Martin Luther King was born Michael Luther King Jr. on January 15, 1929, but later changes his name to Martin. His family was mainly preachers with his grandfather and father being a pastor in the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta (Martin Luther King – Biography, 2011).
He was a good student and obtained his BA degree from Morehouse College in Atlanta. He later obtained his doctorate degree from Atlanta University.
Dr. King followed in the family’s passion and became a pastor in Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama.
As a member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Dr. King led the bus boycott. This was an act of defiance against the laws which segregated the buses based on the color of the people.
Dr. King was arrested by the government on several occasions during the boycott. However, the boycott was successful as the court ruled that the laws requiring the segregation of buses were unconstitutional.
Among the ideas which Dr. King fought for vigorously was equal rights of all the citizens of the US regardless of their color. He was mainly focused on the equal right of the African-Americans, people who were greatly oppressed during his time.
Among the most notable forms of expressing their dissatisfaction with the system was that he propagated the use of non-violent forms to fight for equal rights for the African-Americans.
The civil rights movement which was led by Dr. King led to the abolishment of the laws which were oppressive to the African-Americans. This movement formed the precedence of various other civil rights movements of oppressed groups in other parts of the world.
The use of non-violent demonstrations, a practice which is used up to date in the US and other parts of the developed world as Dr. King showed that they were effective.