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Along with entertainment featuring the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, praise dancers, choirs and various presenters, a keynote address by Rev. Jini Kilgore commemorates the legacy of one of the 20th century’s most influential civil rights leaders.
King was born Michael Luther King in Atlanta on Jan. 15, 1929 — one of the three children of Martin Luther King Sr., pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church, and Alberta (Williams) King, a former schoolteacher. (He was renamed "Martin" when he was about 6 years old.)
King enrolled in Atlanta’s Morehouse College in 1944. After receiving his bachelor's degree in 1948, King attended Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pa., winning the Plafker Award as the outstanding student of the graduating class. King completed the coursework for his doctorate in 1953, and was granted the degree two years later upon completion of his dissertation.
King returned South to become pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Ala. There, he made his first mark on the civil-rights movement, by mobilizing the black community during a 382-day boycott of the city's bus lines. King overcame arrest and other violent harassment, including the bombing of his home. Ultimately, the U.S. Supreme Court declared bus segregation unconstitutional.
In 1960, King was a principal speaker at the historic March on Washington, where he delivered one of the most passionate addresses of his career, the famed “I Have a Dream” speech. Time magazine designated him as its Person of the Year for 1963. A few months later he was named recipient of the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize.
On Apr. 4, 1968, while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Hotel just off Beale Street in Memphis, Tenn. with Jesse Jackson and Ralph Abernathy, King was assassinated. His death caused a wave of violence in major cities across the country.
Now, each year on the third Monday of January, schools, federal offices, post office and banks across America close to celebrate the birth, the life and the dream of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
Kilgore is the associate minister at the Second Baptist Church in Los Angeles and the daughter of civil rights activist Thomas Kilgore Jr., founder of the USC Black Alumni Association.
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