Publicity And Support For King's Nonviolent Movement example essay topic

A Dream of Equality On January 15, 1929, Martin Luther King Jr. was born in Atlanta, Georgia. King was born in a nice community that had a low amount of crime with many of his neighbors being very religious. Martin Luther King Jr.'s father was a well respected clergyman in the community. His father did his best to protect his family from the harsh realities of racism and segregation and was the person most responsible for King becoming a man of faith.

Throughout his early childhood, King and his brother Alfred Martin were subject to strict corporal punishment from their father. But all his life King still had nothing but love and respect for his father. When he was twelve years old, King began doubting his faith. When he left to Morehouse College he thought about entering the fields of medicine or law.

After graduating from Morehouse with a degree in sociology, King attended Croze r Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania and earned a bachelor's degree in divinity. One of the first stands against discrimination that King was a part of dealt with public transportation. In Montgomery, Alabama, the first ten seats in a public bus were reserved for whites only and the last ten seats were reserved for blacks. But if there were empty white seats towards the front of the bus and the rest of the seats were full, blacks were forced to stand. After years of being mistreated by racist bus drivers, the African American community had had enough and decided to boycott the bus system in Montgomery. On December 5, 1955, a group of black ministers asked Martin Luther King Jr. to be the spokesman for the protest.

King accepted the job and inspired the black community to boycott the bus system. In his speeches, King emphasized basic Christian values and American democracy. He maintained a balance of militancy and moderation. King inspired people to be angry about what was going on and at the same time inspired them to maintain their composure and be responsible. The goal of the bus boycott in Montgomery was to get the city to hire black bus drivers.

Blacks all over Montgomery stopped using the public buses. In order to help the people that were boycotting to get to work, the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) organized a car pool. However, soon after the car pool started police began stopping the drivers, questioning, and arresting them. It wasn't long until King himself was arrested.

Four days later when King got out of jail a stick of dynamite blew up his porch. King also was a victim of threatening phone calls. But King kept his idea of non-violent resistance and stopped an angry black mob from rioting by giving a speech saying "We must meet violence with nonviolence" (Page 25). At one point over eighty black leaders of MIA, including twenty-four ministers, were indicted for violating an anti-boycott law. When they showed up to court, thousands of blacks showed up to show their support. This backfired on the whites because they were expecting the accused blacks to skip town but instead they showed up very relaxed and confident.

As the boycott continued, many black leaders came to meet King, including Bayard Rustin. It was Rustin that helped inspire King to turn towards a more Gandhi like approach to nonviolence. After much deliberation, King decided to have keep nonviolence as a principle he will not change and he made sure that his drivers and bodyguards did not carry weapons anymore. In April 1956 the Chicago-based company that ran the buses in Montgomery was willing to end segregation in the buses. However it wasn't until June 5 that the three-man Montgomery city council ruled that bus segregation discriminated against blacks and ruled it as being unconstitutional. After all the appeals were over and done with, on December 21, 1956, King rode an integrated bus in Montgomery for the time.

The Montgomery bus boycott lasted for 381 days and was a landmark victory for blacks all over the country. After the achieving victory in Alabama, King was pressured to continue his success. It was in 1960 when four young black students decided to sit in a "white only" lunch counter until they were served. As each day passed that the students were not served, more and more students came to sit in with them. When King heard about what was going on he was busy lobbying for the presidential candidates Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy. Originally, King simply applauded the students and was not going to get involved.

But after being pressured by members of the black community, King joined the sit-ins. For his participation he was arrested and jailed for a short time. It wasn't long before King was at it again. But this time he decided to launch his demonstrations in what was once considered one of the most racist cities in the U.S., Birmingham, Alabama. One of his goals in Alabama was to get the white leaders to begin desegregation in the city. But in order to get his point across, King and the other demonstrators had to worry about Birmingham's Commissioner of Public Safety, Theophilus G. Connor.

Connor was a huge racist that had white voters loving him for it. It was in the Birmingham demonstrations where the nation was able to see scenes of children being attacked by german shepherd police dogs and sprayed by firehouses. There were masses of children walking into the jail accepting their punishment for demonstrating. This created nationwide publicity and support for King's nonviolent movement. King was also put in jail and it was here where he wrote his "Letter from Birmingham City Jail". The Freedom Rides came about in May 1961.

Black and white students rode buses across the south stopping at all the terminals. The students goal was to get all interstate travel integrated in the south. As they went from city to city they were not met with open arms. Many of the buses were attacked and the students lives were put in danger. The students were in so much danger that at one point the National guard had to come and protect them. But regardless of everything they went through, the students reached their goal and were able to get interstate travel integrated.

Finally, King decided it was time for people all over the United States to come together for peace and march on Washington. The Kennedy administration repeatedly asked King not have a march on Washington because they felt it would be too dangerous and people were going to die as a result. Kennedy told King that if the demonstrations ended with bloodshed that it would hurt the civil rights movement more then help it. On June 19, President Kennedy proposed the Civil Rights Bill to congress hoping to desegregate southern schools, fight against discrimination in the workplace, and to stop black disfranchisement.

However, King marched anyway. It was on August 28, 1963, when over 200,000 Americans of all different types of races marched on Washington in hopes of peace. It was here when Martin Luther King expressed his dream to the nation that was to be forever remembered. On July 2, 1964 that the civil rights movement achieved victory. President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Right Act. It outlawed discrimination in all public facilities and all public accommodations.

The Civil right movement had finally achieved the freedom they had been fighting so long for. With a public career that lasted less than thirteen years, Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and killed in Memphis, Tennessee on April 4, 1968. King is considered the most important and successful civil rights leader in the history of the U.S. King is the man most responsible for the rights that African Americans can exercise without fear of persecution.