WHEREAS, During his time in Boston, Dr. King met and courted
Coretta Scott; and
WHEREAS, Dr. King and Coretta Scott were married in June of
1953 in Alabama and had four children, Yolanda Denise, Martin
Luther III, Dexter Scott and Bernice Albertine; and
WHEREAS, Through the 1950s and 1960s, drawing inspiration
from his Christian faith and the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi,
Dr. King led a nonviolent movement to achieve legal equality for
African Americans in the United States; and
WHEREAS, Dr. King used the power of words and acts of
nonviolent resistance such as protests, grassroots organizing
and civil disobedience to achieve seemingly impossible goals;
and
WHEREAS, In addition to leading the movement to achieve legal
equality for African Americans, Dr. King lead campaigns against
poverty and international conflict; and
WHEREAS, In 1955, Dr. King served as the spokesman for the
Montgomery Bus Boycott, which was a campaign by the African-
American population of Montgomery, Alabama, to integrate the
city's bus lines; and
WHEREAS, Three hundred eighty-two days after near-universal
participation by the African-American citizens of Montgomery,
the Supreme Court of the United States ruled racial segregation
in transportation to be unconstitutional; and
WHEREAS, Dr. King was elected president of the Southern
Christian Leadership Conference in 1957; and
WHEREAS, Dr. King served as head of that organization,
designed to provide new leadership for the civil rights
movement, until he was assassinated in 1968; and
WHEREAS, In 1963, Dr. King led a coalition of civil rights
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