Martin Luther King Jr. was born on January 15, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia.  His father was a pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church.   His mother Alberta Williams was a former daughter of the pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church.   Martin's parents always taught him to treat all with respect.   Martin had many white friends and all though his life he noticed that they could not drink from the same fountain of or use the same restroom they also couldn't go to the same school.   Of his white friends their mothers did not like the idea of their children playing with blacks.   Martins parents didn't care just as long Martin accepted them. 

Martin was a very smart man during his life.   When he grew up he wanted to be a minister to follow the line of work as his father.   So after he got out of high school he went to Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania.   During his collage years he became friends with Mahatana Gandhi who was trying to free his India people from the British Rule "Peaceful Revolution."   Also during collage he became mush inspire by Henry David Thoreay on his essay ?civil Disobedience" which Martin was much interested in.   While in collage he also met his future wife Coretta Scott which soon will marry in 1953. Finally y in 1954 he received his PhD and became a pastor at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery then later was addressed as Dr. King.

Rosa Parks on a city bus             City bus-boycott leaders      Talking about bus-boycotts

       Martin was missing on his family life.   So he decided to write his first book Stride Toward Freedom which made a big success, But while signing his book in Harlem, New York a African American women stabbed Dr. King with a letter opener in the chest.   He recovered well but had to go to the hospital, eventually the women was declared insane.

       In 1963 Freedom Fighters went to Birmingham to fight segregation laws.   An injunction was issued forbidding any demonstrations Freedom Fighters away police used water hoses tear gas, and dogs this was broadcasted live on Television which helped bring out the difference between American and African Americans.   During Martins life he has been sent to jail many times for stupid reasons.   Everyone knows the real reasons, it was his race.   On August 28,1963 200,000 people gathered in front of Lincoln Memorial with a protest of blacks and both whites came to hear Dr. King give his famous speech "I Have a Dream" speech.

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves, who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity. But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination.

One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds."

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.

We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksand's of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual.

There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must ever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. They have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.

And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecutions and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair. I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow. I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed; we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal.

I have a dream,

that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream,

that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream,

that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right down in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain and the crooked places will be made straight and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I will go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day. This will be the day, this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning "My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring!" And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.

And so let freedom ring

from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.

Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.

Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.

Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.

But not only that.

Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi, from every mountainside,

let freedom ring! And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last."

"We've got some difficult days ahead.   But it doesn't matter with me now .   Because I have been to the mountaintop.   And I don't mind.

Like anybody, I would like to live a long life.   Longevity has its place.   But I'm not concerned about that now.

I just want to do God's will.   And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain.   And I've looked over And I've seen the Promised land.

I may not get there with you.   But I want you to know tonight, That we, as a people will get to the promised land and I'm not fearing any man.

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord"

        Martin was assassinated by James Earl Ray.   James was born on may 10,1929 in Atone, Illinois.   James was a career criminal and a racist.  Using a rifle with a sniper scope he shot him from a bathroom window as Dr. King was leaving his motel room.   The bullet severed Dr. Kings spinal cord and he wasn't able to live.   After James pleaded guilty to the assassination of Martin.   Later presented on Court TV a Memphis jury sided with the king family.   Many unknown conspirators were involved in the 1968 plot to kill king.   Kings family filled another suit and jurors awarded them $100.00 in damages.   They didn't want money they just wanted to know the truth.   The lawyer of Ray conferred to Rays assassination sentenced to 99 years and 29 years of his life trying to get a new trial before his death in 1998 from liver failure.

      In 1983 Martin Luther king Jr. birthday was declared a national holiday after 15 years of his death and is still celebrated every year by the United States.