Martin Luther King, Jr. was born on January 15, 1929, at his family home in Atlanta, Georgia.King earned his own Bachelor of Divinity degree from Crozier Theological Seminary in 1951, and earned his Doctor of Philosophy from Boston University, in 1955.While at seminary, King became acquainted with Mohandas Gandhi's philosophy of nonviolent social protest.During these discussions he became more convinced than ever that nonviolent resistance was the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom.As a pastor of a Baptist church in Montgomery, Alabama, King lead a Black bus boycott.King promoted non-violent means to achieve civil-rights reform and was awarded the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts.King's grandfather was a Baptist preacher.In Birmingham, the goal was to completely end the system of segregation in every aspect of public life (stores, no separate bathrooms and drinking fountains, etc.) and in job discrimination.King was an eloquent Baptist minister and leader of the civil-rights movement in America, from the Mid-1950s until his death, by assassination, in 1968.