It is because of Martin Luther King and his movement that the United States can.

Martin Luther King Jr.: A Man with a Vision

November 3, 2002

It is because of Martin Luther King and his movement that the United States can

claim to be a free, equal nation. Martin Luther King was a black civil rights and peace activist. King accomplished his goals by his nonviolent acts. He led marches, sit-ins, and protests and made many inspirational speeches and writings. King took a lot of persecution throughout his movement, he was jailed, threaten and even had his house bombed. Even though he was put through so much he still proceeded and would not give up on his struggle for racial equality. Martin Luther King changed the way people treated each other and was able to influence the American government to get rid of segregation and injustice.

King was a man with a high degree of education. As a child he attended local segregated public schools in Atlanta, Georgia, which was where he was born. Even as a child King excelled in school. At the age of fifteen King attended Morehouse College and graduated at nineteen. After he finished with honours from Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania when he was twenty-two, King went to Boston University where he earned a doctoral degree in systematic theology. King was not only well educated but he had a tremendous speaking ability.

King’s speaking ability developed throughout his collegiate years, which would become notable, as his reputation grew. King won a second-place prize in a speech contest while he was an undergraduate at Morehouse. King was also recognized by his professors at Crozer who complimented him for the powerful impression he made in public speeches and discussions. Throughout King’s education he was exposed to influences that related Christian theology to the struggles of persecuted peoples (Encarta, 2002, Online).

At Morehouse, Crozer and Boston University, King became very familiar with the teachings of the nonviolent protest of Indian leader Mohandas Ghandi. King also read and heard the sermons of white Protestant ministers who preached against racism. After going to India in 1959 King met with followers of Gandhi and it was during those discussions where he became even more convinced than ever that non violent resistance was the most effective weapon available for oppressed people in their struggle for freedom (, 1996). When King related violence as a way of achieving racial justice he said it:

… is both impractical and immoral. It is impractical because it is a

descending spiral ending in destruction for all. It is immoral because it

seeks to humiliate the opponent rather then win his understanding; it

seeks to annihilate rather than convert. Violence is immoral because it

thrives on hatred rather than love.

King wrote in his letter from Birmingham that “in any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: collection of the facts to determine whether injustice exists, negotiation, self-purification and direct action.” Martin Luther King’s beliefs came from his Christian background and he found ...

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… is both impractical and immoral. It is impractical because it is a

descending spiral ending in destruction for all. It is immoral because it

seeks to humiliate the opponent rather then win his understanding; it

seeks to annihilate rather than convert. Violence is immoral because it

thrives on hatred rather than love.

King spoke about and found inspiration in the Old Testament story of the Israelites and New Testament gospels of Jesus Christ, which ideally suited him to leading a Stride toward Freedom. Being a minister put King in touch with the spirit of black masses and also gave him a base within the black church (J. White, 2002, ). As a pastor of a Baptist church in Montgomery, Alabama, King led a bus boycott.

On December 5, 1995, five days after Montgomery civil rights activist Rosa Parks refused to obey the city’s rules ordering segregation on buses, black residents started a bus boycott and elected King as president of the newly formed Montgomery Improvement Association. The boycott lasted over a year and King gained national recognition as a result of his exceptional speaking abilities and personal courage. During the boycott King’s house was bombed and he was convicted along with other boycott leaders on charges of conspiring to interfere with the bus company’s operations (Stanford University, 2002, Online). Despite the attempts taken to stop the movement, Montgomery buses were desecrated on December 1956, after the United States Supreme Court declared Alabama’s segregation laws unconstitutional. After the success of the Montgomery boycott movement, King and other Southern black ministers founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).

King became president of the SCLC, an organization that aimed to challenge racial segregation. The SCLC wanted to get rid of segregation through the courts; King and other SCLC leaders encouraged the use of nonviolent direct action to protest discrimination. These protests included marches, sit-ins, and boycotts. King wrote in his Letter from Birmingham Jail “The purpose of our direct action program is to create a situation so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation. That is exactly what happened when violent responses followed protests and that caused the federal government to confront the issues of injustice and racism in the South. Due to King’s rising success he started a series of campaigns in the early 1960’s.

The first was in 1961 in Albany, Georgia, where the SCLC joined local demonstrations against local hotels, transit and housing. SCLC increased the size of demonstrations, trying to create disorder that would cause white officials to end segregation to restore normal business relations. This strategy did not work and forced them to quit (Encarta, 2002, Online). After King achieved few of his goals in Albany, he realized he and his staff needed to organize a successful campaign free of conflicts.

In spring of 1963, King and SCLC lead mass demonstrations in Birmingham, Alabama. There the local white police were known for their violent opposition to integration. The unarmed black demonstrators were attacked with dogs and fire hoses. These events made headlines through the world and in June, President Kennedy reacted to the Birmingham protests and the stubbornness of segregationist Alabama Governor, George Wallace by agreeing to propose broad civil rights legislation to congress, which led to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Stanford University, 2002, Online). Following this protest King and other black leaders came together in a march on August 28.

This was a massive protest and was for jobs and civil rights. It attracted over 200 000 protestors to Washington D.C. Addressing these marchers King delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech from the steps of Lincoln Memorial. His speech expressed the hopes of the civil rights movement. King said, “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed.” “…I have a dream that my four little children will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character.” His speech and the march added to his other demonstrations to create the political energy that resulted in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibited segregation in public accommodations as well as discrimination in education and employment (Encarta, 2002, Online).

As a result of King’s effectiveness as a leader of the American Civil Rights movement and his highly visible moral position he was awarded the 1964 Nobel Prize for peace. After all of his success King was still not satisfied and wanted to gain voting rights.

In 1965 SCLC joined a voting rights protest march that planned to go from Selma, Alabama, to the state Capitol of Montgomery. The goal of this march was to draw national attention to the struggle for black voting rights in the state. The protestors were beaten and tear gassed just outside of Selma, and the televised events resulted in increased support to continue the march. SCLC petitioned for and received a federal court order for preventing the police from interfering in their march. When the marchers arrived in Montgomery five days later King addressed a rally of over 20 000 people in front of the Capitol building. The march resulted in the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which President Lyndon Johnson signed into law in August. This law stopped the use of literacy tests and other voter qualification tests that often had been used to prevent blacks from registering to vote (Encarta, 2002, Online).

After the march, King changed his focus and started to turn towards economic issues. He began to argue for equal distribution of the nation’s economic wealth to overcome black poverty. In 1967 he began planning a Poor People’s campaign to pressure national law makers to address the issue of economic justice.

Due to the success of Martin Luther King and his movement the United States can claim to be a free, equal nation. Martin Luther King committed his life to give the right of equality for all races. He knew the truth and took it upon himself to make sure everyone could enjoy it. It is too bad it had to take a man’s death to change a nation, but King said himself that, “If physical death is the price I must pay to free my white brothers and sisters from the permanent death of the spirit then nothing could be more redemptive.” Martin Luther King Jr. is remembered and respected today as a martyr of the civil rights movement and a representative of change through nonviolent means (Stanford University, 2002, Online).

REFRENCES

White, J. (2002, November 2). Martin Luther King [Online]. Available:

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King, M. (2002, November 2). Martin Luther King - Letter from Birmingham

Jail. [Online]. Available:

(1996, January). Martin Luther King Jr. - Civil Rights Leader. [Online]. Available:

http://www.lucidcafe.com/lucidcafe/library/96jan/king.html

Time. (2002, November, 2). Martin Luther King. [Online]. Available:

Encarta. (2002, October 29). Martin Luther King Jr. [Online]. Available:

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