Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., born in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1929, was a leader of the civil rights movement and is now one of the most recognizable figures in American history. His father was a Baptist minister, and King felt called to follow in his father’s footsteps: In 1951, he obtained a Bachelor of Divinity from Crozer Theological Seminary, followed by a PhD in systematic theology from Boston University in 1955. His theological education was accompanied by a deepening commitment to social justice, with King drawing inspiration from the peaceful principles of nonviolent civil disobedience of Mahatma Gandhi (See: Background).

King grew up in the racially-segregated South, where “Jim Crow” laws mandated the separation of races in schools, buses, and restaurants. Discrimination and violence against Black Americans was a widespread, chronic issue. In 1955, King helped to organize the Montgomery Bus Boycott with Ralph Albernathy and was one of the co-founders, in 1957, of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), becoming the organization’s first president. In 1963 King led the famous “March on Washington” to demonstrate for African American civil rights. It was during this March that King delivered his most famous speech, “I Have a Dream,” in which he articulated his dream of racial equality and justice.