Martin Luther King’s education began at a very early age. His mother was a school teacher who taught the young MLK to read before he even entered school. He attended David T. Howard Elementary School in Atlanta at the age of five years old but the starting age at that time was six so he had to return the next year.

Martin Luther King never really completed high school. MLK Jr. was so intelligent that he skipped his first and last year at Booker T. Washington High School and went directly into college during his junior year. He entered college when he was just 15 years old.

King graduated from Morehouse College in 1948 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in sociology. It was at Morehouse that Martin Luther King was exposed to the writings of Henry David Thoreau. King was inspired by Thoreau’s essay on Civil Disobedience, and it started the momentum that would one day change the landscape of our society.

The church soon called to Martin Luther King and he used its platform to begin his journey towards equality. At seventeen years old, MLK Jr delivered his very first public speech at the Ebenezer Church, where is father was a pastor. King was ordained as a minister and worked closely with the senior King at the church.

In 1948, MLK Jr. attended his first integrated school, Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania. King absorbed the teachings of many inspirational leaders from the past but it is here where he first became exposed to the reflective teachings of Mahatma Gandhi. King graduated with a Bachelor of Divinity degree from Crozer in 1951.

In 1955 MLK became Dr. Martin Luther King when he earned his PhD on theology from Boston University. It was while he attended school in Boston that King met a young Southern girl, Coretta Scott, who was attending the New England Conservatory of Music nearby. Coretta Scott would soon become the wife of Martin Luther King, Jr.