Michael Luther King Sr. (1897 - 1984)

Born 19 Dec 1897 in Stockbridge, Henry County, Georgia, United States

Ancestors

Husband of Alberta Christine (Williams) King — married Apr 1925 in Atlanta, Fulton, Georgia, United States

Descendants

Died 11 Nov 1984 at age 86 in Atlanta, Fulton County, Georgia, United States

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Biography

Martin was a Freemason.

Rev. Michael Martin Luther King Sr., son of James King and Dealy Linsey, was born in Stockbridge, Georgia in 1897. He married Alberta Christine Williams in the 1920s, and had three children.

From The Atlanta Constitution in 2013:

The name Martin Luther King conjures images of a civil rights pioneer who fought tirelessly in the struggle for dignity and equality for all. While many worldwide may only know MLK Jr., the same description could be used for his father, Martin Luther King Sr. In light of recent commemoration of the March on Washington, where the younger King delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech, the Photo Vault looks back at the father who nurtured a movement.

Born Michael Luther King on Dec. 19, 1899, in Henry County, he changed his name and his son's to honor the famous German theologian Martin Luther in 1934, when his son was 5 years old.

His grandparents had been slaves. His father was a sharecropper. Young Mike plowed cotton fields using the white landowner's mule and vowed that one day his family would have its own livestock. But that type of determination didn't set well in those times and his "sass" caused the family to move.

At 21 he enrolled in Atlanta's Bryant Preparation School to get his high school diploma. He was forced to begin in the fifth grade. He went on to graduate from Morehouse's School of Religion at 29. A year later, he was named pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church.

He and other black Atlanta ministers negotiated an agreement with the Chamber of Commerce in March 1961 desegregating downtown lunch counters.

Besides losing his firstborn son to an assassin's bullet, his younger son, the Rev. A.D. King, drowned in a swimming pool in July 1969.

His wife, Alberta Williams King, was shot and killed by a gunman in 1974 as she played "The Lord's Prayer" on the organ during services at Ebenezer as MLK Sr. stood mere feet away.

In July 1976, King's granddaughter, Esther Darlene King, suffered a heart attack while jogging and died.

In his 1981 book, Daddy King: An Autobiography, he wrote: "There are two men I am supposed to hate. One is a white man, the other is black, and both are serving time for having committed murder. James Earl Ray is a prisoner in Tennessee, charged with killing my son. Marcus Chenault was institutionalized after shooting my wife to death.

"I don't hate either one. [There is no time for that, and no reason either.] Nothing that a man does takes him lower than when he allows himself to fall so low as to hate anyone."

He died at age 84 on Nov. 11, 1984,^[1] and is buried in South View Cemetery in Atlanta, Georgia.^[2]

King was a member of the 23rd lodge in Atlanta, Georgia^[4]

Sources

1. ↑ "Georgia Death Index, 1933-1998," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:V491-SLJ : 24 December 2014), Martin L King, 11 Nov 1984; from "Georgia Deaths, 1919-98," database, Ancestry (http://www.ancestry.com : 2001); citing Fulton, Georgia, certificate number 041174, Georgia Health Department, Office of Vital Records, Atlanta.
2. ↑ "MLK" Sr. a pioneer, too," The Atlanta Constitution (Atlanta, Georgia), Thursday, 5 September 2013, pg. B5, col. 2; digital images, Newspapers.com (https://www.newspapers.com : accessed 19 January 2021).
3. ↑ Memorial: Find a Grave (has image)
   Find A Grave: Memorial #9795 (accessed 30 June 2023)
   Memorial page for Rev Martin Luther King Sr. (19 Dec 1899-11 Nov 1984), citing South View Cemetery, Atlanta, Fulton County, Georgia, USA (plot: Next to First Road paralleling Jonesboro Road); Maintained by Find a Grave.
4. ↑ https://www.chicofreemasons.org/lodge-news/2019/2/21/black-history-month-celebrating-famous-black-freemasons

• "United States Census, 1900," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M3N7-TFB : accessed 21 December 2016), Mike King in household of Jim King, Militia Districts 1189, 1406, Adamson, Ellenwood, Clayton, Georgia, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) 10, sheet 20B, family 366, NARA microfilm publication T623 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1972.); FHL microfilm 1,240,188.
• "United States Census, 1910," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:ML2X-7MC : accessed 21 December 2016), Michael King in household of James King Sr., Stockbridge, Henry, Georgia, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) ED 76, sheet 21B, family 290, NARA microfilm publication T624 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1982), roll 198; FHL microfilm 1,374,211.
• "United States World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KZZD-RGZ : 12 December 2014), Michael King, 1917-1918; citing Henry County, Georgia, United States, NARA microfilm publication M1509 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.); FHL microfilm 1,557,075.
• "United States Census, 1930," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:3Q1R-5PZ : accessed 11 January 2018), Marvin L King, Atlanta, Fulton, Georgia, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) ED 63, sheet 20A, line 26, family 190, NARA microfilm publication T626 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 2002), roll 361; FHL microfilm 2,340,096.
• "United States Census, 1940," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:K752-8QG : accessed 11 January 2018), Marvin L King, Ward 5, Atlanta, Atlanta City, Fulton, Georgia, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) 160-241, sheet 13B, line 59, family 268, Sixteenth Census of the United States, 1940, NARA digital publication T627. Records of the Bureau of the Census, 1790 - 2007, RG 29. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 2012, roll 733.