Who is ml king. M. King It is this statement that perfectly characterizes everything that is connected with the name of M. L. King. He was an ordinary man, an ordinary man who changed the world. Negro religious and social activist
Martin Luther King Jr. Born January 15, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA - died April 4, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee, USA. Famous African-American Baptist preacher, bright speaker, leader of the Black Civil Rights Movement in the United States. King has become a national icon in the history of American progressivism.
Martin Luther King became the first black activist in the United States and the first prominent black civil rights activist in the United States, fighting against discrimination, racism and segregation. He also actively opposed the colonial aggression of the United States, in particular, in Vietnam. Per important contribution in the democratization of American society in 1964, Martin was awarded Nobel Prize peace. Murdered in Memphis, Tennessee, believed to be James Earl Ray.
In 2004 (posthumously) he was awarded the highest honor of the United States, the Congressional Gold Medal.
Martin Luther King Jr. was born on January 15, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia, the son of a Baptist pastor. The Kings' home was located on Auburn Avenue, a middle-class black neighborhood in Atlanta. At the age of 13, he entered the Lyceum at the University of Atlanta. At the age of 15, he won a public speaking contest held by an African-American organization in Georgia.
In the fall of 1944, King entered Morehouse College. During this period he became a member National Association progress of the colored population. Here he learned that not only blacks, but also many whites oppose racism.
In 1947, King was ordained as a minister, becoming his father's assistant in the church. After earning a bachelor's degree in sociology from college in 1948, he entered Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania, where he received a bachelor's degree in divinity in 1951. In 1955, he was awarded a doctorate in theology from Boston University.
King very often attended the Ebenezer Baptist Church, where his father served.
In January 1952, after living in Boston for about five months, King met fellow conservatory student Coretta Scott. Six months later, King invited the girl to go with him to Atlanta. Having met Coretta, the parents gave their consent to their marriage.
Martin Luther King and his wife Coretta Scott King married at her mother's house on June 18, 1953. The bridegroom's father crowned the newlyweds. Coretta received a diploma in vocal and violin from the New England Conservatory of Music. After graduating from the conservatory, she and her husband moved to Montgomery, Alabama in September 1954. The King couple had four children: Yolanda King - daughter (November 17, 1955, Montgomery, Alabama - May 15, 2007, Santa Monica, California); Martin Luther King III - son (born October 23, 1957 in Montgomery, Alabama); Dexter Scott King - son (born January 30, 1961, Atlanta, Georgia); Bernice Albertine King - daughter (born March 28, 1963, Atlanta, Georgia).
In 1954, King became the pastor of a Baptist church in Montgomery, Alabama. In Montgomery, he led a major black protest against racial segregation in public transportation following the December 1955 incident with Rosa Parks. The bus boycott in Montgomery, which lasted more than 380 days, despite the resistance of the authorities and racists, led to the success of the action - Supreme Court The United States declared segregation in Alabama unconstitutional.
In January 1957, King was elected head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization created to fight for the civil rights of the African American population. In September 1958, he was stabbed in Harlem. In 1960, King visited India by invitation, where he studied activities.
In his speeches (some of which are now considered classics of oratory), he called for achieving equality by peaceful means. His speeches gave energy to the civil rights movement in society - marches began, economic boycotts, mass exoduses in prisons and so on.
Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech, which was listened to by about 300,000 Americans during the March on Washington in 1963 at the foot of the Lincoln Monument, was widely known. In this speech, he glorified racial reconciliation. King redefined the essence of the American democratic dream and kindled a new spiritual fire in it. King's role in the non-violent struggle to pass a law prohibiting racial discrimination was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
As a politician, King was a truly unique figure. Outlining the essence of his leadership, he operated mainly in religious terms. He defined the leadership of the civil rights movement as an extension of past pastoral work and drew on African-American religious experience in most of his messages. According to the traditional standard of American political views, he was a leader who believed in Christian love.
Like so many other prominent personalities in American history, King used religious phraseology, thereby evoking an enthusiastic spiritual response from his audience.
Starting in 1963 and until the death of Martin Luther King, Jr. was pursued by the FBI as part of the secret COINTELPRO program.
On March 28, 1968, King led a 6,000-strong protest march in downtown Memphis, Tennessee, in support of striking workers. On April 3, speaking in Memphis, King said: “We have difficult days ahead of us. But it does not matter. Because I've been to the top of the mountain... I've looked ahead and seen the Promised Land. Maybe I won't be there with you, but I want you to know now that all of us, all the people will see this Earth." On April 4, at 6:01 p.m., King was mortally wounded by a sniper while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis.
The killer, James Earl Ray, received 99 years in prison. It was officially accepted that Ray was a lone killer, but many believe that King fell victim to a conspiracy. The Episcopal Church of the United States recognized King as a martyr who gave his life for Christian faith, his statue is placed in Westminster Abbey (England) in the row of martyrs of the XX century. King was promoted to the anointed of God, and was considered to be at the forefront of the democratic achievements of the civil rights movement.
King was the first black American to have a bust erected in the Great Rotunda of the Capitol in Washington. The third Monday in January is celebrated in America as Martin Luther King Day and is considered a national holiday.
Martin Luther King
Martin Luther King, 1984
Baptist theologian
King (King) Martin Luther (1929-1968) - one of the leaders of the struggle for the civil rights of blacks in the United States, a Baptist theologian. King's tactics of "direct non-violent action" played a decisive role in undermining the system of segregation and discrimination against black Americans. King's socio-religious views were formed primarily on the basis of his own experience Negro, s early years faced with a system of everyday violence and humiliation, with police brutality and the injustice of the courts that dominated the southern states. In an effort to find the causes and ways to overcome racism, King studies theological and philosophical literature. W. Rauschenbush's ideas about the duty of the church and the Christian to fight against social injustice made a special impression on him. At the same time, he recognizes the validity of the criticism of his views by R. Niebuhr: calls for conscience, for self-improvement in an “immoral society” cannot give serious results. However, according to King, the neo-orthodox go to the other extreme, being too pessimistic about human capabilities. Both liberalism and neo-orthodoxy offer only partial truth. As a result, King leans towards Gandhism tactics. “One of the powerful means acceptable to an oppressed people in their struggle for freedom is Christian love, which works through the “Gandhi method”. Negroes, King argues, are opposed not by individual racists, but by a social system dominated by a racist ideology - the result of sin that manifests itself "at all levels of human existence." King defends modernist positions and criticizes the attempts of the so-called. traditionalists reject the latest achievements of science with references to biblical sayings. However, advances in science have given rise to the widespread illusion that "scientific laboratories can replace altars" and bring about social progress. But “if a person is not guided by the spirit of God, then the power of his scientific discoveries will become the destructive spirit of the monk Frankenstein, which will turn earthly life into the ashes." Man has powerful forces and a desire to create a just society, but he owes his origin to God, and without his help man himself is not capable of putting an end to racism. However, people cannot just wait and pray, it is necessary to act, to be "not just a thermometer of society, but its thermostat." Here, the “power of love”, awakened in man by God, is called upon to play a key role. A Christian should never reconcile himself to unjust orders, but his heart should not harden, violence cannot be eliminated by violence, it should be opposed by the "strength of the soul." In line with such reflections, the well-known tactics of “direct non-violent actions” are concretized. First of all, King strongly condemns the "suicidal" passivity and conciliatory attitude towards the racism of the majority. American churches and puts forward a categorical demand: "Freedom immediately!" In order to achieve it, it is necessary to create such a tense situation by active (“direct”) actions that would force the racist authorities to negotiate. Such tactics will inevitably lead to repressive measures, but the fighters for justice cannot, in turn, respond with violence, they must consistently be guided by the principle of evangelical love for all, awakening it in the hearts of their opponents. For the first time this tactic was successfully applied by King against the discriminatory orders in urban transport in Montgomery (1955). King soon formed the "Southern Christian Leadership Conference", which launched a wide activity in the southern states, and King's tactics became dominant in the mass anti-racist uprisings in the early 60s. Notable milestones in King's activities were the fight against segregation in Birmingham, the campaign in Selma and the campaign against Washington (1963). In 1964, the Negro Civil Rights Act was passed, followed a year later by the Voting Rights Act. The fight, however, continued. Actively participating in it, King strongly opposed nationalist programs such as the slogan of "black power" and the activities of "black Muslims." In 1968, King was killed by racists in Memphis. In 1988, King's birthday was declared a national holiday in the United States.
Protestantism. [Dictionary of an atheist]. Under total ed. L.N. Mitrokhin. M., 1990, p. 128-130.
Negro religious and social activist
King (King) Martin Luther (January 15, 1929, Atlanta - April 4, 1968, Memphis) - Negro religious and public figure in the United States, who played an outstanding role in the fight against racism. He attended Atlanta Baptist College (1945-48), Chester Theological Seminary (1948-51), and Boston University (1951-55), where he received his Ph.D. In 1955, he led the "bus boycott" of Montgomery Negroes, which marked new stage struggle against segregation and discrimination of blacks. King led mass demonstrations for equal rights for blacks, which culminated in the passage of the Civil Rights Act (1964) and the Negro Voting Rights Act (1965). In 1964 King won the Nobel Peace Prize. In 1968 he was killed in Memphis. 20 years later, a national holiday was established in his honor (the third Monday in January).
King's social philosophy is the theologically interpretable and easily recognizable experience of an educated hereditary Negro Baptist pastor who, from an early age, faced a system of everyday violence and humiliation, police brutality and arbitrariness of the courts. Already in seminary, King, he said, was preoccupied with "an intellectual search for a way to eliminate social evils." He enthusiastically accepted the doctrine of the social evangelist W. Rauschenbush, who argued that the duty of the church is not only to save people, but also to transform all social relations - in "transferring heavenly harmony to earth" - carried out with God's help. Any religion, King concluded, that claims to care for the souls of people, but shows complete indifference to the terrible conditions in which they live, is dead and really is the "opium of the people." It is the Christian's duty to fight against racism, because "racial segregation is a blatant denial of the unity we have in Christ."
In the 50s. the program of building the "Kingdom of God" on earth, appealing to the conscience of believers, has already shown its practical inefficiency, all the more obvious when it came to eliminating the system of segregation that prevails in the southern states. "We know from bitter experience," King wrote, "that the oppressors will never grant freedom to the oppressed—it must be demanded." King was deeply impressed by Reinhold Niebuhr's criticism of the ability for moral self-improvement of an individual living in an "immoral society" and his concept of ineradicable sin, which goes back to M. Luther. Niebuhr made me realize, King recalled, "the illusory nature of lightweight optimism and the reality of collective evil." But the black theologian, seeking to find a way to eliminate racism, could not fully accept the social pessimism of neo-orthodoxy, in particular the concept of a transcendent God, who is on the other side of the world. The desire to solve this dilemma, which has an acute practical meaning for him (the responsibility of the church for the state of society and the practical ineffectiveness of appeals to the conscience of individuals) explains the originality of King's interpretations of key Christian dogmas and categories.
King clearly understood that the naves were opposed not by individual immoral individuals, but by a "system of evil", which he, as a Protestant theologian, deduced from the fall of the first people, as a result of which "sin manifests itself at all levels of human existence"; he sought to combine this fact with the recognition of the possibility of overcoming racism, in other words, to find a reasonable middle ground between the concepts of the immanent God in Rauschenbusch and the transcendent God in Niebuhr. Two logics collide here. On the one hand, the evangelical ideals, according to King, forgotten by the Americans, serve as his decisive argument against reconciliation with racist reality, on the other hand, these ideals “external” in relation to earthly reality cannot be adequately embodied in earthly life. In other words, God is both immanent (to the extent that His moral precepts act as a motive and guarantee of success in the fight against racism) and transcendent, insofar as His precepts "transcend" human capabilities. But these problems of "high" theology interested King primarily in in practical terms- as a religious justification for the most effective fight with segregation.
King opposed the orthodox Protestant notion that the image of God in man was completely destroyed by the fall of Adam. No, King argued, he was only distorted and "terribly frightened." Powerful forces for creation have been preserved in man, but he himself is not able to fully manifest them. This can only be done by faith, which "opens the door to the work of God", providing a wonderful unity of divine and human will to eliminate sinful racism. Americans cannot just wait and pray, it is necessary to act, to be not just a thermometer, but a society thermostat. It is the duty of the Christian not to reconcile himself to the discrimination of blacks, but his heart must not be hardened, violence cannot be eliminated by force. Violence should be opposed to the "ability of love" awakened in man by God.
King proposed a clear program for the elimination of racism, and most importantly, he led the practical struggle for its implementation. The decisive role in its design was played by the experience of non-violent resistance of M. Gandhi, who suggested to King how to make "Christian love an effective tool for social transformation." "Christ gives the spirit, the motivation for protest, and Gandhi the method, the technique of expression," he wrote. While sharply condemning the "suicidal" passivity and conciliatory attitude towards racism of most American churches, King puts forward a categorical demand: "Freedom immediately!" In order to achieve it, it is necessary to create a tense situation by active (“direct”) actions that would force the racist authorities to negotiate. Such actions will inevitably cause repressive measures, but the fighters against discrimination should not respond with violence, they should fully embody the principle of gospel love for everyone, including enemies, trying to awaken it in the hearts of the persecutors. It was this tactic, pioneered in Montgomery, that dominated the mass anti-racist uprisings of the early 1960s. and ensured the passage of a number of anti-discrimination laws. However, it could not change the actual inequality. An explosive situation was created: the growing militancy of the Negroes ran into more and more fierce resistance from the authorities. In the mid 1960s. a wave of violent riots in Negro ghettos took place across the country, accompanied by vandalism, bloody clashes, and mass arrests. The new leaders, who put forward the slogan "Black Power!", denounced King in collusion with the authorities; in the eyes of the latter, he remained an instigator of social unrest, especially after he publicly denounced the Vietnam War. King himself was tormented by the crisis of his movement. Consistently defending the principle of non-violence, he recognized the need to develop new tactics corresponding to the "increased impatience of the Negroes and the growing resistance of the whites", in particular, strengthening the union of all the poor - both white and black.
L. N. Mitrokhin
New Philosophical Encyclopedia. In four volumes. / Institute of Philosophy RAS. Scientific ed. advice: V.S. Stepin, A.A. Huseynov, G.Yu. Semigin. M., Thought, 2010, vol. II, E - M, p. 243-244.
Read further:
Philosophers, lovers of wisdom (biographical index).
Compositions:
I have a dream. M., 1970; A pilgrimage to non-violence. - In the book: Ethical thought. Scientific and journalistic readings. M., 1991; Stride Toward Freedom. The Montgomery Story. N.Y., 1958; Strength to Love. N.Y., 1964; Why We Can "t Wait. N. Y., 1964; The Tmmpet of Conscience. N. Y., 1967; Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? N. Y., 1967.
Literature:
Nitoburg E. L. The Church of African Americans in the USA. M., 1995; Mitrokhin LN Martin L. King: the ability to love. - In the book: Baptism: history and modernity. SPb., 1997; Miller Keith D. Voice of Deliverance: The Language of Martin Luther King. J., and Its Sources. N.Y., 1992.
King, whose biography deserves a place on the pages of the world history of the last century, embodied vivid image principled struggle and resistance to injustice. Fortunately, this man is not at all unique in his kind. The biography of Martin Luther King, to some extent, is comparable to the biographies of other famous freedom fighters: Mahatma Gandhi and At the same time, the work of our hero's life was in many ways special.
Biography of Martin Luther King: childhood and youth
The future preacher was born in January 1929 in Atlanta. His father was a Baptist minister. The family lived in the Atlanta area, populated predominantly by black residents, but the boy went to the lyceum at the city university. So from an early age he had to experience discrimination against blacks in the United States in the middle of the 20th century.
Already at a young age, Martin showed remarkable talent in oratory, winning at the age of fifteen in the corresponding competition held by the African-American organization of the state of Georgia. In 1944, the young man entered Morehouse College. Already in his freshman year, he joins the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. It was during this period that worldview beliefs were formed and the further biography of Martin Luther King was laid.
In 1947, the guy becomes a clergyman, starting
his spiritual career as a paternal assistant. A year later, he entered the seminary in Pennsylvania, from where in 1951 he graduated with a doctorate in theology. In 1954, he became a priest of a Baptist church in the town of Montgomery, in A, a year later, the entire African-American community literally exploded with unprecedented protests. The biography of Martin Luther King is also changing dramatically. And the event that gave impetus to the demonstrations is connected precisely with the town of Montgomery.
Martin Luther: biography of a fighter for equal rights of the black population
Such an event was the refusal of a black woman, Rosa Parks, to give up her seat on the bus to a white passenger, for which she was arrested and fined. This action of the authorities deeply revolted the Negro population of the state. An unprecedented boycott of all bus lines began. Very soon an African-American protest against was led by clergyman Martin Luther King Jr. The bus boycott lasted over a year and led to the success of the action. Under pressure from demonstrators, the US Supreme Court was forced to declare segregation in Alabama unconstitutional.
In 1957, the Southern Christian Conference was formed to fight for equal civil rights for African Americans across the country. The organization was led by Martin Luther King. In 1960, he visits India, where he adopts the best practices from Jawaharlal Nehru. The Baptist minister's speeches, in which he called for relentless and non-violent resistance, struck a chord in the hearts of people across the country. His speeches filled civil rights activists with energy and enthusiasm. The country was engulfed in marches, mass jailbreaks, economic demonstrations, and so on. Luther's most famous speech in Washington in 1963 began with the words "I have a dream...". It was listened to live by more than 300 thousand Americans.
In 1968, Martin Luther King led another protest march through downtown Memphis. The purpose of the demonstration was to support the workers' strike. However, he was never brought to the end, becoming the last in the life of the idol of millions. A day later, on April 4, exactly at 18:00, the priest was wounded by a sniper positioned on the balcony of one of the hotels in the city center. Martin Luther King died the same day without regaining consciousness.
In Atlanta (Georgia, USA) in the family of a pastor of a Baptist church. At birth, he was given the name Michael, but the boy's name was later changed to Martin.
Studied at primary school David Howard and then at Booker Washington High School. In 1944, at the age of 15, he passed his exams and entered Morehouse College in Atlanta. At the same time, he became a member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAPCN).
In September 1958, while signing autographs in Harlem, New York, he was stabbed in the chest by a mentally ill woman.
In 1960, at the invitation of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, Martin Luther King spent a month in India, where he studied the activities of Mahatma Gandhi.
In the same year he returned to Atlanta and became the pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church.
In 1960-1961, King took part in sit-ins and freedom marches.
In March-April 1963, he led mass demonstrations in Birmingham (Alabama) against segregation at work and at home. For violations of the ban on demonstrations, Martin Luther King was arrested for five days. At this time, he wrote a "Letter from Birmingham Jail", in which he called on the clergy to support the struggle for equal rights for all citizens.
On August 28, 1963, King became one of the organizers of the march on Washington, which attracted more than 200 thousand participants, during which he delivered his famous speech "I have a dream" (I have a Dream).
This march contributed to the passage of the civil rights law (1964), and King himself was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize (1964) for his contribution to the movement of nonviolent resistance to racial oppression.
In 1965, Martin Luther King became the leader of the voter registration movement in Alabama. In 1965-1966, he led a campaign against racial discrimination in housing policy in Chicago, Illinois. In 1966, King was the first leading African-American leader to speak publicly against the Vietnam War. In 1968, he organized the "Poor People's Campaign" to unite the poor of all races in the fight against poverty.
On March 28, 1968, he led a 6,000-strong protest march in downtown Memphis, Tennessee to support striking workers.
On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King was mortally wounded while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. He died from his wound at St. Joseph's Hospital and was buried in Atlanta. Over a hundred thousand people attended the funeral.
In the murder of Martin Luther King was accused James Earl Ray (James Earl Ray), a former convicted. In July 1968, the killer was caught in London (UK) and handed over to the US. At the trial, Ray pleaded guilty to the crime and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. He later retracted his testimony, saying that he was made a "pawn" and framed by the real killers. James Earl Ray died in prison in 1998.
Martin Luther King was the author of several books, including Stride Toward Freedom (1958), Why We Can't Wait (1964), Which Direction We Go To chaos or community? (Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?, 1967).
The material was prepared on the basis of information from RIA Novosti and open sources
Martin Luther King (1929-1968). Photo 1966
The first fighter for the civil rights of African Americans in the United States, the Baptist preacher and prominent speaker Martin Luther King urged his supporters that racism should be resisted, but not by violent means. No bloodshed! He opposed US colonial aggression and the Vietnam War. For success in the democratization of American society in 1964, Martin King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He had a dream - to destroy racial prejudice so that whites and blacks could coexist in America as equals.
His father, pastor of the Baptist Church in Atlanta (Georgia), Michael King, during a trip to Europe in 1934, visited Germany. Having become acquainted with the teachings of the great German reformer, the founder of Protestantism, who translated the Bible from Latin into German, Martin Luther, I decided to take his name for myself and give it to my 5-year-old son Michael. Now their names were Martin Luther King Sr. and Martin Luther King Jr. By this act, the pastor committed himself and his son to follow the teachings of the eminent German theologian and priest.
Later, teachers of schools and colleges noted that in terms of abilities, Martin the Younger was significantly superior to his peers. He studied well, passed the exams with excellent marks, and enthusiastically sang in the church choir. When he was 10 years old, he was even invited to sing a song at the premiere of Gone with the Wind. At the age of 13, Martin entered the Lyceum at the University of Atlanta, and after 2 years he won the speaker's competition, which was held by the African American organization of Georgia. He proved his abilities once again when he entered Morehouse College in the fall of 1944, passing the exams for high school externally.
In 1947, Martin became a Baptist minister, becoming an assistant to his father, the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. But he did not leave his studies. On the next year After receiving a bachelor's degree in sociology from college, he entered the Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania, where in 1951 he was awarded another bachelor's degree, this time in divinity. His next step was Boston University, where in June 1955 he defended his Ph.D.
School is over, it's time to preach. Martin Luther is a Baptist minister in Montgomery, Alabama. There he became the leader of the protest of the black population, who opposed racial segregation. The root cause was an incident that occurred with a black Rosa Paquet, who was asked to leave the bus. She refused on the grounds that she was an equal American citizen. She was supported by the entire black population of the city. It announced a boycott of buses that lasted over a year. Thanks to Martin Luther, the case reached the Supreme Court. The court declared segregation in Alabama unconstitutional. And the government gave in.
It was an example of non-violent resistance to authority, and it proved to be effective. Further, Martin Luther decided to fight for the equal rights of blacks in obtaining an education. On his initiative, a lawsuit was filed in the US Supreme Court against the authorities of those states where blacks were not allowed to study with whites. The Supreme Court ruled that he was right—separate education for blacks and whites was against the American constitution.
Opponents of the unification of whites and blacks staged a literally hunt for a black speaker, a preacher whose speeches attracted many thousands of people, black and white. In 1958, during one of his performances, he was stabbed in the chest. Martin. was taken to the hospital, but even after treatment he continued campaigning. Newspapers wrote about him, he was shown on television, he became popular politician, the leader of the black population of all states.
In 1963, he was arrested on charges of disorderly conduct and imprisoned in Birmingham Prison, but was soon released: no crime was found. In the same year, he was received by US President John F. Kennedy. After meeting with him, Martin Luther climbed the steps of the Capitol and addressed the assembled crowd of thousands with the words that became winged: “I have a dream…”
In March 1968, during a speech in Memphis to the participants of another demonstration - Martin was going to lead the destitute Americans to Washington - he was shot at. The shot was fatal. It was a big loss. Black America has lost its faithful defender, who dreamed of an equal country and gave his life for it.
The third Monday in January is celebrated in America as Martin Luther King Day and is considered a national holiday.
After her husband's murder, she led the non-violent resistance movement he started against racism, colonialism, discrimination and segregation.
