How Did Martin Luther King Influence The Civil Rights Movement

The Civil Rights Movement in 1963 sparked a turning point for all minorities in the United States. Although there had been many advancements towards true civil rights in the past, no one had ever taken it seriously until Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. helped lead a Civil Rights Act to truly get equality in all portions of life. Rev. King was one of the major characters in the Civil Rights Movement who furthered its advancement at the cost of some of his own leisure. On Tuesday, April 16th, 1963, King wrote a letter to several clergymen while sitting in a jail cell in Birmingham, Alabama. He wrote the letter responding to a statement published by eight clergymen calling for battles against prejudice and segregation to be waged in courtrooms
rather than in the streets. He devoted himself to one major goal in the letter: to protect the right to use civil disobedience as a means of protest to preserve the effectiveness of the Civil Rights Movement in America (“Letter” par. 2). Like Gandhi, King used civil disobedience as a means of effectuating government change. It took the form of large-scale, non-violent refusals to obey government commands. Civil Disobedience is the refusal to obey government demands or commands and nonresistance to consequent arrest and punishment. The act of civil disobedience is often a symbolic violation of the law, which is used especially as a nonviolent and collective means of forcing government concessions. Most people who have committed civil disobedience in their society do so with the acceptance of consequences such as arrest, physical beatings, and even death. “An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is, in reality, expressing the highest respect for the law” - Martin Luther King Jr.