Martin Luther King, Jr. is an important figure who was responsible to lead the American civil rights movement. Martin Luther King, Jr. was born on January 15, 1929 at Atlanta, Georgia. He was the son of Martin Luther King, Sr. and Alberta Williams King. Martin Luther King, Jr. started attending school before reaching the legal age of six, at the Yonge Street Elementary School in Atlanta. However, when his true age was discovered, he was not allowed to continue his schooling. He then resumed his education when he was six years old. He attended the Atlanta University Laboratory School and Booker T. Washington High School. Since he had scored high in the college entrance examinations in his junior year of high school, he skipped both the ninth and twelfth grades and advanced to Morehouse College at the age of fifteen.

In the year 1948, Martin Luther King Jr. graduated from Morehouse College with a B.A. degree in Sociology. In that year he enrolled in Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania and at the same time he was also studying at the University of Pennsylvania. After three years of theological study at Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania, he was elected President of the senior class and delivered the valedictory address. In September 1951, Martin Luther King Jr. began his doctoral studies in Systematic theology at Boston University and the P.H.D. degree was finally awarded to him on June 5, 1955. Martin Luther King Jr. got married to Coretta Scott on 18th June 1953. They had children and their names were Yolanda Denise King, Martin Luther 3, dexter Scott and Bernice Albertine.

At the age of nineteen, Martin Luther King Jr. entered the Christian Ministry and was finally ordained in February 1948. He then became Assistant Pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church. In 1954, Martin Luther King became the Pastorate of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. He resigned as a pastor of Dexter Avenue in the year 1959. He then moved to Atlanta to direct the activities of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Martin Luther King Jr. was a strong worker for civil rights. He became a member of the executive committee of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Martin Luther King Jr. was an important person in the Civil Rights Movement. On being elected President of the Montgomery Improvement Association, he accepted the leadership of the first great Negro nonviolent demonstration that was held in 1995, in the United States. This organization was responsible for the successful Montgomery Bus Boycott from 1955 to 1956. The boycott lasted for 385 days. In those days the situation became so tense that Martin Luther King’s house was bombed. He was arrested during this campaign. He was subjected to personal abuse. But he emerged as a Negro Leader of the first rank. In December 1956, the United States Supreme Court declared Alabama’s segregation laws as unconstitutional and Montgomery buses were desegregated. Thus Negroes and whites rode the buses as equals.