How Did Martin Luther King Influence The Civil Rights Movement
100 years after the Emancipation Proclamation (a document that freed all slaves), African Americans in the southern states continued to face segregation, oppression, and race-inspired violence. Jim Crow laws barred them from classrooms, bathrooms, juries, and legislatures. Vigalante groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan, used violence and intimidation in order to avert blacks from associating with whites socially, from voting, and even progressing financially. Civil rights activists, such as Maritn Luther King Jr., sought to put an end to such discrimination. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a leader of manifold nonviolent protests during the Civil Rights Era, was said to be the "single most important figure in the African American community's struggle
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for equality" by historians. King was born January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia, by his very religious parents, Martin and Alberta King. During his childhood, he experienced his first encounter of racism. A white, neighborhood child informed King that they would no longer be allowed to play together because of the color of King's skin. After this incident, King was determined to hate white people from that point on. However, his parents encouraged him to be guided by the Christian belief in the notion of brotherly love. As King grew older he began to see more and more racism.
He began to realize what a serious issue it had become in the deep south. Seperate bathrooms, waterfountains, buses, and trains made King feel a sense of shame. King felt inferior. Leaders like King himself, Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, Andrew Goodman, and many more rose to prominence during the Civil Rights Era. Throughout the years, King became very interested in civil disobedience and nonviolent protesting. Soon after World War I and World War II, freedom movements arised all over the world. Many of these movements transpired with the use of violence. King believed in an alternative. He hsppened to be influenced greatly by Mohandas K. Ghandi, a leader that used passive resistance to establish independence for India. In 1944, King graduated early from Booker T. Washington Highschool, a segregated school in Atlanta. Soon after, he was accepted by Morehouse State College where he followed in his father's footsteps and became an ordained minister of the National Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. Later, he would marry his wife, Coretta Scott, in June of 1959 and father four …show more content…
children.
Barely a year after King's arrivel in Montgomery, Alabama, on December 1, 1955, NAACP (National Assocciation of Colored People) secretary, Rosa Parks, refused to move from her seat in the front of the bus.1 This was civil disobedience. Because of her actions, Parks was arrested and sent to jail. However, her act of courage inspired prospering for the Civil Rights Movement.
Around this same time, Martin Luther King Jr.
became head of the MIA (Montgomery Improvement Assocciation), and played a key role in the boycott. The boycott lasted 381 days, eventually coming to an end on December 21, 1956 with the desegration of the Montgomery bus system. Black Americans had successfully taken a great first stride towards freedom. Soon after the boycott on busses ended, the NAACP chose King to be their leader. King was well known for his talent to arouse black southerners and motivating them to participatein marches. He helped gain publicity and sympathy of mainstream Americans. Together, King and the NAACP worked quietly but focrefully to reveal the mistreatment of the African American
race. 1957, the SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference) was formed. SCLC was created to advance the cause of civil rights in America, but in a nonviolent manner. With the leadership of their president, Martin Luther King Jr., black Americans were encouraged to "seek justice and reject all injustice".
Young, black Americans were some of the most inspired by Martin Luther King Jr.'s philosophy of nonvilent protesting. 1957, many of them began to stage sit-ins at segregated lunch counters, parks, hotels, and other public places. Sit-in participants remained calm even as a crowd of angry whites threw food at them and jolsted them.
Febuary 1960,one particular sit-in captured the nation's attention. In Greensboro, North Carolina, four black students, staged a sit-in at Wollworth's department store. Throughout the two month long protest they were joined by dozens of other students, black and white. The purpose of these protests were to demonstrate that businesses would still profit from black customers just as equally as white customers. As a result of the sit-ins, many businesses through northernmost states of the South removed their "Whites Only" signs.
On August 28, 1963, King and and an esimate of half a million participants, participated in the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. King himself and African American leader A. Phillip Randolph orginized the march. People of every race, gender, and social status, joined together to show their support for the African American community.
On the very same day of the march, King stood on the steps of the Washington, D.C., Lincoln Memorial and delivered his most famous speech know as, "I Have a Dream". In the speech King told the crowd, "I have a dream that my four little children will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." Many historians say this speech was perhaps the greatest address in American history.
Soon after, the movement began to show real change. In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil RIghts Act. This law put an end to discrimination on the bases of race in all forms across all 50 states and finally brought an end to the Jim Crow Era in the South. From this point on, black lives would change forever. Even some of the participants in the march began running, and often winning, local and state elections. In 1964, King became the youngest person ever to recieve a Nobel Peace Prize, a very high honor.
April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr., was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennesse, at age 39. His death caused an uproaring of anger among black Americans, as well as a period of national mourning, that helped expediate the path for an equal housing bill that would be the last significant legislative movement of the Civil Rights Era. Before his unfortunate death, King did everything in his power to make the people of America realize that all men are created equal.
Martin Luther King Jr. was a leader that stopped at nothing to achieve justice and stood behind every word he spoke. King's words and perciverience paved a way for the equality America has today.
for equality" by historians. King was born January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia, by his very religious parents, Martin and Alberta King. During his childhood, he experienced his first encounter of racism. A white, neighborhood child informed King that they would no longer be allowed to play together because of the color of King's skin. After this incident, King was determined to hate white people from that point on. However, his parents encouraged him to be guided by the Christian belief in the notion of brotherly love. As King grew older he began to see more and more racism.
He began to realize what a serious issue it had become in the deep south. Seperate bathrooms, waterfountains, buses, and trains made King feel a sense of shame. King felt inferior. Leaders like King himself, Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, Andrew Goodman, and many more rose to prominence during the Civil Rights Era. Throughout the years, King became very interested in civil disobedience and nonviolent protesting. Soon after World War I and World War II, freedom movements arised all over the world. Many of these movements transpired with the use of violence. King believed in an alternative. He hsppened to be influenced greatly by Mohandas K. Ghandi, a leader that used passive resistance to establish independence for India. In 1944, King graduated early from Booker T. Washington Highschool, a segregated school in Atlanta. Soon after, he was accepted by Morehouse State College where he followed in his father's footsteps and became an ordained minister of the National Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. Later, he would marry his wife, Coretta Scott, in June of 1959 and father four …show more content…
children.
Barely a year after King's arrivel in Montgomery, Alabama, on December 1, 1955, NAACP (National Assocciation of Colored People) secretary, Rosa Parks, refused to move from her seat in the front of the bus.1 This was civil disobedience. Because of her actions, Parks was arrested and sent to jail. However, her act of courage inspired prospering for the Civil Rights Movement.
Around this same time, Martin Luther King Jr.
became head of the MIA (Montgomery Improvement Assocciation), and played a key role in the boycott. The boycott lasted 381 days, eventually coming to an end on December 21, 1956 with the desegration of the Montgomery bus system. Black Americans had successfully taken a great first stride towards freedom. Soon after the boycott on busses ended, the NAACP chose King to be their leader. King was well known for his talent to arouse black southerners and motivating them to participatein marches. He helped gain publicity and sympathy of mainstream Americans. Together, King and the NAACP worked quietly but focrefully to reveal the mistreatment of the African American
race. 1957, the SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference) was formed. SCLC was created to advance the cause of civil rights in America, but in a nonviolent manner. With the leadership of their president, Martin Luther King Jr., black Americans were encouraged to "seek justice and reject all injustice".
Young, black Americans were some of the most inspired by Martin Luther King Jr.'s philosophy of nonvilent protesting. 1957, many of them began to stage sit-ins at segregated lunch counters, parks, hotels, and other public places. Sit-in participants remained calm even as a crowd of angry whites threw food at them and jolsted them.
Febuary 1960,one particular sit-in captured the nation's attention. In Greensboro, North Carolina, four black students, staged a sit-in at Wollworth's department store. Throughout the two month long protest they were joined by dozens of other students, black and white. The purpose of these protests were to demonstrate that businesses would still profit from black customers just as equally as white customers. As a result of the sit-ins, many businesses through northernmost states of the South removed their "Whites Only" signs.
On August 28, 1963, King and and an esimate of half a million participants, participated in the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. King himself and African American leader A. Phillip Randolph orginized the march. People of every race, gender, and social status, joined together to show their support for the African American community.
On the very same day of the march, King stood on the steps of the Washington, D.C., Lincoln Memorial and delivered his most famous speech know as, "I Have a Dream". In the speech King told the crowd, "I have a dream that my four little children will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." Many historians say this speech was perhaps the greatest address in American history.
Soon after, the movement began to show real change. In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil RIghts Act. This law put an end to discrimination on the bases of race in all forms across all 50 states and finally brought an end to the Jim Crow Era in the South. From this point on, black lives would change forever. Even some of the participants in the march began running, and often winning, local and state elections. In 1964, King became the youngest person ever to recieve a Nobel Peace Prize, a very high honor.
April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr., was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennesse, at age 39. His death caused an uproaring of anger among black Americans, as well as a period of national mourning, that helped expediate the path for an equal housing bill that would be the last significant legislative movement of the Civil Rights Era. Before his unfortunate death, King did everything in his power to make the people of America realize that all men are created equal.
Martin Luther King Jr. was a leader that stopped at nothing to achieve justice and stood behind every word he spoke. King's words and perciverience paved a way for the equality America has today.