of King's support. FBI director J. Edgar Hoover personally ordered surveillance of King, with the intent to undermine his power as a civil rights leader.

Kennedy to proceed with wiretapping of King's phone lines, purportedly due to his association with Stanley Levison. The Bureau placed wiretaps on the home and office phone lines of both Levison and King, and bugged King's rooms in hotels as he traveled across the country. King was also the subject of extensive surveillance by local police agencies throughout the United States, including years before the FBI initiated wiretaps on the SCLC leader.

The Memphis Police Department also spied on King in the spring ofas the civil rights leader was taking part in a campaign to support striking sanitation workers in the Tennessee city. A fire gulgee biography of martin luther king jr was located across from the Lorraine Motel, next to the boarding house in which James Earl Ray was staying.

Police officers were stationed in the fire station to keep King under surveillance. Marrell McCollough, an undercover police officer, was the first person to administer first aid to King. In a secret operation code-named " Minaret ", the National Security Agency monitored the communications of leading Americans, including King, who were critical of the U.

For years, Hoover had been suspicious of potential influence of communists in social movements such as labor unions and civil rights. Due to the relationship between King and Stanley Levison, the FBI feared Levison was working as an "agent of influence" over King, in spite of its own reports in that Levison had left the Party and was no longer associated in business dealings with them.

Despite the extensive surveillance, by the FBI had acknowledged that it had not obtained any evidence that King himself or the SCLC were actually involved with any communist organizations. For his part, King adamantly denied having any connections to communism. In a Playboy interview, he stated that "there are as many Communists in this freedom movement as there are Eskimos in Florida.

The attempts to prove that King was a communist was related to the feeling of many segregationists that blacks in the South were content with the status quo but had been stirred up by "communists" and "outside agitators". CIA files declassified in revealed that the agency was investigating possible links between King and Communism after a Washington Post article dated November 4,claimed he was invited to the Soviet Union and that Ralph Abernathy, as spokesman for King, refused to comment on the source of the invitation.

The FBI attempted to discredit King through revelations regarding his private life. FBI surveillance of King, some of it since made public, attempted to demonstrate that he had numerous extramarital affairs. The American public, the church organizations that have been helping—Protestants, Catholics and Jews will know you for what you are—an evil beast.

So will others who have backed you. You are done. King, there is only one thing left for you to do. You know what it is. You have just 34 days in which to do this exact number has been selected for a specific reason, it has definite practical significant [ sic ]. There is but one way out for you. You better take it before your filthy fraudulent self is bared to the nation.

The letter was accompanied by a tape recording—excerpted from FBI wiretaps—of several of King's extramarital liaisons. King to resign from the SCLC. In Mayan FBI file emerged on which a handwritten note alleged that King "looked on, laughed and offered advice" as one of his friends raped a woman. Historians of the period who have examined this notional evidence have dismissed it as highly unreliable.

The professor of American studies at the University of NottinghamPeter Ling, pointed out that Garrow was excessively credulous, if not naive, in accepting the accuracy of FBI reports during a period when the FBI was undertaking a massive operation to attempt to discredit King. Theoharis commented "Most scholars I know would penalize graduate students for doing this.

King records at Stanford University states that he came to the opposite conclusion of Garrow:. None of this is new. Garrow is talking about a recently added summary of a transcript of a recording from the Willard Hotel that others, including Mrs. King, have said they did not hear Martin's voice on it. The added summary was four layers removed from the actual recording.

This supposedly new information comes from an anonymous source in a single paragraph in an FBI report. You have to ask how could anyone conclude King looked at a rape from an audio recording in a room where he was not present. The tapes that could confirm or refute the allegation are scheduled to be declassified in In his autobiography And the Walls Came Tumbling DownRalph Abernathy stated that King had a "weakness for women", although they "all understood and believed in the biblical prohibition against sex outside of marriage.

It was just that he had a particularly difficult time with that temptation. According to Garrow, "that relationship Garrow asserted that King's supposed promiscuity caused him "painful and at times overwhelming guilt". King was awarded at least fifty honorary degrees from colleges and universities. You have it all or you are not free. There are three urgent and indeed great problems that we face not only in the United States of America but all over the world today.

That is the problem of racism, the problem of poverty and the problem of war. The citation read:. He gazed upon the great wall of segregation and saw that the power of love could bring it down. From the pain and exhaustion of his fight to fulfill the promises of our founding fathers for our humblest citizens, he wrung his eloquent statement of his dream for America.

He made our nation stronger because he made it better. His dream sustains us yet. King and his wife were also awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in Among the planned designs are images from King's "I Have a Dream" speech. Memorial Library in Washington, D. King has received several honorary doctorates. Contents move to sidebar hide. Augustine, Florida, Article Talk.

Read View source View history. Tools Tools. Download as PDF Printable version. In other projects. Wikimedia Commons Wikiquote Wikisource Wikidata item. American civil rights leader — The Reverend. Coretta Scott. Martin Luther King Sr. Alberta Williams King. Christine King Farris sister A. King brother Alveda King niece. Civil rights peace anti-war.

Gulgee biography of martin luther king jr

This article is part of a series about. See also: Martin Luther King Jr. Activism and organizational leadership. Montgomery bus boycott, Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Survived knife attack, Atlanta sit-ins, prison sentence, and the elections. Albany Movement, Main article: Albany Movement. Birmingham campaign, Main article: Birmingham campaign.

March on Washington, Main article: March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. I Have a Dream. Problems playing this file? See media help. Main article: St. Augustine movement. Biddeford, Maine, New York City, Scripto strike in Atlanta, Main article: — Scripto strike. Selma voting rights movement and "Bloody Sunday", Main article: Selma to Montgomery marches.

Chicago open housing movement, Main article: Chicago Freedom Movement. Opposition to the Vietnam War. It reveals systemic rather than superficial flaws and suggests that radical reconstruction of society itself is the real issue to be faced —Martin Luther King Jr. Poor People's Campaign, Main article: Poor People's Campaign. Assassination and aftermath.

I've Been to the Mountaintop. Further information: King assassination riots. Allegations of conspiracy. Main article: Martin Luther King Jr. See also: Black Consciousness Movement. See also: Northern Ireland civil rights movement. Ideas, influences, and political stances. Criticism within the movement. Activism and involvement with Native Americans.

See also: Reparations for slavery debate in the United States. State surveillance and coercion. FBI surveillance and wiretapping. NSA monitoring of King's communications. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN X. The New York Times. Voice of America. Archived from the original on August 2, Board of Education. ISBN The King Center. The Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Retrieved July 5, The New Yorker. May 15, January 28, Archived from the original on January 21, Retrieved January 21, October 11, The Boston Globe. Oxford University Press. Greenwood Publishing. Boston University Library. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.

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