Jose Marin-Trevizo

Bilbo-Murray

English 3

03 May 2017

Multi-Genre Research Project

Martin Luther King Jr. was a very important person who took part in the Civil Right

Movement, it encompassed strategies, groups, and social movements in the United States whose

goals were to end racial segregation. He is best known for his role in the advancement of civil

rights using nonviolent civil disobedience based on his Christian beliefs. Martin Luther King Jr

was a very important part in helping many people during the civil rights movement.

The first time that Martin Luther King Jr was involved in the civil rights movement was

in 1955 in the bus boycott. King was Born in Atlanta, Georgia, Kings exceptional oratorical

skills and personal courage first attracted national attention in 1955, when he and other civil

rights activists were arrested after leading a boycott of a Montgomery, Alabama, transportation

company which required nonwhites to surrender their seats to whites, and stand or sit at the back

of the bus. Over the following decade, King wrote, spoke and organized nonviolent protests and

mass demonstrations to draw attention to racial discrimination and to demand civil rights

legislation to protect the rights of African-Americans. (Martin Luther King, Jr, Civil Rights

Movement : Youth For Human Rights Champion) He was able to accomplish so much during

the boycott along side with Rosa Parks, taking the first step toward ending segregation.

The bus boycott wasn't the only thing he did to help end segregation all over the country.
On 10 April the city government obtained a state circuit court injunction against the protests.

After heavy debate, campaign leaders decided to disobey the court order. King declared We

cannot in all good conscience obey such an injunction which is an unjust, undemocratic and

unconstitutional misuse of the legal process (ACMHR, 11 April 1963). King was a very

devoted person to the civil rights movement and we found out the day On Good Friday, 12

April, King was arrested in Birmingham after violating the anti-protest injunction and was kept

in solitary confinement. During this time King penned the Letter from Birmingham Jail on the

margins of the Birmingham News, in reaction to a statement published in that newspaper by

eight Birmingham churchmen condemning the protests. Kings request to call his wife, Coretta

Scott King, who was at home in Atlanta recovering from the birth of their fourth child, was

denied. After she communicated her concern to the Kennedy administration, Birmingham

officials permitted King to call home. Bail money was made available, and he was released on 20

April 1963. Him fighting, not caving in and not letting the government continue to treat people

the way the have been was something that no ordinary person would have done.

(Birmingham Campaign (1963) (Birmingham Campaign (1963)

In addition to those events, the most important part of the civil rights movement was

King's involvement in March on Washington. On August 28, 1963, more than 200,000

Americans gathered in Washington, D.C., for a political rally known as the March on

Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Organized by a number of civil rights and religious groups,

the event was designed to shed light on the political and social challenges African Americans

continued to face across the country.The march, which became a key moment in the growing

struggle for civil rights in the United States, culminated in Martin Luther King Jr's I Have a
Dream speech, a spirited call for racial justice and equality. (March on Washington - Black

History - HISTORY.com) Martin Luther Kings soaring address climaxed the day through his

eloquence, the phrase I Have a Dream became an expression of the highest aspirations of the

civil rights movement.

King, Martin Luther, Jr. was an American churchman, Nobel Prize winner, one of the

leaders of the American civil rights movement, and an advocate of nonviolent protests. King's

challenges to segregation and racial discrimination in the 1950s and 1960s helped convinced

many white Americans to support the cause of civil rights in the United States. After his

assassination in 1968, King became a symbol of protest in the struggle for racial justice. Above

all, King believed in nonviolence. The campaigns he led paved the way for legal changes that

ended more than a century of racial segregation.That theme runs through his career and historical

legacy. He left a decisive mark on American and world history. His dream of a peaceful world

has inspired many people and movements. In 1983, Congress passed a law designating the third

Monday in January a national holiday in his honor. There is still some racism, but with Martin

Luther King Jr.'s words in our heart, we can abolish whatever racism there is left.

Works Cited

Birmingham Campaign (1963).

http://kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/encyclopedia/enc_birmingham_campa

ign/. Accessed 27 Apr. 2017.

March on Washington - Black History - HISTORY.com. HISTORY.com,

http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/march-on-washington. Accessed 27 Apr.

2017.

Martin Luther King, Jr, Civil Rights Movement : Youth For Human Rights Champion.

http://www.youthforhumanrights.org/voices-for-human-rights/champions/martin-luther-

king-jr.html. Accessed 27 Apr. 2017.