Martin Luther King, Jr. and American Social Change

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Introduction Martin Luther King, Jr. was an American clergyman, activist, and prominent leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. One of the world's best known advocates of non-violent social change strategies, King has become a national icon in the history of modern American liberalism. Biography Martin Luther King Jr. (previously Michael L. King Jr.) was born on January 15, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia. His father was a baptist minister and his mother a schoolteacher. He grew up to be a very intelligent boy. At the age of five, he was already in first grade. However, when his teacher learned of his age, he was expelled from school. He went on to finish high school and in 1944 began attending the Morehouse College in Atlanta. In June of 1948, he graduated from college with a BA in Sociology. In September of the same year, King attended the Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Crozer with a Bachelor in Divinity. He went on to Boston University where he studied systematic theology as a graduate student. In June 1953, Martin Luther King Jr. married Coretta Scott in Marlon, Alabama. King will eventually be blessed with four children. 1 When he graduated from Boston University he became the minister of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. Political Life and Career 2 Jim Crow laws reigned supreme; a time when “separate but equal” was the accepted doctrine. Things were always separate but never equal for blacks and whites. Blacks were not permitted to use the same stores as whites, to stay in the same hotels, or to attend the same schools as whites. 3 Blacks and whites were segregated in Montgomery, attending different schools and sitting in separate sections on buses. Sometimes blacks would be forced to stand on a bus even though there were empty seats in the "white"
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