Martin Luther King Jr. was born on Tuesday, January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia. He lived with his mom, dad, and grandparents. His mother was a teacher, and she taught Martin how to read before he went to school. She also taught him and all the other children the piano. He was so smart for his age, he skipped grades. While out of school, he liked to read, sing, bike riding, and play baseball and football. In high school, he was also a good dancer and a sharp dresser. His nickname was "Tweed."

Martin went to Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, when he was only 15 years of age. Morehouse College was an all black school. After a little while, in the first semester, school started to get hard and confusing. Sometimes he didn't know what other students were talking about in class. One of teachers gave him an achievement test. The test showed that he was 4 years behind in reading. At first he thought there had been a mistake. But then one of his professors told him the truth. His test scores at his old school had been low. Since he was at an all black school, the school board hadn't thought of the grades. He was so mad about this he thought about giving up. Martin began doing extra work to improve his reading level. A teacher started to help him with his vocabulary. She told him to look up tough words in the dictionary and use them everyday. He started using advanced words, instead of "resting" he used "quiescent." Sometimes he made up new words. By his sophomore year he began to get A's again. He also was able to join the college football team. Now people started to call him Martin, instead of "Tweed." Just before he graduated, in 1948, from Morehouse he was ordained as a minister. Next he went on to Boston University to earn his Ph.D degree in theology in the year of 1955.
 
 

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