Can we have a movement these days that has a similar impact? It showed that if we all work in unity, great things can happen. Rosa Park’s refusal to move to the back of the bus, and set off a chain of events that were felt worldwide. The section depicting the Montgomery Bus Boycott was one of my favourite parts of the book. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all it ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light injustice must be exposed with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion, before it can be cured.” We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. “Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. The only one I’d heard/read thus far was his famous “I Have a Dream” speech but I must say his “Letter from Birmingham Jail” was one of the best things I’ve ever read in my life. King’s speeches and letters, which were printed all through the book, were phenomenal. Using the philosophy of non-violence, which he adopted from Mahatma Gandhi, he and many others began the struggle for civil rights.ĭr. There were men and women who could not take this lying down. There were separate facilities for Blacks and Whites separate drinking fountains, restaurants, schools, churches etc, there was also widespread poverty. They weren’t free in the true sense of the word. Lincoln emancipated the slaves but more than 100 years later, the descendants of the slaves were still living under segregation and fear. “To deprive man of freedom is to relegate him to the status of a thing, rather than elevate him to the status of a person.”- Dr. In 2004, King was posthumously awarded a Congressional Gold Medal. Day was established as a national holiday in the United States in 1986.

He was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Jimmy Carter in 1977.

King was assassinated on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee. In 1964, King became the youngest person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to end segregation and racial discrimination through civil disobedience and other non-violent means. Here he raised public consciousness of the civil rights movement and established himself as one of the greatest orators in U.S. His efforts led to the 1963 March on Washington, where King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech. He led the Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955–1956) and helped found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (1957), serving as its first president. He became a civil rights activist early in his career. King was a Baptist minister, one of the few leadership roles available to black men at the time. was one of the pivotal leaders of the American civil rights movement.

The autobiography of mlk