Martin Luther King Jr.: Hero of the Civil Rights Movement

Introduction

There are people in this world who are self-interested and live with a single purpose: to promote themselves and better their own situation. Then there are others who work and sacrifice in order to make the lives of other people better. Martin Luther King, Jr. is most assuredly one of the latter. He is revered as a person who made the ultimate sacrifice in order to secure the civil rights of African-Americans. King was imprisoned, arrested multiple times, suffered physical injuries, and was ultimately assassinated because of his role as a leader of the movement. Martin Luther King, Jr. is a heroic figure because he led fellow African-Americans on successful boycotts and protests to oppose segregation and prejudice, organized the March on Washington where he delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech — inspiring all those who heard it and the subsequent generations who have read it — and because he advocated peaceful means of fighting for justice as opposed to the violent methods favored by other groups and by their opposition.

The Montgomery Bus Boycott

During the Civil Rights Movement in the middle of the twentieth century, African-Americans fought for rights that were already guaranteed to them by the Constitution. Despite being Americans, African-Americans were treated abysmally. In the century following slavery, they had been treated as second-class citizens. Many parts of the country, particularly in the South, made it difficult for African-Americans to hold any kind of substantial employment, to attend adequate schools, to eat in diners alongside white people, or even to sit in the front seats of buses. They were denied the right to vote and were unable to receive fair treatment under the law.

Martin Luther King, Jr. fought to end this injustice through protests, demonstrations, and boycotts. One of the most successful was the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which took place in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955. It was the expectation that if a white man or woman boarded a bus and there were no seats in the front section, an African-American passenger would stand and surrender their seat. King organized the boycott following the arrest of Rosa Parks, who had refused to give up her seat to a white man (Manheimer 103). Because most of the bus riders were African-Americans who depended on public transportation to travel to and from work, the boycott dealt a severe financial blow to the transit companies. Martin Luther King urged his comrades not to compromise, but to continue the boycott until they were permitted to sit wherever they chose — and he did so despite the offer of bribes, despite physical threats to himself and his family, and despite being arrested.

The March on Washington and the 'I Have a Dream' Speech

During the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, King walked to the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and spoke for seventeen minutes, choosing to depart from the remarks he had originally prepared. The purpose of the march was to make the distress of the African-American community apparent to every citizen in the country. Marchers wanted to voice their displeasure with the government's progress on civil rights up to that point. They demanded an end to segregation in public schools, the immediate passage of civil rights legislation that would actually enforce their rights, and a minimum wage of two dollars an hour for all workers regardless of race (Singleton 454). In his most famous speech, King expressed his dream that people would one day be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.