Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King was born in 1929 on January 15th as the son of the teacher
Alberta King and the Baptist minister Michael Luther King in Atlanta (Georgia).
In 1948 he left the Morehouse College in Atlanta and went to the University,
where he studied theology. When he was 24 years old he got married to Corretta
Scott in Alabama. Later they had four children together.
M. L. King fought always for the colored's rights and in 1956 he had get to
know the hatred against coloreds as someone attacked his house with a bomb.
That was one reason why he and some other black priests founded the "Southern
Christian Leadership Conference". In 1957 he traveled about 1 million sqm and
hold over 200 speeches to find more civil right activists. One year later King
released his first book "Stride Toward Freedom" in memory of the bus-boycott in
Montgomery. As he advertised for his book an African- American attacked him,
but he survived it. In 1959 his dream became true. He traveled to India because
he admired Mohandas (Mahatma= the great soul) K. Gandhi for his passive
resistance, which had big success. Once M. L. King said about Gandhi: "Gandhi
was unavoidable. If the humanity wants to go on, Gandhi is (unausweichlich). He
lived, thought and acted in the faith of the humanity, which will develop to a
world of peace and harmony. We just may ignore Gandhi for the danger of
ourselves."
In 1960 he left Atlanta and worked at his father's church. Two years later he
met President John F. Kennedy and asked him for help for the civil rights. In
1963 on August 28th, as he didn't get help, he organized the famous "March on
Washington ", in which 250 000 civil right activists took part. At the Lincoln
Memorial Martin Luther King hold his famous speech "I have a dream". In 1964 he
met Willy Brandt and talked to him about the discrimination of coloreds. In the
same year on December 10th M. L. King got the Nobel Prize for peace. Even he
got this prize he still protested against the discrimination and he got
arrested for that.
In 1968 on April 4th Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed in a motel by a
white man called James Earl Ray in Memphis, Tennessee.
18 years later in 1986 on January 20th the first national day of remembrance
for M. L. King was celebrated.
The bus-boycott
Rosa Parks, an 43-year-old black tailor, was arrested because she didn't stand
up from the front seat of a bus. The night after that, 50 important people of
the
civil right movement met in church for a discussion about this problem. With
them was a young priest, Dr. M. L. King Jr. The leaders organized the "Montgomery
bus-boycott". Because of that the bus-company lost two thirds from its money.
M. L. King had to pay $ 500 and had to go in jail for 386 days. He paid the
money and after eight month the Supreme Court determined to abolish the
segregation in buses, because that is against the constitution.
From Selma to Montgomery- The Bloody Sunday
Outraged about a killed demonstrator, the colored from Marion in Alabama
decided to make a march. M. L. King should lead this march from Selma to the
capital Montgomery where he had to talk to the governor. They wanted the police
to stop their violence and they were searching for attention they needed to
fight for their rights. As the governor didn't accept this march, M. L. King
went to Washington to talk to President Johnson. The demonstrators couldn't
wait and begun their march. As they reached the town boarder, the police was
already waiting for them. As they crossed the bridge, which leaves Selma, the
police ordered them to stop the march. But the police didn't wait until their
warning was understand, instead of that, they attacked the crowd. With tear gas
and hitsticks the police pushed them into a colored neighborhood where they hit
innocent citizens.
This day is called the "Bloody Sunday". It got national attention and many
marches were organized as answers to that day. President Johnson hold a very
intensive speech and in the same year the "Voting Rights Act" was accepted for
everyone, as a result of the Bloody Sunday.
