Martin Luther King Jr.

Life

King was born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia, the son of Baptist minister Martin Luther King Sr. His father reportedly chose the name in honor of the Reformer Martin Luther after attending the Baptist World Alliance congress in Berlin in 1934. King studied sociology at Morehouse College. He went on to study theology at Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania and earned a doctorate in theology from Boston University.

In 1954 he became senior pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. Beginning in 1960, he served as co-pastor with his father at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, his father's congregation. On April 4, 1968, while supporting a strike by Black sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee, he was shot and killed at the age of 39. Authorities identified James Earl Ray as the assassin.

Ministry and Achievements

• Montgomery bus boycott: In December 1955 he led a boycott of Montgomery's city buses in protest against segregated seating for Black passengers. The boycott succeeded after about a year, and King emerged as a national leader.
• Organizing nonviolent action: As leader of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), he led peaceful marches and campaigns of civil disobedience (a form of resistance in which unjust laws are openly broken and the resulting punishment is accepted).
• March on Washington: At the March on Washington in August 1963, he delivered the speech known for the words "I have a dream."
• Legislative results: The movement he led contributed to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which banned discrimination in public accommodations and employment, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which secured voting rights for Black Americans.
• He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 and later joined the opposition to the Vietnam War.

King identified the spirit of love taught by Jesus and Gandhi's philosophy of nonviolent resistance as the greatest influences on his thought. The United States observes the third Monday of January each year as a federal holiday in his honor.

Influence on the Korean Church

In Korean Christian media and churches, King is often presented as a leading example of faith-based social engagement and nonviolent resistance. The Christian news outlet News&Joy featured him in its series "The People Who Shaped Twentieth-Century World Christianity," and his speeches and writings are frequently quoted in columns and sermons. Denominations and theological camps differ on how far the church should engage in social issues, and King's activism is often cited as an example in this debate (church and politics).

Assessment

King is regarded as a symbol of the American civil rights movement. He was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1977) and the Congressional Gold Medal (2004).

He has also been the subject of criticism and controversy.

• During his lifetime, some white Southerners regarded him as an agitator who stirred up conflict. Within the Black freedom movement, too, some resented his moderate approach.
• The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) kept him under surveillance. Allegations about his private life have been raised on the basis of those records, but the reliability of the material is disputed.
• In 1991 a Boston University investigative committee concluded that parts of his doctoral dissertation had been plagiarized. It did not, however, revoke his degree; instead, it recommended that a letter noting this finding be placed with the copy of the dissertation.