Martin Luther King's Contributions
Martin Luther King led boycotts, sit-ins, non-violent protests and also spoke to mass demonstrations to the public to garner attention of the racial discrimination and to demand the change of civil rights legislation to the protect the rights of African-Americans.
Martin Luther King led boycotts, sit-ins, non-violent protests and also spoke to mass demonstrations to the public to garner attention of the racial discrimination and to demand the change of civil rights legislation to the protect the rights of African-Americans.
Some major and significant Events that King participated in:
Montgomery Bus Boycott The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a boycott in which African Americans refused to ride the city buses in Montgomery, Alabama and protested the segregation laws negroes and whites on buses. An American Civil Rights activist Rosa Park's act on a bus, to which she refused to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery bus led to the boycott. The boycott of public buses by African-Americans began on the day of Rosa Parks' court hearing on December 5, 1955, to December 21, 1956. it is regarded as the first large-scale demonstration protesting against the segregation of whites and blacks in the United States of America. Martin Luther King emerged as a prominent national leader of the civil rights movement during the boycott while also committing to nonviolent resistance. The Black leaders and its community organized car pools, African American taxi drivers charged only 10-cents for African Americans so that boycott could be sustained however many African Americans chose to walk to work and other places. Finally after 381 days on June 5, 1956, a Montgomery federal court ruled that any law requiring racially segregated seating on buses violated the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which guarantees all citizens, regardless of race, equal rights and equal protection under state and federal laws. The city then appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States and was declared unconstitutional the laws requiring segregation on buses and, therefore the Montgomery’s buses were then finally integrated on December 21, 1956, and the boycott ended. Though buses were integrated, it still had segregated bus stops and the integration brought significant resistance and violence including firing into buses, bombing of Black Leaders homes and churches including Martin Luther King's house. The Montgomery boycott garnered national and international attention on the civil rights struggles in the US during the time. March on Washington for Freedom and Jobs The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom took place in Washington, D.C., on August 28, 1963 which was attended by at least 250,000 people, was a political rally known as the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. It was the largest demonstration ever seen in the nation's capital, and one of the first to have extensive television coverage. It was organized by a number of civil rights and religious groups, such as CORE, Martin Luther King Jr, A. Phillip Randolph, NAACP and the National Urban League. This March was held to eliminate racial segregation of negroes and white people in public schools, provide protection for civil rights activists against police brutality, to provide jobs, pass laws prohibiting racial discrimination in public, a $2 minimum per hour wage and a self-government , for the district of Columbia that had a black majority. The march was a significant event in the growing struggles for civil rights in the United States which informed the world the political and social challenges African-Americans faced. Martin Luther King Jr.’s spoke his famous“I Have a Dream” speech on this event, and his speech was an active call for racial justice and equality regardless of their race in America. Albany Movement The Albany Movement refers to the Civil Rights protest that occurred in Albany, Georgia from November of 1961 until August of 1962 remains as one of the least studied areas of the American Civil Rights movement, despite the presence of high-profile leaders such as Martin Luther King, Jr. The Albany Movement was an ambitious campaign launched to eliminate segregation in all aspects of local life in Albany led by National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and other civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr. Several nonviolent tactics were exercised by the Albany Movement over the course of the movement including protest marches, mass meetings, petitions, speeches, prayers, boycotts, and sit-ins. They also implemented during this movement the unique tactic of singing. During the mass meetings, songs would prove to be a very effective tool to rally and energize the demonstrators. The SNCC formed the “Freedom Singers” to utilize this powerful tactic after the Albany Movement. These demonstrations led to the arrests of more than 2,000 local black residents over the year.Despite King's involvement to protest, the movement failed to secure authorization, from local officials and was as a result regarded as unsuccessful by many other people. Though the movement was unsuccessful, however it is thought to be an event as a formative learning experience for Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights organizers, and is recognized for hastening the final desegregation of Albany's facilities, which occurred only one year following the movement's conclusion in August 1962. Letter From Birmingham In April 1963, activists in Birmingham, Alabama a city Martin Luther King Jr. called "the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States," launched one of the most influential projects known as the Birmingham Campaign. This caught the attention from around the globe with series of lunch- counter sit-ins, marches on City Hall and boycotts protesting segregation laws by putting pressure on Birmingham merchants in the city for African-Americans. Marches were banned and all marchers were arrested, however Martin Luther led another march and was also arrested and taken to jail. At the time in jail, he wrote his famous "Letter from Birmingham Jail" which is known as the declaration of the Negro Revolution which defends his views on racial justice and nonviolence in America. This campaign aimed to use high school children as protesters, get them to fill up the city’s prisons and shame the city on a national level, of arresting and locking them up children in prisons who are fighting for their equal and fair treatment. On May 2nd, police arrested over a thousand young people aged 6-18 years and the next day more children joined the protest. The Birmingham Campaign ended with a victory in May of 1963 when local officials agreed to remove "White Only" and "Black Only" signs from restrooms and drinking fountains in downtown Birmingham; desegregate lunch counters; expand a "Negro job improvement plan" to employ more Negro workers; release jailed demonstrators; and create a biracial committee to monitor the agreement. Though the campaign was successful, many violent attacks from angry segregationists occurred after the desegregation including bombing of the Sixteenth St Baptist Church. This campaign is considered as one of the most major turning points in the civil rights movement and the beginning of the end of the struggle for freedom in the United States of America. |
“I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly."
- Letter from Birmingham Jail, 1963 |