Martin Luther King Jr. went to several schools, from segregated public schools in Atlanta to some of the most respected colleges and seminaries in the country. His formal education ran from elementary school all the way through a Ph.D. in theology.

Early schooling

  • King began his education at Yonge Street Elementary School in Atlanta, Georgia.
  • He then attended David T. Howard Elementary School and later the Atlanta University Laboratory School.
  • For high school, he went to Booker T. Washington High School in Atlanta, where he skipped grades and showed strong academic ability.

College education

  • Because he scored highly on college entrance exams, King entered Morehouse College in Atlanta at about age 15 without formally graduating high school.
  • He studied sociology at Morehouse and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1948.

Seminary training

  • After Morehouse, King enrolled at Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania in 1948.
  • He completed a Bachelor of Divinity (B.D.) degree there in 1951, graduating at or near the top of his class and serving as student body president.

Doctoral studies

  • King continued his studies at Boston University, where he pursued graduate work in theology.
  • He earned a Ph.D. in systematic theology from Boston University, further shaping the religious and philosophical ideas that informed his civil rights leadership.

In short, when people ask “where did MLK go to school,” they usually mean this path: Morehouse College → Crozer Theological Seminary → Boston University, built on a foundation in Atlanta’s segregated public schools.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.