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Martin Luther King Jr Report

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Biography of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Jan. 15, 1929 - April 4, 1968 Nationality: American Occupation: civil rights leader Occupation: minister (religion) Michael King Jr. was born on January 15, 1929, in the Atlanta home of his maternal grandfather, Adam Daniel Williams (1863 — 1931). He was the second child and the first son of Michael King Sr. (1897 — 1984) and Alberta Christine Williams King (1903 — 1974). Michael Jr. had an older sister, Willie Christine (b. 1927), and a younger brother, Alfred Daniel Williams (b. 1930). The father and later the son adopted the name Martin Luther, after the religious figure who founded the Lutheran denomination. The family background was rooted in rural Georgia. A.D. Williams was already …show more content…

On May 1, 1936, King joined his father's church, being baptized two days later. His conversion was not dramatic — he simply followed his sister when she went forward. A period of questioning religion began with adolescence and lasted through his early college years. He felt uncomfortable with overly emotional religion, and this discomfort initially led him to decide against entering the ministry. Jennie Williams, King Jr.'s grandmother, died of a heart attack on May 18, 1941, during a Woman's Day program at Ebenezer. The death was traumatic for her grandson, especially since it happened while he was watching a parade despite his parents' prohibitions. Distraught, he seems to have attempted suicide by leaping from a second-story window of the family home. He wept on and off for days and had difficulty sleeping. King studied in the public schools of Atlanta, spent time at the Atlanta Laboratory School until it closed in 1942, and then entered public high school in the tenth grade, skipping a grade. After completing his junior year at Booker T. Washington High School, he entered Morehouse College in the fall of 1944 at the age of 15. Since the war had taken away most young men, Morehouse, a men's college, turned to young entrants in desperation. Attends Morehouse The five-foot seven-inch tall King was a ladies' man and loved to dance. He was an indifferent student who completed Morehouse with a grade point average of 2.48 on a

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