Martin Luther King, Jr. When Martin Luther

Martin Luther King, Jr.

When Martin Luther King, Jr. was growing up in Atlanta, Georgia, during the 1930s, he promised his mother: "I'm going to turn this world upside down." A number of years later, he followed his dream and became the leader of America's civil rights movement (Pastan, 5). During his 13 short years of advocacy, King helped Americans recognize the wrongs that were being done against black Americans and, through nonviolent means, offered a way that the United States could rectify its inequities and offer freedom to people of all backgrounds.

On the evening of December 1, 1955, a well-dressed black woman by the name of Rosa Parks boarded the Montgomery, Alabama, city bus after work. When told to move into the "blacks only" section of the bus, she refused. She was arrested and put in jail for violating the segregation laws. At the jail, she was not allowed water from the "whites only" fountain (Kallen, 46). The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) initiated a bus boycott and distributed fliers about Parks incarceration. Thousands of people rallied and gathered in churches (Kallen, 47)

Martin Luther King, Jr., one of the church ministers who had also been involved with the boycott, debated about what he would say in his sermon. He wanted to give people "a sense of direction" and a "passion for justice" (Oates, 69). He also had to find the words to relate to the press and thus to all of America what was taking place at this critical time in history. He realized that it was necessary to combine two apparent irreconcilables "militancy and moderation." (Oates, 70).

We are here, we are here this evening because we are tired now. And I want to say that we are not here advocating violence. We have never done that. I want it to be known throughout Montgomery and throughout this nation (Well) that we are Christian people. We believe in the Christian religion. We believe in the teachings of Jesus. The only weapon that we have in our hands this evening is the weapon of protest. That's all. (Carson, 5).

The boycott lasted 382 days. On December 21, 1956, after the Supreme Court of the United States had declared unconstitutional the laws requiring segregation on buses, blacks and whites rode the buses as equals (Kallen, 48). Throughout these days of boycott, King was arrested, his home was bombed, and he was personally abused, but he also became the leading black American leader (Bullard, 24).

The next year, King was elected president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization created to offer new direction for the rapidly developing civil rights movement. In order to establish this organization, King followed the philosophy of Christianity and Mahatma Gandhi (Oates, 123). During the following 11 years, King traveled over six million miles and gave 2,500 speeches, appearing wherever there was injustice, inequality, protest, and action. He also wrote five books as well as numerous articles (Pastan, 122).

The boycott, Supreme Court decision and the rising civil rights movement triggered a strong white militant backlash. In 1957 when 15-year-old Elizabeth Eckford and seven fellow black students attended their first day at Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, they was attacked by a white mob and could not get into the school (Pastan, 36). Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus, disobeyed the Supreme Courts's Brown v. Board of Education ruling that blacks could attend white schools and pledged to keep the students out (ibid).

This incident once again proved to King that much needed to be done to achieve racial equality. Until the blacks could show their strength and support through voting, individuals such as Faubus would continue in leadership roles (ibid, 38). For King, "Little Rock was a tragic revelation of what prejudice can do to blind the visions of men and darken their understanding" (Oates, 124). However, he saw that this may be "a blessing in disguise." For the first time, the school issue was in front of the American conscience. Now, perhaps, men of good will would realize that the problem had to be dealt with forthrightly (ibid.).

In 1960, four black college students walked into a Woolworth department store in Greensboro, North Carolina, and purchased school supplies. They then sat down at the lunch counter and ordered coffee. They were told that "We don't serve colored here" (Pastan, 42). The men sat at the lunch counter until the store closed. They returned the next day with 19 other black students, and by the end of the week hundreds of youths joined them. These sit-ins, were supported by King as a display of Gandhi's philosophy of nonviolence (ibid).

Later, King walked into another department store in Atlanta and sat down at the "whites only" counter. He and 75 students were put in jail and charged with trespassing. Although the youths were freed and the city made concessions to serve blacks, King was given hard labor for a week based on the fact that he had an earlier traffic violation (ibid, 44). The time in prison would have been longer, but Senator John F. Kennedy had intervened in King's behalf (Oates, 165). When King was freed, he was greeted by people singing "We shall overcome." Sit-ins were staged throughout the U.S., as well as freedom rides where buses of blacks rode from state to go to "whites only" locations (deKay, 58).

Throughout his years of political advocacy, King maintained his support of nonviolence. When he met the more radical Malcolm X in the early 1960s, King thought him very articulate but wished that he would talk less of violence, "because violence is not going to solve our problem ... (it)can reap nothing but grief" (Oates, 252).

In 1961, the government declared that freedom rides were not legal. King took the next step and had the whole city of Albany, Georgia, conduct a sit-in. He did this in other cities as well, but the laws did not change (deKay, 62). Finally, in Birmingham, Alabama, things came to a head. After hundreds of protesters were put into jail, King wrote from his cell to those who urged more patience, "I guess it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say 'Wait,' but freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed" (Bullard, 26). When children walked through the picket line, the country was horrified that they would be jailed. An agreement was made to integrate the downtown (Bullard, 27).

Two years later, after continuing uprisings across the country, the Kennedy Administration was seriously considering the passage of the Civil Rights Act that would integrate the schools and provide for fair employment practices (Dunn, 86). In 1963, a quarter of a million Americans gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial to demand the end of bias. King's speech at this event has since become one of the most recognized of all times, "I have a Dream" (Dunn, 87) "where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers."