2 Chapter 1 A Perfect Boy

Chapter 1 A Perfect Boy On January 15, 1929, a baby boy was born in the city of Atlanta, Georgia. The doctors said he was perfect. His parents were so happy. They named him Michael, the same name that his father had. But when little Michael was five, his father decided to change both of their names to Martin. So now, the little boy became Martin Luther King, Jr.

Young Martin had a very happy home life. He had an older sister named Willie Christine. (Everyone called her Chris.) He also had a younger brother named Alfred Daniel. The Kings lived in a large house on Auburn Avenue in Atlanta. Their neighborhood was comfortable. No one was very poor or very rich.

There was a lot of love in Martin's family. Martin never remembered his parents arguing. Martin's mother, Alberta Williams King, was very soft-spoken and easygoing. Her father was a wellknown minister. After high school, she went to college, which was something that not many black women did back then. Alberta had a warm personality, and Martin always found it very easy to talk to her.

Martin's father, Martin, Sr., was a large man in many ways. He weighed about 220 pounds and was filled with self-confidence. Martin, Jr., admired his father very much. His father's family was very poor and lived in a rundown shack. They were sharecroppers. A sharecropper is a farmer who does not own his own land. Instead, he works on another farmer's land and gets some of the crops for himself. Martin's father worked hard to get his high-school and college diplomas. After college, he became a minister of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.

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The Ebenezer Baptist Church was like a second home to Martin. He sang in the church choir. He went to Sunday school and made many friends. It was there that Martin learned to get along with all kinds of people—kids as well as teachers.