Tomorrow (Monday, Jan. 20) is Martin Luther King Day in the United States. Who was this man who is the only Black American to have his birthday honored with a national holiday?
The Man
Michael King Jr. was born in Atlanta, Georgia on January 15, 1929. He was the second of three children. His grandfather had been the pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta and his father, Michael King Sr., followed as pastor of the same church. Pastor King Sr. grew the church from a few hundred to several thousand making it a prominent black church in the south.
In 1934, this church sent its pastor to Europe to attend the “Baptist World Alliance” conference.
While there, Pastor King Sr. toured Germany visiting various Reformation sites connected to Martin Luther, the famed Protestant 16th century reformer. Luther had courageously stood up for biblical truth to the political and religious power structures of his day. Inspired by this, King Sr. changed his first name from Michael to Martin Luther. He did the same for his five year-old son, Michael, who now became Martin Luther King Jr..
King Jr. experienced much racial discrimination as a child but also the example of his father opposing it. King was a good student with a special interest in music, theatre, oration, English and history (although weak in spelling and grammar). He enrolled at the all-black Morehouse College in Atlanta at age 15 during World War II.
One summer, King travelled north to work at a tobacco farm in Connecticut. There he experienced racial integration (not segregation) for the first time and was thrilled with this new freedom from discrimination. Sensing God’s call to ministry, King studied at a seminary in Pennsylvania and then pursued his doctorate in Massachusetts (all northern states).
In 1953, King married Coretta Scott and together they raised a family of four (two boys and two girls). The next year he became the pastor of a Baptist church in Montgomery, Alabama (at age 25) and received his PhD in 1955. King was now educated, married and ready to passionately serve God and his fellow man (especially Black).
The Mission
King would become a prominent Baptist pastor, activist and political philosopher. Over the next 13 years (until his untimely death), he became the leader of the civil rights movement in America. Inspired by political figures like Gandhi in India, King championed nonviolent resistance and civil disobedience against the discriminatory laws in the southern states. He led mass marches for the right to vote, desegregation, labor and other civil rights. He led a long bus boycott in his home city in Alabama and became the first president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
In 1963, King delivered his most famous speech, “I Have A Dream,” at the Lincoln Memorial during the “March on Washington”. Before a massive crowd, he thundered, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” The event and the speech marked a turning point in the long battle for greater social justice.
President Kennedy supported King’s efforts and President Johnson later introduced important civil rights laws in the 1960s. In 1964, King was honored with the Nobel Peace Prize for his nonviolent resistance against racial inequality. He was also outspoken in his fight against poverty and opposition to the unpopular Vietnam War. Both of these causes directly affected much of the Black population in America.
The Martyr
These political advances came with a price. Southern police often countered the protests and marches with violence. King was jailed several times. The FBI under Edgar Hoover considered him a radical and began to monitor and harass him in various ways. Obviously, he made a lot of enemies among the entrenched white southern community.
In 1968, King was planning a national occupation of Washington, DC called “The Poor People’s Campaign”. However, before it took place King was gunned down on April 4 by James Earl Ray at a motel in Memphis, Tennessee. He was 39. His assassination shocked the nation and led to race riots in numerous American cities.
King was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977 and the Congressional Gold Medal in 2003. Beginning in 1971, various cities and states began to honor him with a holiday. This became a federal holiday in 1986 and a memorial to him was dedicated in Washington, DC in 2011.
If still living, Martin Luther King Jr. would now be 96. He was a complex man with both strengths and weaknesses. But he is remembered best for the courage of his convictions for the equality of all people created in God’s image. His namesake in 16th century Germany would have been proud.
Rob Weatherby is a retired pastor (and has visited Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta).
