In the same year, ministers from the MIA joined other ministers from around the South in Atlanta, Georgia. They founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and elected Martin Luther King, Jr., as president. The SCLC would work in various areas of the South for many years, continuing the non-violent fight for civil rights, which started in Birmingham, however King later admitted in 1959 that the SCLC had achieved little in its first three years.
Martin Luther King also helped significantly in 1960-2 to get the SCLC, CORE, NACCP and SNCC to work together on voter registration.
In 1957, King addressed the Prayer Pilgrimage in Washington D.C. in what at that time was unheard of, with 25,000 black people gathering in peaceful protest. King once more played to the importance of fighting within the system.
Six years later, in his famous speech at the 1963 March on Washington, King reached out to his fellow citizens, both blacks and whites, by pleading that black people should be allowed to be a part of the American Dream, sharing equal rights with white people.
The march on Washington and I have a dream speech:
”I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal.
I have a dream that one day out in the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave-owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live and a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by their character.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; that one day right down in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.”
(Extract from speech)
This speech showed his determination to change White American prejudice and discrimination. It also created a powerful image, and built a momentum for civil rights legislation. However, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would not fight to get his way. He believed that the only way to get a lot of people to listen was to have them see he was peaceful. Martin Luther King Jr. insisted that the march on Washington was for jobs, as well as for freedom.
King is arrested and jailed during anti-segregation protests in Birmingham. He wrote Letter From Birmingham City Jail, arguing that individuals have the moral duty to disobey unjust laws. Martin Luther King Jr., in his letter, wrote that the greatest stumbling block to justice for black Americans was "not the White citizens Councillor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to 'order' than to justice; this was the Martin Luther King Jr. who declared that "we are engaged in a social revolution . . . that seeks to bring about . . . basic structural changes in the architecture of American society," recognizing that America was also engaged in a class struggle between the haves and the have-nots.
However, events like the Brown vs. Topeka case and the Little Rock incidents took place without King or the SCLC. In 1960, the civil rights movements exploded into life and King had little to do with it. It began in Greensboro with the first sit-in against the Jim Crow Laws. It is later that a Greensboro SCLC member contacted King about the sit-ins. So he was led rather than him doing the leading.
They continued in some areas of the South until and even after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 declared segregation at lunch counters unlawful. In addition, the technique of the sit-ins was used to integrate other public facilities, such as movie theatres, and SNCC, the student group that rose out of the sit-ins, continued to be involved in the civil rights movement for many years. Perhaps most importantly, the sit-ins marked a change in the civil rights movement.
In 1961 there were freedom riots led by core. Students rode on interstate buses to try and end transport segregation. Core initiated the ides but it was King who used them to get CORE, SCLC and the SNCC to work together.
Other leaders did not believe in King’s non-violent methods of getting Civil Rights. One of these leaders was Malcolm X.
He was at first bitterly critical of King’s methods and believed that the civil rights movement held back black people He wanted to see black Americans rise up and create their own separate black state in the USA, by force if necessary.
He felt that "Concerning non-violence, it is criminal to teach a man not to defend himself when he is the constant victim of brutal attacks."
However, after a while he became less critical and became more accepting. Martin and Malcolm even met each other once.
He then said "I want Dr. King to know that I didn't come to Selma to make his job difficult. I really did come thinking I could make it easier. If the white people realize what the alternative is, perhaps they will be more willing to hear Dr. King" showing that he was willing to help Martin Luther King.
Another leader who believed in violent methods was Huey Newton. Newton, founded the Black Panther Party for Self Defense. The Panthers called on all blacks to arm themselves for the liberation struggle.
The militant party engaged in several high profile, violent confrontations with police. In 1967, Newton was convicted of voluntary manslaughter for killing a policeman. After three mistrials, Newton was cleared in 1971. That same year he announced the Panthers would embrace a non-violent strategy and shift their focus to offering community services to African Americans.
Other leaders like Marcus Garvey, an American proponent of Black Nationalism believed that blacks should move back to Africa.
Garvey addressed himself to the lowest classes of blacks and rejected any notion of integration. Convinced that blacks could not secure their rights in countries where they were a minority race, he urged a “back to Africa” movement.
The involvement of the two political leaders, President Kennedy and President Johnson are also important because they passed the two main laws, The 1964 Civil Rights Act and the Voting Act of 1965 which showed the progress Blacks had made because they were now seen as equal and they could now vote.
Martin Luther met the two Presidents because of his peaceful movements. When he got the Presidents to listen he had lots of people that wanted his dream. He won the Nobel Peace Prize for his peaceful demonstrations.
By looking at all points, I can conclude that King was not the most important factor in helping Blacks gain more Civil Rights in the 1960s. I believe this because all evidence showed that he was the one great leader who made change occur when different leaders just argued over different things.
He helped to change America. He brought to the world's attention how unfairly blacks were treated. This led to new laws that ended the practice of keeping people of different backgrounds apart, making life fairer for everyone. Martin Luther King Jr. lived on a tightrope, embodying the tension between working within the existing system and its ground-rules, and seeking to transform that system according to a different set of values and priorities.
From the day the NAACP was founded, the civil rights movement in America has had to walk a tightrope. On the one hand, it has sought justice and equality within the social, political and economic system that exists in our society. On the other, it has worked heroically to change the nature and structure of that system to make more possible the realization of freedom. He worked for equality for all people. His rights were not equal when he was growing up. He felt it was his job to make the world an equal place for all people.
However he needed the help of others to make these changes occur. He used his own ideas and the ideas of others to lead movements that were usually successful. His strong leadership and unprecedented power of speech gave people the faith and courage to keep working peacefully even when others did not
His assassination was claimed to have stirred the conscience of whit America more than his life. Without King’s determination, both the political leaders will have done nothing for the blacks but he could not have succeeded on his own.
