Martin Luther King Jr.

Martin Luther King Jr. was born January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia, to Martin Luther King Sr. and Alberta Williams King. His father was the pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta and provided him with a middle-class upbringing that allowed for a more extensive education than was typically available to black children in the South. Though it was expected that King would follow in his father and maternal grandfather's footsteps and become a pastor, he was initially more interested in working for social change.

King attended Morehouse College in 1944 and, after a change of heart in 1948, entered Crozer Theological Seminary. From there, he attended Boston University, where he received his Ph.D. in 1955. Shortly after, he became the pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, where he was instrumental in organizing the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955. He was named the president of...