Background on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. for the 1966 Ware Lecture

(from the original text of the 1966 address)

Martin Luther King, Jr. was born in Atlanta in 1929. He has amassed nine degrees, from such schools as the Crozier Theological Seminary (B.D. 1951), Boston University (Ph.D. 1955, D.D. 1959), Chicago Theological Seminary (D.D. 1951) and Howard University (LL.D.1957) .He has long used his ministry to promote civil rights in the South. King has made Gandhi's concept ofnon-violent civil disobedience a powerful method of minority protest in the United States. He is generally considered to lead the American movement for racial equality.

His achievements have brought him the Nobel Peace Prize ( 1964 ) and the presidency of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. He is a frequent contributor to periodicals, and published a book, “Stride Toward Freedom,” in 1958.

© 1966, Unitarian Universalist Association