Martin Luther King: Civil Rights Patriot
...the New World and put
into slavery. They were treated more cruelly in the United States than in any
other country that had ever practiced slavery, and ever since its prohibition,
African-Americans have fought oppression. Martin Luther King Jr., would aid
immensely in this fight. He was born in Atlanta Georgia in 1929. His father,
Martin Luther King Sr. Was a Baptist minister and also preached for civil rights.
By the time he was 17 he had decided to follow his fathers footsteps, so he
himself was ordained as a minister. After his graduation from the Crozer
Theological Seminary, when he began postgraduate work at Boston University, he
studied the works of Indian nationalist Mohandas Gandhi, from whom he derived
his own philosophy of nonviolent protest. He moved to Alabama to become pastor
for a Baptist church. Just after he received his Ph.D. in 1955, King was asked
to lead a bus boycott in Montgomery. It had been formed after Rosa Parks was
arrested for refusing to give her seat to a white passenger. Throughout the 381
days which the boycott lasted, he was arrested and jailed, repeatedly threatened,
and his home was bombed. The boycott ended later that year when the Supreme
Court outlawed segregation in public transportation. This was his first victory
and alone made Dr. King a highly respected leader. When he went to India in 1959,
he studied Gandhi's principle of "Satyagraha" or nonviolent persuasion, which he
planned to use for his social protests. In the following year he decided to move
back to Atlanta to become copastor with his father. In 1963 he was back in
Birmingham, Alabama, where he led a massive civil rights campaign, organizing
drives for black voter registration, desegregation, and better education
throughout the South. During that time he led the unforgettable March on
Washington where he delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech to millions of...
View Full Essay
