PLANTING and WATERING OF THE SEED
On January 15th, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia a baby boy by the name of
Micheal King Jr. was born to Alberta Williams King and Michael King Sr, he was the middle child of the family having an older sister Willie Christine King and a younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams King also known as A.D. This young man grew up in a secure and loving, yet strict household, as a young black man inside of the racially prejudice environment the South in the 1950's. However despite regular personal experiences with racism and segregation as youth, he continued to maintain peaceful intentions under the guidance and leadership of 2 Baptist ministers, his father and A.D.Williams the grandfather of young Micheal Jr, who later changed his name to Martin after his father adopted the name Martin in honor the German Protestant religious leader Martin Luther.
In 1931 at the age of 2, King's journey to fight for civil rights began as his father Martin Sr. took over as pastor of
Ebenezer Baptist Church following the death of his father-in-law. As the pastor, his father encouraged his congregation to consider the importance of having love and compassion for everyone along with the significance of discouraging any sense of class superiority, as it was opposed to the
"Will of God". His father's religious beliefs combined with his personal beliefs in
FREEDOM and
EQUALITY clearly left lasting impression on young Martin Jr, who was baptized in 1936 at the age of 7. Years later, after becoming pastor himself, proclaimed his lack of fear racism as well as his willingness to die fighting for these beliefs, but in a forgiving and non-violent manner.
After graduating High School at 15 years old, Martin immediately attended
Morehouse College where he took a Bible Class in his Junior, which helped to renew his faith after 2 years of questioning religion and overly emotional displays of religious worship. King graduated in 1948 with a degree in sociology, then attended
Cozer Theological Seminary where he met a man that mentored him and challenged his liberal views on theology, a man who is arguably the most influential individual in Martin's spiritual and intellectual development, his father's Morehouse College classmate,
Reinhold Niebbuhr. Prior to meeting Niebbuhr in his last year at Cozer , Martin had some what rebelled against his really father's conservative beliefs by drinking beers, smoking cigarettes, and playing pool, and becoming involved with a white woman by the name of Betty, German cafeteria worker who he had a difficult time breaking off the affair with. Upon graduation, despite receiving acceptance from universities such as Yale and Edinburgh in Scotland, King opted to enroll into
Boston University to earn his
Ph.d, which he was awarded in 1955 at only 25 years old. Also during his time attending Boston University, King met and marred is his wife and mother of his four children,
Coretta Scott King in 1953. In addition, he became pastor of
Dexter Avenue Baptist Church of Montgomery Alabama while working on his dissertation.
THE BLOSSOMING PLANT
1955 would also be the year that the young King would reluctantly transform from just a minister of his church, into the leader and voice of the Civil Rights movement of the 1950' - 1960's, as it would be the year of the
Montgomery Bus Boycott. After
E. D. Nixon, the head of the local chapter of the
NAACP brought to King's attention that a 42 yr old black woman by the name of
Rosa Parks had gotten arrested for refusing to give up her seat to standing white passengers. Upon being notified of this incident Martin and other civil rights leaders plan a citywide bus boycott in which he was elected to lead the boycott because he was young, highly educated, with a professional standing and also had solid family values. For the next 382 days the African American community in Montgomery, Alabama walked to work while encountering harassment, intimidation, and violence including attacks on the homes of the local NAACP chapter leader and Dr King. But the civil rights activist took legal action against the city ordinance, arguing that it was unconstitutional based on the Supreme Court's
"separate is never equal" decision in
Brown v. Board of Education. So after suffering large financial losses from several lower court ruling that were not in their favor , the city of Montgomery was forced to remove the law that mandated segregated public transportation. This marked the 1st major victory for highly motivated Dr. King, and the civil rights movement as a whole. Below is the 1st speech that he made to the Black Community as leader of the Civil Rights movement.
"
We have no alternative but to protest. For many years we have shown an amazing patience. We have sometimes given our white brothers the feeling that we liked the way we were being treated. But we come here tonight to be saved from that patience that makes us patient with anything less than freedom and justice."
In 1957 King , 60 ministers and civil rights activists founded the
Southern Christian Leadership Conference to harness the moral authority and organizing power of black churches uniting and conducting non-violent protests to promote civil rights reform more than just locally, but nationwide. The organizations first task was to give the Black community a voice, by having them get involved in the voting process. So in 1958, SCLC sponsored over 20 mass meetings in the key southern cities to get black voters in the South registered. Dr. King also then began to give speeches on race related issues all across the country, in addition to to meet with religious and civil rights leaders across.
Inspired by
Mahatma Gandhi's success with non violent activism, Martin visited Gandhi's birthplace in India, this pilgrimage had a profound affect on him and increased his commitment to the civil rights battle in America. So upon his return, in 1960 he held a conference at Shaw University encouraging on group of African American students from Raleigh, North Carolina who had began to gain recognition for starting what is known as the "sit in" movement to continue to use non-violent methods in their protests . These students would go to racial segregated lunch counters throughout the city, and sit in the "white " section, and when they were asked to leave or sit in the colored section, they would remain seated and subjected themselves to extreme verbal and physical abuse and or, being arrested. With the assistance of Dr. King, by August of 1960 the "sit in" movement has successfully ending segregation at lunch counters in 27 southern cities, but not the city of Atlanta were Martin had returned to and became the co-pastor at his father's church Ebenezer. So when King and a group of 75 students entered a local department store, requesting lunch counter service, they were not only denied, but asked to leave, and when they refused to leave , they were all arrested. Following release of this arrest, King was again imprisoned under the claim of violating his probation on a traffic ticket, but was again released soon after presidential candidate,
John F Kennedy got involved, following expressing his concern for such harsh treatment towards Dr.King during a call to his wife Coretta.
THE PLANT BEARING FRUIT
After 4 years of lecturing, marching and protesting across the nation, Dr. King organized a demonstration in downtown Birmingham, Alabama in which the city police turned dogs and fire hoses on demonstrators and arrested many of them including Martin. This incident drew national attention, as well as many major personal criticism toward Dr. King, both black and white clergy felt that he was taking risk by endangering children that attended the demonstration . King responded with his theory of non- violence.
"Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community, which has constantly refused to negotiate, is forced to confront the issue."
And on August 28, 1963 he organized the historic march on Washington, where over 200,000 people gathered at the Lincoln Memorial and heard King give the speech that he is most famously known for, the
"I HAVE A DREAM" speech where he emphasized his belief that someday, all men could be brothers. This lecture strongly effected public opinion and perception as well as began to make many people question the Jim Crows laws along with the almost century long second class treatment of African American citizens. This resulted in the
Civil Rights Act of 1964 being passed, authorizing the Federal government to enforce desegregation of public accommodations and outlawing discrimination in publicly owned facilities. The passing of this law, led to Dr. King receiving the
Noble Peace Prize for 1964 as well.
Dr. King continued to march and protest and be imprisoned throughout the 1960's, and on March 7, 1965 organized a civil rights march from Selma to the capital of Alabama, Montgomery which again turned violent as police equipped with night sticks and tear gas confronted demonstrators as they attempted to cross the Edmond Pettus Bridge. King did not participate in this march, although it was televised due to the horrifying images of marchers getting bloodied and severely injured . This event was later named
"Bloody Sunday" due to the fact of 17 of the demonstrators being hospitalized, it also caused a cancellation of the 2nd march because of a restraining order to prevent it. However just 2 days later, on March 9th 1965, despite having the restraining order against it, Dr. King did participate in a 3rd march along with 2500 other both black and white marchers, once again attempting to cross the Pettus Bridge. But again was face confronted by troopers with barricades. So to avoid confrontation, Martin would lead his followers to kneel and pray, then they turned back. Now while this act to maintain peace was frown upon some Civil Rights leaders, and even lost him the support of some young African American leaders, it also helped him gain the support King needed to get the
Voting Rights Act of 1965 passed.
Throughout 1965 -1967, Martin spread his Civil Rights Movement into large US cities such as Los Angeles and Chicago, but was faced with much public resistance and criticism from the young
"Black Power" leaders. They expressed concern was that King's patient, humble, non-violent approach was weak, too late as well as all together non-effective. Dr. King's way to address his critics, was to build a link between discrimination and poverty by publicly expressing his belief that America's involvement in the Vietnam war was politically incapable of being vindicated and the government's conduct in the war was discriminatory to the poor. He then formed a multi-race coalition that addressed economic and unemployment issues of all disadvantaged people in America.
In the Spring of 1968, Dr. King added to the final piece of his legacy by going to Memphis Tennessee to speak and calm racial tension that was taking place during a labor strike by Memphis sanitation workers who were upset about 2 black sanitation workers that were killed from being forced to take shelter inside of the back of a garbage truck during a severe thunderstorm because it was company policy for colored people not to go inside with the white workers. During this last crusade on April 3rd, Martin gave his final lecture to his supporters in what has now proved to be a prophetic speech in which he stated
"I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight that we, as a people, will get to the promised land."
The following day, while standing outside of his room on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel, the husband, father, minister, humanitarian and civil rights leader known as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was struck in the neck by a sniper's bullet and killed His assassination sparked riots in over 100 cities throughout the United States. His life as had undeniable impact of race relations in the US, his legacy has had sum a tremendous influence out the nation that his work has now been honored with a National holiday, along with numerous schools, public buildings, streets, being named after him, in addition to a memorial on Independence Mall in the nation's capital, Washington D.C.
THE LASTING LEGACY
LEGACY
Something fascinating that I think proves the significance his life and his work has had on American history is the fact that,
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr Day is the only American national holiday that is in honor of a individual person, with the exception of Columbus Day which honors the so-called founder of this country. So as we remember the legacy of MLK, let us remain mindful of the importance of the virtues that made the man,
FREEDOM,
EQUALITY,
NON-VIOLENCE,
FAITH and
LOVE do our best to live by them ourselves. In doing so, you will join me in picking up the torch keeping his legacy alive by continuing publicly speak about these values, and if necessary, non-violently challenging anyone who opposes you, therefore fulfilling God's will for all of us, to
SPREAD LOVE LIKE A VIRUS!
