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Roles played by Martin Luther King Jr. in the Civil Rights Movement in the United States
Martin luther king jr role in the civil rights movement
Martin luther king jr role in the civil rights movement
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Recommended: Roles played by Martin Luther King Jr. in the Civil Rights Movement in the United States
It was one of the biggest battles the united states had ever faced. The battle of Birmingham took place during the war against segregation. They did many Boycotts and Protests during this period. The events that took place in Birmingham were the most important and iconic battles in the war against segregation. The Birmingham protests were the biggest in the movement (Benson 2). The movement in Birmingham started to spark when Fred L. Shuttlesworth invited Martin Luther King Jr. to a meeting in late 1962 (Benson 1). In June 1956 the ACMHR was formed as a group to fight for civil rights (Brimner 26) On April 30th, 1963 King’s SCLC and the ACMHR began massive protest campaigns (Benson 1). These protests lasted a total of 65 days (Benson 2). Over these days the blacks that were peacefully protesting would get violently attacked by racists and white supremacists. Fred L. Shuttlesworth (one of the primary leaders of this campaign) house got blown up by dynamite (Brimner 27). No one died during the explosion. Shuttlesworth had stated before “I have a feeling that my life, for some reason, is designed to touch many people” (Brimner 7). …show more content…
They accomplished this because it was the leading story on the news every day when it was going on. They forced the government to act because of all the violence. Many blacks got jailed for just being black. Some for peacefully protesting even though it is their right to protest. During his time in jail, King wrote his famous “Letter from Birmingham Jail” letter. In his letter he talked about many things, but the most important was to not give up. He was released soon after he was jailed because of this letter. But though he was released many blacks was still in jail and getting jailed (Benson
On April 3rd, 1963, the Birmingham campaign began and people were protesting against racism and injustice. The non-violent campaign was coordinated by King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference and Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. However, King was arrested along with other main leaders of the campaign on April 12th for disobeying the rules of “no parading, demonstrating, boycotting, trespassing and picketing”. While jailed, King read a letter (“A Call for Unity”) written by eight white Alabama clergymen against King and his methods from the newspaper. In the letter, the clergymen stated that the campaign was "directed and led in part by outsiders," urging activists to use the courts if rights were being denied rather than to protest.
Chapter 5 showed the contrast between King and fellow black civil rights leader, Malcolm X. Malcolm X did not believe in nonviolent protest and did not sit well with "integration". King believed in conciliatory efforts between blacks and whites while Malcolm X was a separatist and believed in "Black Nationalism". King needed to succeed and force action from Kennedy to prevent other people from becoming extremists. Birmingham, Alabama nicknamed "Bombingham" held a lot of racial tension during the civil right movement; King and his forces decided to take action there. King led marches which in turn brought on confrontations from white authorities. Again, The plight of black people under white savagery tugged on the moral strings of viewers and brought more sympathizers to the cause. The gains won in the struggle in Birmingham reignited black hope and confidence in the power of "mass social dislocation to overcome white intransigence"
success and desegregated several facilities, but also demonstrated. clearly to blacks and whites alike that young blacks were determined. to reject segregation openly. But the whites violently attacked the black people. King had told his followers to take the beating and not fight back; his philosophy was that the black protest would wear the black.
On December 5, 1955, thousands of African Americans in Montgomery, Alabama walked, carpooled, or hitchhiked to work in an act of rebellion against segregation on buses. This bus boycott was not the first of its kind – black citizens of Baton-Rouge, Louisiana had implemented the same two years prior – but the bus boycott in Montgomery was a critical battle of the Civil Rights Movement. Though the original intent of the boycott was to economically cripple the bus system until local politicians agreed to integrate the city’s buses, the Montgomery Bus Boycott impacted the fabric of society in a much deeper way. Instead of only changing the symptoms of a much larger problem, this yearlong protest was the first step in transforming the way all Americans perceived freedom and equality. Though the boycott ended when the Supreme Court ruled bus segregation unconstitutional, this was not directly caused by the refusal to ride buses, and thus cannot be defined as the primary triumph of the boycott. Instead, the Montgomery Bus Boycott succeeded in changing the consciousness of millions of Americans, specifically southern blacks. A revolution of the mind was the greatest success of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and this transformation occurred due to the small validations throughout the boycott that African Americans, as unified, free citizens, had power.
The year of 1963 had an extreme amount of racial tension and arguments about the rights of African Americans. The white people were vastly prejudice towards the blacks and used all kinds of falderal. Several people began to stand up and show their opinions about the civil disobedience that the laws stood for. Many did this in a public manner therefore they were arrested and sent to jail. An example of this was Martin Luther King, Jr. when he wrote “Letter from Birmingham City Jail” during the time of the protests. All of the people’s opinions are what led to the March on Washington. “In the summer of 1941 A. Philip Randolph, founder of the Broth...
Success was a big part of the Civil Rights Movement. Starting with the year 1954, there were some major victories in favor of African Americans. In 1954, the landmark trial Brown vs. The Board of Education of Topeka Kansas ruled that segregation in public education was unfair. This unanimous Supreme Court decision overturned the prior Plessy vs. Ferguson case during which the “separate but equal” doctrine was created and abused. One year later, Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. launched a bus boycott in Montgomery Alabama after Ms. Parks was arrested for not giving up her seat in the “colored section”. This boycott, which lasted more than a year, led to the desegregation of buses in 1956. Group efforts greatly contributed to the success of the movement. This is not only shown by the successful nature of the bus boycott, but it is shown through the success of Martin Luther King’s SCLC or Southern Christian Leadership Conference. The conference was notable for peacefully protesting, nonviolence, and civil disobedience. Thanks to the SCLC, sit-ins and boycotts became popular during this time, adding to the movement’s accomplishments. The effective nature of the sit-in was shown during 1960 when a group of four black college students sat down at a Woolworth’s lunch counter in hopes of being served. While they were not served the first time they commenced their sit-in, they were not forced to leave the establishment; their lack of response to the heckling...
The 1960’s were a time of freedom, deliverance, developing and molding for African-American people all over the United States. The Civil Rights Movement consisted of black people in the south fighting for equal rights. Although, years earlier by law Africans were considered free from slavery but that wasn’t enough they wanted to be treated equal as well. Many black people were fed up with the segregation laws such as giving up their seats on a public bus to a white woman, man, or child. They didn’t want separate bathrooms and water fountains and they wanted to be able to eat in a restaurant and sit wherever they wanted to and be served just like any other person.
Kennedy received praise for these strong and moving words yet was criticized for his weak legislative proposals to remedy the situation. By May of 1963, his proposal would change greatly however, after two men, from opposite positions set the civil rights movement into intense motion. Martin Luther King despite advice to do otherwise began massive protests in the street of Birmingham. To combat these protests, Police Commissioner “Bull” Conner used any means, including dogs, fire hoses, and electric cattle prods on protestors. Making newspapers and televi...
In a documentary called “The Black Power Mixtape”, key leaders of this movement, such as Angela Davis, explain the harsh reality of this era and voice the frustrations with the status quo that the Black Panthers desperately wanted to change. In an interview, Angela Davis describes her experiences with racism and violence. She recounts growing up in Birmingham, Alabama as a child. She depicts her hometown as something like a warzone. Bull Connor, the Commissioner of Public Safety in Birmingham, would incite racist violence against African-Americans. She remembers her father having to arm himself at all times to protect his family against racist attacks. She would hear the sounds of bombs exploding across her street as a child. Several of her friends were victims of this racist violence. The daughter of a family friend of Angela’s was a victim of the Birmingham Church Bombing of 1963. Angela recalled that when her mother and family friend went to the site of the bombing, they found the children’s body parts scattered across the church. As a result, men in their community began to organize themselves into an armed patrol to prevent this from happening again. Angela later said “When someone asks me about violence, I just find it incredible. What it means is that the person asking that question has no idea what black people have experienced in this country since the first black person was kidnapped from the shores of
Over the course of his life, Dr. King would lead and participate in multiple non-violent protests against segregation. On the first of December, 1955, the arrest of Rosa Parks in Montgomery, Alabama would trigger the first of many protests led by King. The Montgomery bus boycott would last for 385 days and was so tense that King’s house was bombed. He was later arrested and released after the United States District Courts ruled that segregation on all Montgomery public buses was illegal. This paved the way for King to lead many more protests in his life and becoming a major leader in the desegregation movement.
On March 7 1965 policemen attacked 525 civil right demonstrators that took part in the march between Selma and Montgomery Alabama. The march was to let black people vote. The police used tear gas and charged on horseback into the crowds, there were more than 50 demonstrators injured. The day of the protest was named “Bloody Sunday”, and it was all over America broadcasted on national TV and in newspapers and Americans were very mad at how the authorities handled it. Even though people were hurt in bloody Sunday, 8 days after bloody Sunday President Lyndon B. Johnson presented a bill to congress that would turn into the black Voting Rights act of 1965. ("The New York times")
It was considered the first large scale demonstration against segregation. A couple of days before the boycott, Rosa parks did her part. Rosa parks got arrested and this sparked the American civil rights movement. This brought out the leader of the movement: Martin Luther King Jr. Within a year, the goal was achieved and buses were desegregated. Many did not trust him and didn’t want him to speak out. Many people kept quiet due to fear of violence if they spoke anything about the unfairness everyone was facing.
From the Boston Tea Party of 1773, the Civil Rights Movement and the Pro-Life Movement of the 1960s, to the Tea Party Movement and Occupy Wall Street Movement of current times, “those struggling against unjust laws have engaged in acts of deliberate, open disobedience to government power to uphold higher principles regarding human rights and social justice” (DeForrest, 1998, p. 653) through nonviolent protests. Perhaps the most well-known of the non-violent protests are those associated with the Civil Rights movement. The movement was felt across the south, yet Birmingham, Alabama was known for its unequal treatment of blacks and became the focus of the Civil Rights Movement. Under the leadership of Martin Luther King Jr., president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, African-Americans in Birmingham, began daily demonstrations and sit-ins to protest discrimination at lunch counters and in public facilities. These demonstrations were organized to draw attention to the injustices in the city.
Historically, the Civil Rights Movement was a time during the 1950’s and 60’s to eliminate segregation and gain equal rights. Looking back on all the events, and dynamic figures it produced, this description is very vague. In order to fully understand the Civil Rights Movement, you have to go back to its origin. Most people believe that Rosa Parks began the whole civil rights movement. She did in fact propel the Civil Rights Movement to unprecedented heights but, its origin began in 1954 with Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka. Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka was the cornerstone for change in American History as a whole. Even before our nation birthed the controversial ruling on May 17, 1954 that stated separate educational facilities were inherently unequal, there was Plessy vs. Ferguson in 1896 that argued by declaring that state laws establish separate public schools for black and white students denied black children equal educational opportunities. Some may argue that Plessy vs. Ferguson is in fact backdrop for the Civil Rights Movement, but I disagree. Plessy vs. Ferguson was ahead of it’s time so to speak. “Separate but equal” thinking remained the body of teachings in America until it was later reputed by Brown vs. Board of Education. In 1955 when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat, and prompted The Montgomery Bus Boycott led by one of the most pivotal leaders of the American Civil Rights Movement, Martin Luther King Jr. After the gruesome death of Emmett Till in 1955 in which the main suspects were acquitted of beating, shooting, and throwing the fourteen year old African American boy in the Tallahatchie River, for “whistling at a white woman”, this country was well overdo for change.
The concerns this newspapers inaugural issue displayed was that slavery was an abomination and should not be allowed. William Lloyd Garrison, a white Massachusetts activist, started the anti-slavery newspaper so that he could be heard. He wanted to spread his idea that all Americans should have true equality. He believed that gradual emancipation was ridiculous. This newspaper came at the time of the first civil rights movement started. He wanted to have people think about the actions of slavery as immoral and create difference between the North and the South.