MLK !!

Marn Luther King Jr. was a Bapst minister and social acvist, who led the Civil Rights Movement in the United States from the mid-1950s unl his death by assassinaon in 1968. Background

• Born as Michael King Jr. on January 15, 1929 • The middle child of Michael King Sr. and Alberta Williams King. • Michael King Sr. was a successful minister • Growing up in Atlanta, Georgia, Marn Luther King Jr. entered public school at age 5. In May, 1936 he was bapzed, but the event made lile impression on him. In May, 1941, Marn was 12 years old when is grandmother, Jennie, died of a heart aack. The event was traumac for Marn, more so because he was out watching a parade against his parents' wishes when she died. Distraught at the news, young Marn jumped from a second story window at the family home, allegedly aempng suicide

Southern Chrisan Leadership Conference (SCLC) • With the goal of redeeming ‘‘the soul of America’’ through nonviolent resistance, the Southern Chrisan Leadership Conference (SCLC) was established in 1957, to coordinate the acon of local protest groups throughout the South (King, ‘‘Beyond Vietnam,’’ 144). Under the leadership of Marn Luther King, Jr., the organizaon drew on the power and independence of black churches to support its acvies. I Have a Dream Speech

• On August 28, 1963, Marn Luther King Jr., delivered a speech to a massive group of civil rights marchers gathered around the Lincoln memorial in Washington DC. The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom brought together the naons most prominent civil rights leaders, along with tens of thousands of marchers, to press the United States government for equality. The culminaon of this event was the influenal and most memorable speech of Dr. King's career. Popularly known as the "I have a Dream" speech, the words of Marn Luther King, Jr. influenced the Federal government to take more direct acons to more fully realize racial equality. OPCVL

• Origin: • Purpose: • Value: • Limitaon: Leer from Birmingham Jail

• As the events of the Birmingham Campaign intensified on the city’s streets, Marn Luther King, Jr., composed a leer from his prison cell in Birmingham in response to local religious leaders’ cricisms of the campaign: “Never before have I wrien so long a leer. I’m afraid it is much too long to take your precious me. I can assure you that it would have been much shorter if I had been wring from a comfortable desk, but what else can one do when he is alone in a narrow jail cell, other than write long leers, think long thoughts and pray long prayers?” (King, Why, 94-95). • King’s 12 April 1963 arrest for violang Alabama’s law against mass public demonstraons took place just over a week aer the campaign’s commencement. In an effort to revive the campaign, King and Ralph Abernathy had donned work clothes and marched from Sixth Avenue Bapst Church into a waing police wagon. The day of his arrest, eight Birmingham clergy members wrote a cricism of the campaign that was published in theBirmingham News, calling its direct acon strategy “unwise and unmely” and appealing “to both our white and Negro cizenry to observe the principles of law and order and common sense” (“White Clergy Urge”). Interacon with the Kennedy administraon • Candidate Kennedy’s purpose was simply to express sympathy to Corea Sco King over her husband’s plight. Many of his aides opposed the call as likely to lose votes in the South. But King was released from jail shortly aerwards, and reports of Kennedy’s concern energized African-Americans. Many historians feel it shied crucial votes in Northern states away from Richard Nixon to give JFK his razor- thin victory. ….JFK and MLK

• JFK and MLK shared an era and a cause, but they were not close allies, as the tone of these remarks makes clear. They admired each other’s best qualies but were suspicious of the other’s flaws. On civil rights, they marched to different cadences. • Early in his administraon, President Kennedy did not want to be seen as too eager to press for such moves as equal housing and vong protecon for minories, even though he saw such changes as inevitable. King was not invited to his inauguraon or to an inial meeng of civil rights figures in the Oval Office. SCLC’s origin

• he very beginnings of the SCLC can be traced back to the Montgomery Bus Boyco. The Montgomery Bus Boyco began on December 5, 1955 aer Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white man on the bus. The boyco lasted for 381 days and ended on December 21, 1956, with the desegregaon of the Montgomery bus system. The boyco was carried out by the newly established Montgomery Improvement Associaon (MIA). Marn Luther King, Jr. served as President and Ralph David Abernathy served as Program Director. It was one of history’s most dramac and massive nonviolent protests, stunning the naon and the world. • The boyco was also a signal to Black America to begin a new phase of the long struggle, a phase that came to be known as the modern civil rights movement. As bus boycos spread across the South, leaders of the MIA and other protest groups met in Atlanta on January 10 – 11, 1957, to form a regional organizaon and coordinate protest acvies across the South. • As I listened to Ralph Abernathy and his eloquent and generous introducon and then thought about myself, I wondered who he was talking about. It's always good to have your closest friend and associate to say something good about you, and Ralph Abernathy is the best friend that I have in the world. — Marn Luther King Jr SCLC’s role with ministers

• On May 20, 1961, the Freedom Riders stopped in Montgomery, Alabama while on their way from Washington, D.C. to New Orleans, Louisiana to protest the sll segregated buses across the south. Many of the Freedom Riders were beaten once they arrived at the Montgomery bus staon, by a white mob, causing several of the riders to be hospitalized. The following night Abernathy and King setup an event in support of the Freedom Riders, where King would make an address, at Abernathy's church. More than 1,500 people came to the event that night. The church was soon surrounded by a mob of white segregaonists who laid siege on the church. • King, from inside the church, called the United States Aorney General Robert Kennedy, and pleaded for help from the federal government.[31] There was a group of United States Marshals sent there to protect the event, but they were too few in numbers to protect the church from the angry mob — who had begun throwing rocks and bricks through the windows of the church. Reinforcements with riot experience, from the Marshall service, were sent in to help defend the perimeter.[34] By the next morning, the Governor of Alabama - aer being called by Kennedy — sent in the Alabama Naonal Guard, and the mob was finally dispersed Other Civil Rights groups

• The SCLC hoped to iniate Gandhian, nonviolent direct acon throughout the South. It hoped that such acon would secure racial desegregaon, vong rights, and other gains for African Americans. Through this approach, the SCLC sought to take the civil rights cause out of the courtroom and into the community, hoping to negoate directly with whites for social change. As one of its first acons, the group led the 1957 Prayer Pilgrimage to Washington, D.C., which drew an esmated twenty- five thousand people. In 1959, it organized a youth march on Washington, D.C., that aracted forty thousand people. • Despite these successful marches, the SCLC was hampered by disorganizaon during its early years. It experienced difficulty in meeng many of its major goals during the late 1950s, parcularly in voter registraon. It charted a new course in the early 1960s, when it recruited leaders such as the Reverends Wya T. Walker and Andrew J. Young. Between 1960 and 1964, the number of full-me SCLC staff members grew from five to sixty, and the organizaon's effect on the civil rights movement reached its zenith.