Kristeen verge biography of martin luther king

Fifty years ago – the year 1986 – was arguably the most tumultuous year in a very turbulent decade in America.

In 1968, the nation witnessed the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. — with subsequent deadly riots erupting in over 100 U.S. cities. Just two months later, Americans recoiled in abject horror yet again at the assassination of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, the younger brother of President John F. Kennedy, who was assassinated himself just five years prior.

A few months after the latter tragedy, police in riot gear with billy clubs beat down hundreds of young white anti-Vietnam protesters at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. The nation appeared on the verge of collapsing in on itself. Revolution seemed inevitable.

Lost in all of this upheaval and toxic ethnic strife was undeniably one of the most important figures of the entire Civil Rights Movement: Alfred Daniel “A.D.” Williams King, MLK’s lone brother.

Many people didn’t know that Dr. King even had a brother, much less one who was absolutely indispensable to the success of the campaign for equality. His life, and more importantly his highly conspicuous and questionable death on June 20, 1969, less than a year after Martin Luther King’s murder, has been shrouded in mystery and highly questionable circumstances for the past five decades.

Until now. The documentary, “Unsolved History: The Life of a King,” hosted by noted journalist Ed Gordon, finally goes in depth to illuminate the remarkable contributions of this unsung hero as well as give clues into his controversial and unsolved death.

Thanks to executive producer Josetta Shropshire-Howard and Alvetta King, the niece of MLK and daughter of A.D. King, the nation will learn just much A.D. King helped his more celebrated brother, Martin L. King Jr., fight racism in America and was in the room below King when he was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel at age 39 on April 4, 1968, in Me

Civil Rights Leaders in Selma Minister, philosopher, and social activist Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968) was America's most significant civil rights leader of the 1950s and 1960s. He achieved his most renown and greatest successes in advancing the cause of civil rights while leading a series of highly publicized campaigns in Alabama between 1955 and 1965. During this decade of mass protests against racial injustices, King's words and deeds inspired millions of people throughout the world. In 1964, he won the Nobel Peace Prize for his leadership in the struggle for racial equality. In contrast, others saw King as a polarizing figure whose actions elicited violent reactions. He was assassinated on April 4, 1968. Fifteen years later, in November 1983, President Ronald Reagan signed a bill establishing the third Monday of every January as the Martin Luther King Jr. National Holiday.

Early Life and Career

Martin Luther and Coretta Scott King Originally named Michael Luther, King was born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia, to Reverend Michael Luther and Alberta Williams King. Following a trip to Europe in 1934, King Sr. changed both his name and that of his son to Martin Luther to honor the leader of the Protestant Reformation. The younger King had one sister, Christine, and a brother, Alfred Daniel (A.D.)—the latter spent several years as a pastor at a Baptist church in western Birmingham. As the son of a minister, King's early life was centered on activities at the prestigious Ebenezer Baptist Church, where he sang in the choir. King left grade school at 15 and entered Morehouse College, intending to follow his father into the ministry. That same year he preached his first sermon at Ebenezer. He graduated from Morehouse in 1948 with a bachelor's degree in sociology and began theological studies at Crozer Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania. In 1951, King began course work for a doctorate at Boston University, where he studied various aspects of liberal Pr

Almost half a century ago, a cohort of Alabama state troopers and Dallas County sheriff’s deputies confronted about 600 civil rights protesters in Selma. The resulting mayhem — a melee of stinging tear gas, lunging police dogs, and a charging white civilian posse on horseback — injured 60 marchers.

Captured by television cameras and later broadcast on ABC to 48 million viewers, the attack on March 7, 1965, became known as “Bloody Sunday,” the emotional climax of a movement that later that summer led to the landmark Voting Rights Act. At the time of the march, about 15,000 black adults in Dallas County were old enough to vote. But only 130 were registered, having slipped past a literacy test and other civil impediments.

“It is hard for us to comprehend,” said Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, chair of Harvard’s Department of African and African American Studies, starting a panel discussion Thursday at Tsai Auditorium marking the exact anniversary of Bloody Sunday.

Luckily, there was a witness and interpreter on hand from those days long past, Andrew Young, who has been an activist, minister, mayor, congressman, and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. For a late-afternoon audience of 200, his reminiscences were an aid to comprehension.

“A Freedom Fighter Looks Back” was co-sponsored by Higginbotham’s department, the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research, the Center for American Political Studies, and the Black Policy Conference at the Harvard Kennedy School. Moderated by Daniel Carpenter, the Allie S. Freed Professor of Government, the event was billed as a conversation with five respondents who study the Civil Rights Movement as history or as practical theology.

But it was largely Young’s day. He held forth with stories that provided an intimate, non-academic look at the handful of activists who 50 years ago transformed the American social landscape. Some of the stories were funny, like the time he a

Table of contents :
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 Growing Up King
2 The Young Preacher in Boston and Montgomery
3 The Montgomery Uprising
4 Montgomery and the SCLC
5 The Dream, the Letter, and the Nightmare
6 Struggling in Selma and Chicago
7 Shot Rings Out in the Memphis Sky
Epilogue
Bibliographic Essay
Index

Citation preview

Martin Luther King

THE LIBRARY OF AFRICAN AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY General Editor, John David Smith Charles H. Stone Distinguished Professor of American History University of North Carolina at Charlotte The Library of African American Biography aims to provide concise, readable, and up-­to-­date lives of leading black figures in American history, in widely varying fields of accomplishment. The books are written by accomplished scholars and writers and reflect the most recent historical research and critical interpretation. Illustrated with photographs, they are designed for general informed readers as well as for students. Martin Luther King: A Religious Life, Paul Harvey (2021) Madam C. J. Walker: The Making of an American Icon, Erica L. Ball (2021) Fannie Lou Hamer: America’s Freedom Fighting Woman, Maegan Parker Brooks (2020) Jackie Robinson: An Integrated Life, J. Christopher Schutz (2016) W. E. B. Du Bois: An American Intellectual and Activist, Shawn Leigh Alexander (2015) Paul Robeson: A Life of Activism and Art, Lindsey R. Swindall (2013) Ella Baker: Community Organizer of the Civil Rights Movement, J. Todd Moye (2013) Booker T. Washington: Black Leadership in the Age of Jim Crow, Raymond W. Smock (2010) Walter White: The Dilemma of Black Identity in America, Thomas Dyja (2010) Richard Wright: From Black Boy to World Citizen, Jennifer Jensen Wallach (2010) Louis Armstrong: The Soundtrack of the American Experience, David Stricklin (2010)

Martin Luther King A Religious Life Paul Harvey

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