Do you agree that Martin Luther King was the most important factor in helping the Blacks gain more civil rights in the 1960's? Explain your answer.

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Do you agree that Martin Luther King was the most important factor in helping the Blacks gain more civil rights in the 1960’s? Explain your answer.

Martin Luther King originated from Southern America in which conditions were sufficient, but substandard to the conditions in which the whites lived in. He was one of the few blacks to achieve a degree therefore was a well-educated man. In 1948 he graduated from Morehouse College in Atlanta with a B.A, after receiving his bachelor degree he attended Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester winning the Plafker award as the outstanding student at the graduating class.

        In 1865, after the American Civil War black people were no longer slaves but were treated inferior to whites. Blacks had remained second-rate and were given the worst salaried jobs these were amateurish jobs on farms and in factories. They were allowed same facilities as whites but had to be separate, this did not mean equal. Nearly all the time the amenities for the whites were more enhanced; in schools they had fewer books and bigger classes than in the whites schools.  The Jim Crow laws in the southern States made blacks separate but not equal. It was difficult for the blacks to elect other blacks into public offices this was because: you have to register to vote in the United States, and the southern states stopped blacks from registering in various ways; poll taxes were made obligatory on those who registered and for blacks it was difficult as they were too poor to pay; literacy tests were fixed on blacks who wanted to register. If these did not prevent the blacks from having the vote then they were beaten and tortured by the Ku Klux Klan. The Ku Klux Klan was a white subversive activist group.  Members of the Ku Klux Klan believed they were superior to blacks. They dressed in white robes to stress their beliefs. Blacks who tried to vote or gain an education were subjected to name calling, bullying and beatings from white people who supported the aims of the Ku Klux Klan. In the 1960’s there was a need for civil rights as the blacks were being discriminated especially in Southern America, where the, ‘Jim crow’ laws were introduced. Jim Crow was a character in an old song that was released by a white comedian called ‘Daddy Rice’. Rice exploited the character to ridicule and scorn the black people and the manner in which they spoke. The southern states passed a series of laws identified as ‘Jim Crow’ laws, which discriminated against blacks and ensured that they were segregated from whites. The blacks were discriminated the worst in Southern America where Martin Luther King originated.

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           Montgomery Alabama was a heavily segregated state in Southern America. On 1 December 1955, Mrs Rosa Parks, an African-American was arrested in Montgomery for not giving up her seat for a white bus rider. The Alabama law said that Blacks should give up their seats if there was not enough room for White people to sit down. The bus became occupied and there were no seats left, so a white man demanded that Rosa give him her seat. She quietly refused, neither arguing nor moving. The white bus driver threatened to call the police unless ...

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