He was born in Atlanta, GA and grew up there..............he was interested in oratory skills and a good education from the start.............




Growing up in Atlanta, King attended Booker T. Washington High School. He became known for his public speaking ability and was part of the school's debate team.^[17] King became the youngest assistant manager of a newspaper delivery station for the Atlanta Journal in 1942 at age 13.^[18] During his junior year, he won first prize in an oratorical contest sponsored by the Negro Elks Club in Dublin, Georgia. Returning home to Atlanta by bus, he and his teacher were ordered by the driver to stand so white passengers could sit down. King refused initially, but complied after his teacher informed him that he would be breaking the law if he did not go along with the order. He later characterized this incident as "the angriest I have ever been in my life".^[17] A precocious student, he skipped both the ninth and the twelfth grades of high school.^[19] It was during King's junior year that Morehouse College announced it would accept any high school juniors who could pass its entrance exam. At that time, most of the students had abandoned their studies to participate inWorld War II. Due to this, the school became desperate to fill in classrooms. At age 15, King passed the exam and entered Morehouse.^[17] The summer before his last year at Morehouse, in 1947, an eighteen-year old King made the choice to enter the ministry after he concluded the church offered the most assuring way to answer "an inner urge to serve humanity". King's "inner urge" had begun developing and he made peace with the Baptist Church, as he believed he would be a "rational" minister with sermons that were "a respectful force for ideas, even social protest."^[20]