Whereas Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Junior, was born January 15, 1929; Whereas Dr. King attended segregated public schools in Georgia, and began attending Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, at the age of 15; Whereas, in February of 1948, Dr. King was ordained in the Christian ministry at the age of 19 at Ebenezer Baptist Church, in Atlanta, Georgia, and became Assistant Pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church; Whereas Dr. King was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1948 from Morehouse College, a Bachelor of Divinity degree in 1951, from Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania, and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in theology in 1955, from Boston University; Whereas, in Boston, Massachusetts, Dr. King met Coretta Scott, his life partner and fellow civil rights activist; Whereas, on June 18, 1953, Dr. King and Coretta Scott were married and later had two sons and two daughters; Whereas, in 1954, Dr. King accepted the call of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, and was pastor from September 1954 to November 1959, when he resigned to move back to Atlanta to lead the Southern Christian Leadership Conference; Whereas Dr. King led the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott for 381 days to protest the arrest of Rosa Parks and the segregation of the bus system of Montgomery, during which time Dr. King was arrested and the home of Dr. King was bombed; Whereas Dr. King responded to arrests and violence with nonviolence and courage in the face of hatred; Whereas the Montgomery bus boycott was the first great nonviolent civil rights demonstration of contemporary times in the United States; Whereas, on December 13, 1956, the Supreme Court declared laws requiring segregation on buses unconstitutional; Whereas, between 1957 and 1968, Dr. King traveled more than 6,000,000 miles, spoke more than 2,500 times, and wrote 5 books and numerous articles supporting efforts around the country to end injustice and bring about social change and desegregation