Martin Luther King Life . . .

.Martin Luther King was born on January 15 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia.

.In 1935 Martin was told he could not play with his friends because they were white and he was black.

.James Farmer organized C.O.R.E. (The Congress of Racial Equality), Spring, 1942

.In 1947 Martin was ordained a minister. In 1948 Martin graduated from Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia.

.In 1953 Martin Luther King, Jr. was in Boston and married Coretta Scott.

.In 1954 Martin became a pastor of his own church in Montgomery, Alabama.

.From 1955-1956 Martin led a boycott of the buses in Montgomery, Alabama.

.In 1963 Martin led a march in Washington August 28 and gave his “I Have A Dream” speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

.In 1964 Martin was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize which was a great honour.

.On April 4, 1968, Dr. King's life was ended by an assassin's s bullet while he was on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee..

.The third Monday in January was declared an annual federal holiday by the United States Congress.

.On Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. Grave stone it says “Free At Last, Free At Last Thank God Almighty I’m Free At last”

Martin Luther King led a mass struggle for racial equality that doomed segregation and changed America forever. At the age of 35 Martin Luther King, Jr., was the youngest man to have received the Nobel peace prize. When notified of his selection, he announced that he would turn over the prize money of $54,123 to the furtherance of the civil rights movement. He was shot dead in the southern US the city Memphis, Tennessee where he was to lead a march of sanitation workers protesting against low wages and poor working conditions. He was shot in the neck while standing on a balcony and died in hospital afterwards. Reverend Jesse Jackson was on the balcony with him when the single shot hit him. Mr. Jackson said “He had just bent over. I reckon if he had been standing up he would not have been hit in the face” Before he was brutally killed he had escaped several attempts on his life. His house was bombed several times and he received death threats daily. Nearly every major city in the US has a street or school named after him. It is a measure of how sorely his achievements are misunderstood that most of them are in black neighborhoods. He lived for less than 40 years but changed the lives of black Americans. He changed the views of so many white people and made black peoples lives better. He protested against segregation for most of his life and he never gave up. No matter how much he was threatened or bombed he stood for what he believed in. Rosa Parks was arrested when she refused to give her seat up for a white person. She believed that everyone was equal and she had as much right to sit there as a white person. Some white people also believed that segregation was wrong. They put their lives on the line and protested against slavery. There were separate toilets, water fountains, churches and benches for black people, if black people were caught using any of them they could be arrested. Black students sat at white only eating areas and refused to move, these sit-ins carried on for along time and more and more students joined each day. This simple but effective tactic for opposing segregation was quickly and widely copied everywhere.

Martin Luther King . . .

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1964/king-bio.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King,_Jr.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAkingML.htm

http://www.pocanticohills.org/taverna/98/king.htm

http://www.liu.edu/cwis/cwp/library/mlking.htm

http://www.time.com/time/time100/leaders/profile/king.html