We all know who Martin Luther King Jr. is and what his accomplishments were. But did you know that the famous speaker barely got a passing grade in public speaking?
Martin Luther King Jr., born Michael King on January 15, 1929, was a middle child and entered seminary school around the age of thirteen. Afterward, he enrolled in Booker T. Washington High School and skipped the ninth and twelfth grades and then entered the Morehouse College at age fifteen without ever actually graduating from high school.
He graduated from Morehouse in 1948 with a B.A. degree in sociology, and enrolled in Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania. He graduated with a B.Div. degree in 1951. Afterward, he fell in love and married Coretta Scott, on June 18, 1953, in her hometown of Heiberger, Alabama. They had four children together.
While King was attending Crozer Theological Seminary school, he received only a C+ in public speaking.
It’s hard to believe that the man who would become the most prolific speaker of our time who would deliver the I Have A Dream speech could come so close to failing a course in public speaking. His near failure turned out to become a success!