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Martin Luther King, Jr.
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The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is, hands-down, the most exalted figure in the Civil Rights Movement, which mobilized to expand the rights and freedoms of African Americans in the 1950s and '60s. He was born Michael King, Jr., in...
The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is, hands-down, the most exalted figure in the Civil Rights Movement, which mobilized to expand the rights and freedoms of African Americans in the 1950s and '60s. He was born Michael King, Jr., in Atlanta, Georgia, on January 15, 1929, and he was assassinated on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee, when he was only 39 years old. Over the course of his short life, his anti-racism activism, nonviolent philosophy, and stirring speeches changed the United States forever.
Dr. King, also known as MLK, was a controversial figure when he was alive. But in the decades since his death, he's come to symbolize a gentle ideal of racial harmony that's palatable across the political spectrum and preached in churches and classrooms around the United States—particularly on the January federal holiday honoring the activist's birth. The scholar Cornell West refers to this white-washing as the "Santa Clausification" of Martin Luther King.
King was born into the segregated Jim Crow South, where black Americans were forced to use separate and subpar water fountains, bathrooms, and schools—and were unwelcome in white-owned businesses. Black Southerners were tormented by regular acts of white terrorism, including lynchings, police brutality, intimidation, and night rides by racist vigilantes like the Ku Klux Klan. Poll taxes and literacy tests prevented most black Southerners from registering to vote.
As a young man, King studied sociology, divinity, and theology at, respectively, Morehouse College in Atlanta; Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania; and Boston University. When he was 24, in 1953, King married Coretta Scott, who was an Alabama-born music student in Boston. In 1954, King began to serve as minister of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. In 1955, MLK received his Ph.D. in systematic theology from Boston University. Eventually, the couple had four children, Yolanda (1955–2007), Martin Luther III (b. 1957), Dexter Scott (b. 1961), and Bernice (b. 1963).
At the time, Southern cities allowed public buses to designate the first rows of seats as "whites-only," while the rest were considered "coloreds" seats. But if the first rows of the bus filled up, black people in the front-most rows of the "coloreds" section were expected to get up and move to the back to make room for white riders, possibly standing the rest of their trip. In the '40s and '50s, a handful of African American women activists openly defied these rules, refusing to give up "colored" seats for white riders, and were arrested.
But the Civil Rights Movement really coalesced in August 1955, after 14-year-old Emmett Till was brutally murdered in Mississippi shortly after a white woman lied about him, claiming he had flirted with her. On December 1, 1955, 42-year-old Rosa Parks—an activist and secretary of the Montgomery, Alabama, chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)—was asked to move to the back of the bus after the whites-only section of a local bus filled up. She moved to the window seat at the front of the "colored" section instead of getting up, and was arrested for her defiance.
In response to her arrest, local civil-right activists sprang into action to launch the Montgomery Bus Boycott. On December 5, 1955, a rainy Monday, black commuters in Alabama's state capitol carpooled, rode in black-owned cabs that charged the same 10-cent bus fare, or walked as far as 20 miles to and from work. Activists, including local NAACP chapter president Edgar Daniel Nixon, gathered that night to discuss forming an organization for the boycott, the Montgomery Improvement Association, and appointed the young pastor Martin Luther King, Jr., the leader. The boycott lasted 385 days; during which King was arrested, and his home, where he lived with Coretta and their infant girl, Yolanda, was bombed. On June 5, 1956, a federal court in the case the Browder v. Gayle declared bus segregation unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the ruling on November 13, 1956. (In 1958, King published a book recounting his experience with the Montgomery Bus Boycotts, Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story.)
On January 10, 1957, King—along with Ralph Abernathy, Fred Shuttlesworth, Joseph Lowery, and other civil-rights activists—formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in Atlanta, Georgia. The goal of the SCLC was to tap into the unique organizing force and moral authority of black churches to organize black Southerners in nonviolent protests. King and other activists understood that though the protestors would engage in nonviolent tactics, violence would be used against them. The SCLC established an office in Atlanta, and hired Ella Baker as its only paid staff member.
King was initially inspired by the religious crusades of his new friend, white evangelist Billy Graham, and sought the famous minister's counsel. Graham continued to help MLK behind the scenes—even bailing him out of jail once—and preached in favor of integration and equality. But when Graham preached in the deep South, he supported upholding the segregation that was the norm.
The SCLC was controversial for many reasons. First, its means of nonviolent protests, which seem gentle to modern Americans, were considered brazen at the time. Instead of settling the matter quietly in the courts, SCLC activists were demanding immediate action, engaging in boycotts and marches, which drew open hostility from white Southerners. Second, many ministers, even black ministers, felt that the church should stay out of politics. Meanwhile, King and the SCLC also faced criticism from other civil-rights organizations emerging at the time—including the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)—for not being radical enough. Those two organizations were leading risky nonviolent protests like sit-ins at lunch counters in the late '50s and Freedom Rides on interstate buses in the early '60s.
In October 1961, King and the SCLC became involved in the nonviolent movement to desegregate Albany, Georgia, led by SNCC and NAACP. King was arrested and jailed twice in Albany before the effort fizzled out.
In April 1963, MLK led a campaign standing against racism and economic inequality in Birmingham, Alabama, which was known for extreme segregation, unsolved racially motivated bombings, and an overtly racist police commissioner, Eugene "Bull" Connor. Connor, who claimed the Civil Rights Movement was a Communist plot. Connor had delayed sending his officers to rescue Freedom Riders from violent white mobs.
The SCLC and black residents of Birmingham staged sit-ins at libraries and lunch counters, kneel-ins at white churches, and demonstrations in public places, particularly downtown Birmingham. The strategy was to over-crowd the jail with demonstrators until the protest could not be ignored, as MLK used his rising profile to raise funds for the protestors' bail.
On April 12, 1963, King elected to join a demonstration that violated a new anti-protest injunction ordered by Connor, and was arrested with 50 others. His incarceration, his 13th arrest, drew national concern. There, King wrote his famous "Letter from Birmingham Jail" admonishing moderate white ministers for refusing to support the cause. King's supporters, his wife, Coretta Scott King, and local businesses suffering from the bad publicity, all petitioned President John F. Kennedy on King's behalf, and the reverend was released on April 20.
Even though King had reservations, SCLC director James Bevel recruited students—from elementary school to college—to participate in nonviolent actions. The first children's protest occurred on May 2, 1963, and about 600 of youth protestors—at least one as young as age 9—were herded into the local jail, cramming the already-packed cells. The next day, Connor ordered his men to use high-pressure water hoses and attack dogs on a new group of 1,000 student protestors.
While the SCLC was criticized for putting children in danger, the demonstrations drew national media coverage, by the "New York Times," "Life" magazine, and TV networks. Images of children being assaulted by Connor's police shocked the nation. The media coverage coalesced support for King among the black community, and celebrities and New York City rabbis descended on Birmingham to rally for the protestors. Conflicts escalated, as Connor hosed and arrested more and more protestors, and Alabama's governor sent state troopers to help Connor. King was targeted with bombings, and the arrival of the state forces angered the demonstrators so much, they began to riot. As King reminded protestors of their pledge to remain nonviolent, on May 13, the National Guard was sent to Birmingham to restore order.
As a result of the campaign, Bull Connor was forced to resign, Birmingham was pressured to desegregate, and King, praised as a national hero, became a household name. With all the national furor over Birmingham, Northerners were awakened to the brutal reality of Southern segregation, and federal legislation protecting civil rights became a real possibility.
That summer, the SCLC came together with five other civil rights organizations to stage the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963, which demanded an end to school segregation, the passage of civil rights laws, protection from employment discrimination, a higher minimum wage, a jobs program, and protection from police brutality. It's estimated between 200,000 to 300,000 people gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial in D.C. that day to listen to the speakers from each group, including John Lewis of SNCC. There, the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., gave his famous 17-minute speech, now known as "I Have a Dream," which was broadcast on national television:
"I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.' I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four little children (will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."
After the march, the speakers were invited to the White House to speak with Kennedy about civil rights legislation. Prior to the march, the president put pressure on organizers to refrain from indicting the federal government. Author James Baldwin had been rejected from speaking for fear he would be too inflammatory, and black women were denied any real opportunity at the mic. Militant activist Malcolm X criticized the March on Washington, saying the black anger that inspired the march had been watered down by the participation of the U.S. government and white activist organizations.
President Kennedy had proposed a congressional bill guaranteeing civil rights in June, but he was assassinated on November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas, before it gained much traction. He was succeeded by Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, who pushed the bill forward.
Of course, the March on Washington still outraged and inflamed ardent segregationists and other flagrant racists. In retaliation, the Ku Klux Klan bombed the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham on Sunday morning, September 15, 1963, killing four little black girls.
After his "I Have a Dream" speech, the FBI labeled King as "the most dangerous and effective Negro leader in the country," and made plans to force him out of his leadership role. FBI director J. Edgar Hoover considered Dr. King a radical, and in late 1963, ordered the surveillance of Dr. King as a part of COINTELPRO. From that time until his death, the FBI kept tabs on his activities and extramarital affairs, investigated him for Communist ties, and even sent him an anonymous menacing letter King believed was intended to convince him to kill himself.
In January 1964, "Time" magazine named Dr. King its "Man of the Year" for 1963, making him the first African American to receive that designation. He spent much of the spring and summer organizing protests with Robert Hayling's group in St. Augustine, Florida.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was signed into law on July 2. It bans discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin for voter registration, schools, employment, and public services. That month, King published a book called Why We Can't Wait about the lessons of Birmingham. On October 14, 1964, MLK was notified he would be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway, in December. At age 35, he was the youngest man to receive the honor.
Also in December 1964, King and the SCLC headed to Selma, Alabama, to join efforts by SNCC and the Dallas County Voters League to register African American citizens to vote. After black activist Jimmie Lee Jackson was murdered, SCLC's James Bevel called for a long march, 54 miles, from Selma to Alabama's state capitol, Montgomery. Prior to the march, King wielded his celebrity status to get a brief meeting with President Lyndon B. Johnson to promote a law to protect voting rights. (In the meantime, militant black activist Malcolm X was assassinated in Manhattan on February 21, 1965.)
The first march, led by John Lewis, took place on March 7, 1965. King was not in attendance. State troopers and local possemen met the unarmed marchers at the county line on Edmund Pettus Bridge and violently attacked them. Civil rights activist Amelia Boynton Robinson was beaten unconscious, seen in a widely distributed news photo, and the day became known as "Bloody Sunday."
Two days later, the marchers, this time led by King, struck out again, and were met by state troopers again. MLK, who was seeking federal protection in courts for the protest, and led the marchers back to their church in Selma. King was widely criticized in the black activist community for his decision to comply and do a "turnaround." A white Unitarian minister from Boston, James Reeb, who'd come to Selma to join the march was murdered that night. His death and the violent images from the first march led to a national uproar.
President Johnson, who planned to follow the Civil Right Act with the Voting Rights Act, held a televised joint session of Congress on March 15, 1965, to advocate for his bill. Governor George Wallace refused to protect the protestors, but Johnson pledged federal support. The third march started on March 21, but this time, the demonstrators—led by King, Lewis, Abernathy, and Shuttlesworth—were guarded by the Alabama National Guard, FBI agents, and Federal Marshals. By the time the marchers reached Montgomery on March 24, 25,000 people had joined the procession. On March 25, Dr. King gave a speech known as "How Long, Not Long," saying equality for black Americans should be arriving soon because, "because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which prohibits racial discrimination in voting, on August 6.
In spring 1966, King traveled to Chicago to help organizations fighting for fair housing in the Chicago Freedom Movement, and in the summer, he joined the largest civil-rights protest in Mississippi, the March Against Fear, where SNCC leader Stokely Carmichael introduced the nation to the concept of "Black Power."
By 1967, King, who was increasingly turning his attention toward matters of economic injustice, began speaking out publicly against the Vietnam War. At a New York City appearance on April 4, 1967, he said, "A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say: 'This is not just.'" King's criticism of the war cost him the support of President Johnson, the Reverend Billy Graham, union leaders, and important newspaper publishers.
In 1967, King laid out his plan to address economic inequality and poverty in his book, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?, which included Henry George's concept of a guaranteed basic income, and called on the United States to invest in rebuilding cities. Toward the end of the year, King and the SCLC began to plan a Washington, D.C., demonstration called the Poor People's Campaign that pushed for ideas so revolutionary it was controversial even within the Civil Rights Movement.
On March 29, 1968, King traveled to Memphis, Tennessee, to support striking black sanitation workers; his flight had been delayed because of a bomb threat against him. On April 3, King addressed a rally with his "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech, in which he said, " We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land."
The next day, April 4, 1968, King was shot and killed by James Earl Ray outside his room on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis (which is now the site of the National Civil Rights Museum). News of King's assassination prompted race riots in cities around the United States, including Washington, D.C., Chicago, Baltimore, Louisville, and Kansas City. President Johnson declared April 7 a national day of mourning for the slain activist.
Just a week after King's murder, on April 11, President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1968, also known as the Fair Housing Act, which banned racial discrimination in the sale, renting, and financing of housing. However, the law also passed with a rider meant to discourage further protests, outlawing "travel in interstate commerce... with the intent to incite, promote, encourage, participate in and carry on a riot".
Ralph Abernathy took the reins at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. With the help of Coretta Scott King, the Poor Peoples' Campaign, meant to elevate indigent Americans of all races, went ahead in D.C., and lasted from May 12 to June 24, 1968. At the time, 40 to 60 million Americans were living below the poverty line. The demonstration involved thousands of protestors establishing a shantytown known as Resurrection City, and it was not portrayed in a favorable light by the media. However, the protest did lead to some small gains, such as funds for school lunches and Head Start programs in Alabama and Mississippi.
Continue readingThe Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is, hands-down, the most exalted figure in the Civil Rights Movement, which mobilized to expand the rights and freedoms of African Americans in the 1950s and '60s. He was born Michael King, Jr., in Atlanta, Georgia, on January 15, 1929, and he was assassinated on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee, when he was only 39 years old. Over the course of his short life, his anti-racism activism, nonviolent philosophy, and stirring speeches changed the United States forever.
Dr. King, also known as MLK, was a controversial figure when he was alive. But in the decades since his death, he's come to symbolize a gentle ideal of racial harmony that's palatable across the political spectrum and preached in churches and classrooms around the United States—particularly on the January federal holiday honoring the activist's birth. The scholar Cornell West refers to this white-washing as the "Santa Clausification" of Martin Luther King.
King was born into the segregated Jim Crow South, where black Americans were forced to use separate and subpar water fountains, bathrooms, and schools—and were unwelcome in white-owned businesses. Black Southerners were tormented by regular acts of white terrorism, including lynchings, police brutality, intimidation, and night rides by racist vigilantes like the Ku Klux Klan. Poll taxes and literacy tests prevented most black Southerners from registering to vote.
As a young man, King studied sociology, divinity, and theology at, respectively, Morehouse College in Atlanta; Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania; and Boston University. When he was 24, in 1953, King married Coretta Scott, who was an Alabama-born music student in Boston. In 1954, King began to serve as minister of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. In 1955, MLK received his Ph.D. in systematic theology from Boston University. Eventually, the couple had four children, Yolanda (1955–2007), Martin...
The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is, hands-down, the most exalted figure in the Civil Rights Movement, which mobilized to expand the rights and freedoms of African Americans in the 1950s and '60s. He was born Michael King, Jr., in Atlanta, Georgia, on January 15, 1929, and he was assassinated on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee, when he was only 39 years old. Over the course of his short life, his anti-racism activism, nonviolent philosophy, and stirring speeches changed the United States forever.
Dr. King, also known as MLK, was a controversial figure when he was alive. But in the decades since his death, he's come to symbolize a gentle ideal of racial harmony that's palatable across the political spectrum and preached in churches and classrooms around the United States—particularly on the January federal holiday honoring the activist's birth. The scholar Cornell West refers to this white-washing as the "Santa Clausification" of Martin Luther King.
King was born into the segregated Jim Crow South, where black Americans were forced to use separate and subpar water fountains, bathrooms, and schools—and were unwelcome in white-owned businesses. Black Southerners were tormented by regular acts of white terrorism, including lynchings, police brutality, intimidation, and night rides by racist vigilantes like the Ku Klux Klan. Poll taxes and literacy tests prevented most black Southerners from registering to vote.
As a young man, King studied sociology, divinity, and theology at, respectively, Morehouse College in Atlanta; Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania; and Boston University. When he was 24, in 1953, King married Coretta Scott, who was an Alabama-born music student in Boston. In 1954, King began to serve as minister of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. In 1955, MLK received his Ph.D. in systematic theology from Boston University. Eventually, the couple had four children, Yolanda (1955–2007), Martin Luther III (b. 1957), Dexter Scott (b. 1961), and Bernice (b. 1963).
At the time, Southern cities allowed public buses to designate the first rows of seats as "whites-only," while the rest were considered "coloreds" seats. But if the first rows of the bus filled up, black people in the front-most rows of the "coloreds" section were expected to get up and move to the back to make room for white riders, possibly standing the rest of their trip. In the '40s and '50s, a handful of African American women activists openly defied these rules, refusing to give up "colored" seats for white riders, and were arrested.
But the Civil Rights Movement really coalesced in August 1955, after 14-year-old Emmett Till was brutally murdered in Mississippi shortly after a white woman lied about him, claiming he had flirted with her. On December 1, 1955, 42-year-old Rosa Parks—an activist and secretary of the Montgomery, Alabama, chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)—was asked to move to the back of the bus after the whites-only section of a local bus filled up. She moved to the window seat at the front of the "colored" section instead of getting up, and was arrested for her defiance.
In response to her arrest, local civil-right activists sprang into action to launch the Montgomery Bus Boycott. On December 5, 1955, a rainy Monday, black commuters in Alabama's state capitol carpooled, rode in black-owned cabs that charged the same 10-cent bus fare, or walked as far as 20 miles to and from work. Activists, including local NAACP chapter president Edgar Daniel Nixon, gathered that night to discuss forming an organization for the boycott, the Montgomery Improvement Association, and appointed the young pastor Martin Luther King, Jr., the leader. The boycott lasted 385 days; during which King was arrested, and his home, where he lived with Coretta and their infant girl, Yolanda, was bombed. On June 5, 1956, a federal court in the case the Browder v. Gayle declared bus segregation unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the ruling on November 13, 1956. (In 1958, King published a book recounting his experience with the Montgomery Bus Boycotts, Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story.)
On January 10, 1957, King—along with Ralph Abernathy, Fred Shuttlesworth, Joseph Lowery, and other civil-rights activists—formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in Atlanta, Georgia. The goal of the SCLC was to tap into the unique organizing force and moral authority of black churches to organize black Southerners in nonviolent protests. King and other activists understood that though the protestors would engage in nonviolent tactics, violence would be used against them. The SCLC established an office in Atlanta, and hired Ella Baker as its only paid staff member.
King was initially inspired by the religious crusades of his new friend, white evangelist Billy Graham, and sought the famous minister's counsel. Graham continued to help MLK behind the scenes—even bailing him out of jail once—and preached in favor of integration and equality. But when Graham preached in the deep South, he supported upholding the segregation that was the norm.
The SCLC was controversial for many reasons. First, its means of nonviolent protests, which seem gentle to modern Americans, were considered brazen at the time. Instead of settling the matter quietly in the courts, SCLC activists were demanding immediate action, engaging in boycotts and marches, which drew open hostility from white Southerners. Second, many ministers, even black ministers, felt that the church should stay out of politics. Meanwhile, King and the SCLC also faced criticism from other civil-rights organizations emerging at the time—including the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)—for not being radical enough. Those two organizations were leading risky nonviolent protests like sit-ins at lunch counters in the late '50s and Freedom Rides on interstate buses in the early '60s.
In October 1961, King and the SCLC became involved in the nonviolent movement to desegregate Albany, Georgia, led by SNCC and NAACP. King was arrested and jailed twice in Albany before the effort fizzled out.
In April 1963, MLK led a campaign standing against racism and economic inequality in Birmingham, Alabama, which was known for extreme segregation, unsolved racially motivated bombings, and an overtly racist police commissioner, Eugene "Bull" Connor. Connor, who claimed the Civil Rights Movement was a Communist plot. Connor had delayed sending his officers to rescue Freedom Riders from violent white mobs.
The SCLC and black residents of Birmingham staged sit-ins at libraries and lunch counters, kneel-ins at white churches, and demonstrations in public places, particularly downtown Birmingham. The strategy was to over-crowd the jail with demonstrators until the protest could not be ignored, as MLK used his rising profile to raise funds for the protestors' bail.
On April 12, 1963, King elected to join a demonstration that violated a new anti-protest injunction ordered by Connor, and was arrested with 50 others. His incarceration, his 13th arrest, drew national concern. There, King wrote his famous "Letter from Birmingham Jail" admonishing moderate white ministers for refusing to support the cause. King's supporters, his wife, Coretta Scott King, and local businesses suffering from the bad publicity, all petitioned President John F. Kennedy on King's behalf, and the reverend was released on April 20.
Even though King had reservations, SCLC director James Bevel recruited students—from elementary school to college—to participate in nonviolent actions. The first children's protest occurred on May 2, 1963, and about 600 of youth protestors—at least one as young as age 9—were herded into the local jail, cramming the already-packed cells. The next day, Connor ordered his men to use high-pressure water hoses and attack dogs on a new group of 1,000 student protestors.
While the SCLC was criticized for putting children in danger, the demonstrations drew national media coverage, by the "New York Times," "Life" magazine, and TV networks. Images of children being assaulted by Connor's police shocked the nation. The media coverage coalesced support for King among the black community, and celebrities and New York City rabbis descended on Birmingham to rally for the protestors. Conflicts escalated, as Connor hosed and arrested more and more protestors, and Alabama's governor sent state troopers to help Connor. King was targeted with bombings, and the arrival of the state forces angered the demonstrators so much, they began to riot. As King reminded protestors of their pledge to remain nonviolent, on May 13, the National Guard was sent to Birmingham to restore order.
As a result of the campaign, Bull Connor was forced to resign, Birmingham was pressured to desegregate, and King, praised as a national hero, became a household name. With all the national furor over Birmingham, Northerners were awakened to the brutal reality of Southern segregation, and federal legislation protecting civil rights became a real possibility.
That summer, the SCLC came together with five other civil rights organizations to stage the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963, which demanded an end to school segregation, the passage of civil rights laws, protection from employment discrimination, a higher minimum wage, a jobs program, and protection from police brutality. It's estimated between 200,000 to 300,000 people gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial in D.C. that day to listen to the speakers from each group, including John Lewis of SNCC. There, the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., gave his famous 17-minute speech, now known as "I Have a Dream," which was broadcast on national television:
"I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.' I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four little children (will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."
After the march, the speakers were invited to the White House to speak with Kennedy about civil rights legislation. Prior to the march, the president put pressure on organizers to refrain from indicting the federal government. Author James Baldwin had been rejected from speaking for fear he would be too inflammatory, and black women were denied any real opportunity at the mic. Militant activist Malcolm X criticized the March on Washington, saying the black anger that inspired the march had been watered down by the participation of the U.S. government and white activist organizations.
President Kennedy had proposed a congressional bill guaranteeing civil rights in June, but he was assassinated on November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas, before it gained much traction. He was succeeded by Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, who pushed the bill forward.
Of course, the March on Washington still outraged and inflamed ardent segregationists and other flagrant racists. In retaliation, the Ku Klux Klan bombed the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham on Sunday morning, September 15, 1963, killing four little black girls.
After his "I Have a Dream" speech, the FBI labeled King as "the most dangerous and effective Negro leader in the country," and made plans to force him out of his leadership role. FBI director J. Edgar Hoover considered Dr. King a radical, and in late 1963, ordered the surveillance of Dr. King as a part of COINTELPRO. From that time until his death, the FBI kept tabs on his activities and extramarital affairs, investigated him for Communist ties, and even sent him an anonymous menacing letter King believed was intended to convince him to kill himself.
In January 1964, "Time" magazine named Dr. King its "Man of the Year" for 1963, making him the first African American to receive that designation. He spent much of the spring and summer organizing protests with Robert Hayling's group in St. Augustine, Florida.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was signed into law on July 2. It bans discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin for voter registration, schools, employment, and public services. That month, King published a book called Why We Can't Wait about the lessons of Birmingham. On October 14, 1964, MLK was notified he would be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway, in December. At age 35, he was the youngest man to receive the honor.
Also in December 1964, King and the SCLC headed to Selma, Alabama, to join efforts by SNCC and the Dallas County Voters League to register African American citizens to vote. After black activist Jimmie Lee Jackson was murdered, SCLC's James Bevel called for a long march, 54 miles, from Selma to Alabama's state capitol, Montgomery. Prior to the march, King wielded his celebrity status to get a brief meeting with President Lyndon B. Johnson to promote a law to protect voting rights. (In the meantime, militant black activist Malcolm X was assassinated in Manhattan on February 21, 1965.)
The first march, led by John Lewis, took place on March 7, 1965. King was not in attendance. State troopers and local possemen met the unarmed marchers at the county line on Edmund Pettus Bridge and violently attacked them. Civil rights activist Amelia Boynton Robinson was beaten unconscious, seen in a widely distributed news photo, and the day became known as "Bloody Sunday."
Two days later, the marchers, this time led by King, struck out again, and were met by state troopers again. MLK, who was seeking federal protection in courts for the protest, and led the marchers back to their church in Selma. King was widely criticized in the black activist community for his decision to comply and do a "turnaround." A white Unitarian minister from Boston, James Reeb, who'd come to Selma to join the march was murdered that night. His death and the violent images from the first march led to a national uproar.
President Johnson, who planned to follow the Civil Right Act with the Voting Rights Act, held a televised joint session of Congress on March 15, 1965, to advocate for his bill. Governor George Wallace refused to protect the protestors, but Johnson pledged federal support. The third march started on March 21, but this time, the demonstrators—led by King, Lewis, Abernathy, and Shuttlesworth—were guarded by the Alabama National Guard, FBI agents, and Federal Marshals. By the time the marchers reached Montgomery on March 24, 25,000 people had joined the procession. On March 25, Dr. King gave a speech known as "How Long, Not Long," saying equality for black Americans should be arriving soon because, "because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which prohibits racial discrimination in voting, on August 6.
In spring 1966, King traveled to Chicago to help organizations fighting for fair housing in the Chicago Freedom Movement, and in the summer, he joined the largest civil-rights protest in Mississippi, the March Against Fear, where SNCC leader Stokely Carmichael introduced the nation to the concept of "Black Power."
By 1967, King, who was increasingly turning his attention toward matters of economic injustice, began speaking out publicly against the Vietnam War. At a New York City appearance on April 4, 1967, he said, "A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say: 'This is not just.'" King's criticism of the war cost him the support of President Johnson, the Reverend Billy Graham, union leaders, and important newspaper publishers.
In 1967, King laid out his plan to address economic inequality and poverty in his book, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?, which included Henry George's concept of a guaranteed basic income, and called on the United States to invest in rebuilding cities. Toward the end of the year, King and the SCLC began to plan a Washington, D.C., demonstration called the Poor People's Campaign that pushed for ideas so revolutionary it was controversial even within the Civil Rights Movement.
On March 29, 1968, King traveled to Memphis, Tennessee, to support striking black sanitation workers; his flight had been delayed because of a bomb threat against him. On April 3, King addressed a rally with his "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech, in which he said, " We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land."
The next day, April 4, 1968, King was shot and killed by James Earl Ray outside his room on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis (which is now the site of the National Civil Rights Museum). News of King's assassination prompted race riots in cities around the United States, including Washington, D.C., Chicago, Baltimore, Louisville, and Kansas City. President Johnson declared April 7 a national day of mourning for the slain activist.
Just a week after King's murder, on April 11, President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1968, also known as the Fair Housing Act, which banned racial discrimination in the sale, renting, and financing of housing. However, the law also passed with a rider meant to discourage further protests, outlawing "travel in interstate commerce... with the intent to incite, promote, encourage, participate in and carry on a riot".
Ralph Abernathy took the reins at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. With the help of Coretta Scott King, the Poor Peoples' Campaign, meant to elevate indigent Americans of all races, went ahead in D.C., and lasted from May 12 to June 24, 1968. At the time, 40 to 60 million Americans were living below the poverty line. The demonstration involved thousands of protestors establishing a shantytown known as Resurrection City, and it was not portrayed in a favorable light by the media. However, the protest did lead to some small gains, such as funds for school lunches and Head Start programs in Alabama and Mississippi.
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