Martin Luther King, Jr. has a powerful life story that grips your American soul when shared by Kristofer Cowles. The successes and failures of a man who was only 39 when he was assassinated inspires any American to greatness by focusing on humility and persistence. The small list of events in his life below pale in comparison to the complete picture of overcoming shared when Kristofer visits with you about Motivational Americana!
1929 – Born on January 15th in Atlanta, Georgia.
1951 – King spent the next three years at Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania, where he became acquainted with Mohandas Gandhi’s philosophy of nonviolence as well as with the thought of contemporary Protestant theologians and earned a bachelor of divinity degree.
1953 – While in Boston, King met Coretta Scott, a native Alabamian who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. They were married and had four children.
1955 – After arrest of Rosa Parks, led 382-day boycott of segregated buses in Montgomery, Alabama successfully leading to court injunction ordering bus desegregation.
1957 – Helped found Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). His leadership was fundamental to that movement’s success in ending the legal segregation of African Americans in the South and other parts of the United States.
1958 – Wrote “Stride Toward Freedom”.
1959 – He and his party were warmly received by India’s prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru; as the result of a brief discussion with followers of Gandhi about the Gandhian concepts of peaceful noncompliance (satyagraha), King became increasingly convinced that nonviolent resistance was the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom.
1960 – King moved to his native city of Atlanta, where he became co-pastor with his father of the Ebenezer Baptist Church.
1963 – He helped organize a march on Washington and delivered “I Have a Dream” speech.
1965 – Organized and led march from Selma, Alabama, to Montgomery but was forced to turn back at Edmund Pettus bridge outside Selma, but shortly thereafter successfully led 5-day march as planned.
1968 – Visited Memphis to support labor movement among city sanitation workers, but assassinated by sniper while standing on balcony of Lorraine Motel.
