Martin Luther King, Jr.

When Martin Luther King, Jr., was born in Atlanta, Georgia in 1929, segregation was very much a part of life in the southern United States. Young Martin could not go to school with white children or sit beside them on a bus. It was the law.

Being treated unfairly hurt Martin's feelings and sometimes made him angry. Martin's parents taught him not to show his anger and hurt. They told him that he was as good as anyone else.

Martin took this to heart and became one of the best students in his class. He liked school and was a powerful speaker. At age 14, Martin won first prize for a speech about the rights of black Americans.

On the bus ride home from his speech, Martin came up against one of the segregation laws he had spoken against. Some white people got on the bus and Martin was told to give up his seat. There was a law that said black Americans had to give up bus seats for white people. This made Martin angry.

When he was 15, Martin went to college in Atlanta. He was a good student. He decided then he wanted to be a minister like his father. He graduated from college and went to school in Pennsylvania to become a minister.

After he received his minister's degree, Martin went to Boston University, where he met his future wife, Coretta Scott. He and Coretta were married in 1953. They moved to Montgomery, Alabama in 1954. Martin became a minister at a church.

During his first year as a minister, important things were happening for black Americans. The Supreme Court of the United States ruled that schools could not be segregated by race. White and black children could go to the same schools, the law said.

The next year, another important thing happened in Montgomery. A black woman named Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat to a white person. When she refused to get up, she was arrested.

The president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the NAACP, and Martin wanted to help Rosa.

Together with a group of people, they decided to boycott the Montgomery buses. They thought that if every black resident of Montgomery refused to ride the buses, it would hurt the bus company and change the segregation law.

For more than a year, most of Montgomery's black residents refused to ride the buses. They walked, rode horses or shared cars, but they did not ride buses. The bus companies lost a lot of money. At last, the Supreme Court ruled that Montgomery's bus segregation law was wrong.

By this time, Martin had become a leader among African Americans. His picture appeared on a magazine cover. With fame came other things that weren't so good. White people who didn't like Martin bombed his house. A mentally ill black woman stabbed Martin.

After Martin's recovery, he and Coretta traveled to India, the land of Mohandas Gandhi. Gandhi had helped the people of India gain their independence with peaceful protests. Martin liked this idea and thought it would work for black Americans.

Other African Americans thought it would work, too. In 1960 in North Carolina, some black students sat at a lunch counter that was for whites only. They refused to move and were pushed and beaten. Other "sit-ins" took place across the South. Some people marched, too.

In 1963, Martin led a march through the streets of the segregated city of Birmingham, Alabama. Martin was arrested. After a call from John F. Kennedy, the president of the United States, he was released. He immediately organized another march called the Birmingham Children's Crusade.

On the second day of the children's march, terrible things happened. Birmingham's police chief set loose dogs on the children and sprayed them with firehoses. All around the United States, people watched the news in horror as they saw this happening. The city leaders finally agreed to desegregate Birmingham's public places.

Later that year, Martin organized a march to the nation's capital, Washington, D.C. Many people, black and white, marched to the Lincoln Memorial. Martin delivered one of his best known speeches here. It is known as the "I Have a Dream " speech. Many people were moved by Martin's words.

A few months later, a bad thing happened. Martin's friend and U.S. president, John F. Kennedy, was killed in Dallas, Texas. Martin was sad and the world was sad. Martin said that the nation was sick and he didn't think he would survive.

The next year brought better things. The new president of the United States, Lyndon B. Johnson, signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This act ended segregation in public places. Now it was against the law for a city to say a place was for "whites only."

The world honored Martin's work that same year by giving him the Nobel Peace Prize. This prize is given every year to a person who has done the most for peace. When Martin accepted the award in Norway, he said he was accepting it for all people who loved peace.

Even though the Civil Rights Act had been passed in 1964, black Americans in the South were still kept from voting. In some places, they would wait in line for hours to register to vote. Before they could register, the registration offices would close their doors.

In 1965, thousands of marchers took part in demonstrations for voting rights in Selma, Alabama. Police officers beat the marchers with clubs and fired tear gas at them. The marchers had to turn back. Once again, people all over America watched the news in horror.

Martin led another march from Selma to Montgomery two weeks later. This time, President Johnson sent Army soldiers to protect the protesters. This march was successful. As a result, Congress passed a Voting Rights Bill that outlawed practices that prevented black Americans from voting.

In April 1968, Martin traveled to Memphis, Tennessee, to march with underpaid workers. For months before this march, Martin had been receiving many threats against his life. Martin said in a speech in Memphis that the threats didn't matter to him because he knew that freedom would come.

On April 4, as Martin stood out on the balcony of his hotel, he was shot and killed. People everywhere were sad that this great man was gone. Letters and tributes poured in from all over the world. People wanted this man and his work to be remembered.