Notes on Martin Luther King:

King was an American clergyman, Nobel Peace Prize winner and one of the principal leaders of the
United States civil rights movement. He believed in the power of non-violent action and the power
of Black Americans to organise and help themselves.

King was born on 15th January 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia. His father was a Baptist minister, his mother
a school teacher. He entered Morehouse College in 1944 and then went to Crozer Religious
Seminary to undertake postgraduate study, receiving his doctorate in theology in 1955.

Returning to the South to become pastor of a Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, King first
achieved national renown when he helped mobilise the black boycott of the Montgomery bus
system in 1955. This was organised after Rosa Parks, a black woman, refused to give up her seat on
the bus to a white man - in the segregated south, black people could only sit at the back of the bus.
During the boycott that followed, King faced threats and intimidation: his house was firebombed in
1956 and he was arrested for organising an illegal boycott. The 382-day boycott led the bus company
to change its regulations, and the Supreme Court declared such segregation unconstitutional.

In 1957, King was active in the organisation of the Southern Leadership Christian Conference [SLCC],
formed to coordinate protests against discrimination. He advocated non-violent direct action based
on the methods of Gandhi, he led protests against British rule in India culminating in India's
independence in 1947.

King’s main strategy was to attract national attention to racial inequality. In 1963, King led mass
protests against discriminatory practises in Birmingham, Alabama where the white population were
violently resisting desegregation. The city was dubbed ‘Bombingham’ as attacks against civil rights
protesters increased, and King was arrested and jailed for his part in the protests.

After his release King participated in the enormous civil rights March on Washington in August 1953,
and delivered his famous ‘I have a dream’ speech. This predicted a day when the promise of
freedom and equality for all would become a reality in America. The March included over 250
thousand people, including over 50,000 white Americans, who marched from the Washington
Monument to the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC to demand civil rights for all. The scale of the
March and King's passionate speech impressed television audiences around the world many
contemporaries saw this as the catalyst for President Kennedy presenting the civil rights go to
Congress. The following year the Civil Rights Act was passed: this outlawed racial decent graduation
in employment, restaurants, hotels and any bodies receiving government money including schools.

In 1964, King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. In 1965, he led a campaign in Selma to register
blacks to vote. The same year the US Congress passed the Voting Rights Act outlawing the
discriminatory practices that had barred blacks from voting in the south. Kings policy of non-violence
had worked.