On January 15, 1929, a baby boy was born in the city of Atlanta, Georgia. The doctors said he was perfect. His parents were so happy. They named him Michael, the same name that his father had. But when little Michael was five, his father decided to change both of their names to Martin. So now, the little boy became Martin Luther King, Jr.
Young Martin had a very happy home life. He had an older sister named Willie Christine. (Everyone called her Chris.) He also had a younger brother named Alfred Daniel. The Kings lived in a large house on Auburn Avenue in Atlanta. Their neighborhood was comfortable. No one was very poor or very rich.
There was a lot of love in Martin’s family. Martin never remembered his parents arguing. Martin’s mother, Alberta Williams King, was very soft-spoken and easygoing. Her father was a well-known minister. After high school, she went to college, which was something that not many black women did back then. Alberta had a warm personality, and Martin always found it very easy to talk to her.
Martin’s father, Martin, Sr., was a large man in many ways. He weighed about 220 pounds and was filled with self-confidence. Martin, Jr., admired his father very much. His father’s family was very poor and lived in a rundown shack. They were sharecroppers. A sharecropper is a farmer who does not own his own land. Instead, he works on another farmer’s land and gets some of the crops for himself. Martin’s father worked hard to get his high-school and college diplomas. After college, he became a minister of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.
The Ebenezer Baptist Church was like a second home to Martin. He sang in the church choir. He went to Sunday school and made many friends. It was there that Martin learned to get along with all kinds of people—kids as well as teachers.
One of Martin’s good friends was white. The boys had known each other since they were three years old. The boy didn’t live near Martin, but his father owned a store across the street from the King home. Martin and the boy were always together. But when they turned six, they started school. Martin went to a school for black children. The boy went to a school for white children. One day the boy’s father told his son that he could no longer play with Martin. Martin ran home and cried to his mother. It was the end of the friendship.
That night at dinner, the family had a long talk. This was the first time that Martin realized how many white people felt about black people. Even so, his parents told Martin not to hate white people. It was his duty as a Christian to love everyone.
Martin’s mother told him that he should always keep a sense of “somebodyness”—that he was important—even though the outside world was telling him he was not.
As Martin Luther King, Jr., grew up, he became more and more aware of the problems facing black people, especially in the South. Everywhere he looked there were “Whites Only” signs. Blacks could not go into many hotels, restaurants, and stores. Blacks could not even drink out of the same water fountains as whites. In many cities, blacks had to ride in the back of a bus. If they tried to sit in the front, they were thrown in jail. And if black people wanted to go to a movie theater, they had to sit way up in the balcony. These rules were called Jim Crow laws. And they made Martin very angry.
JIM CROW LAWS
THE TERM “JIM CROW” WAS STARTED AROUND 1830 BY A MINSTREL PERFORMER. MINSTREL PERFORMERS WERE ENTERTAINERS WHO TRAVELED AROUND THE NORTH AND SOUTH PUTTING On SHOWS. THEY WERE MOST POPULAR BEFORE AND AFTER THE U.S. CIVIL WAR.
In ONE SHOW, A WHITE SINGER BLACKENED HIS FACE WITH CHARCOAL TO LOOK LIKE A BLACK PERSON. HE DANCED AROUND In A SILLY WAY THAT MADE FUN OF BLACK PEOPLE. HE SANG A SONG THAT ENDED WITH THE WORDS “I JUMP JIM CROW.”
SOME PEOPLE THINK THAT THIS CHARACTER WAS BASED On An OLD BLACK SLAVE OWNED BY A “MR. CROW.” BY THE 1850S, THE JIM CROW CHARACTER SHOWED UP In MANY MINSTREL SHOWS.
BY THE TIME OF THE CIVIL WAR, THE TERM “JIM CROW” WAS A NEGATIVE WAY OF TALKING ABOUT BLACK PEOPLE. AND BY THE END OF THE 1800S, RACIST LAWS WERE CALLED JIM CROW LAWS.
In high school, Martin had to take a long bus ride to and from school. He always walked to the back, where the other black people sat.
Once, Martin and a teacher traveled by bus to Dublin, Georgia, for a speech contest. Martin won the contest and was very proud. On the way home to Atlanta, the bus driver ordered Martin and his teacher to give up their seats to white passengers. When they did not move right away, the bus driver became angry. It was the law, after all. They ended up standing in the aisle for the ninety-mile ride. But Martin told himself, “One of these days, I’m going to put my body up there where my mind is.” He knew that one day he would have a seat up front.
|