Martin Luther King JR.
Martin Luther king Jr was born in 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia. He was a Baptist preacher and civil-rights activist. His experience preaching was clear through his speeches.He had a huge impact on race relations in the US in the 1950s. King wanted all american citizens to be treated equally.
This was an extremely difficult task because in the
southern states racism was an hourly occurence for
black men and women. Black people in southern states weren't just fighting the white communities, they were also fighting the police force,backed by the governors of the states.This was extremely obvious in Alabama.
When Martin Luther King was growing up, life was hard for African Americans. The Southern United States operated under laws that kept black and white people separated/segregated. Black people had different schools, toilets and sections of the bus to white people. They were also
denied the right to vote in elections.
Martin Luther King had his first experience of segregation at just six years old, when he was told he wasn’t allowed to play with his
white friend anymore because his friend’s father wouldn’t allow it.
His first major role in the Civil Rights Movement
came in 1955, after an African American lady was
arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white man on a bus. This sparked outrage in the African American community and Martin helped to organise a boycott of the city’s buses.
Civil Rights Movement in the United States was a political, legal, and social struggle by black Americans to gain full citizenship rights and to achieve racial equality.
The civil rights movement was first and foremost a challenge to segregation, the system of laws and customs separating blacks and whites that whites used to control blacks after slavery was abolished. During the civil rights movement, individuals and civil rights organizations challenged segregation and discrimination with a variety of activities, including protest marches, boycotts, and refusal to abide by segregation laws. Many believe that the movement began with the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955 and ended with the Voting Rights Act of 1965 thanks to JFK, though there is debate about when it began and whether it has ended yet. The civil rights movement has also been called the Black Freedom Movement, the Negro Revolution, and the Second Reconstruction. These names were given to make a big deal of the issue and to try and get it resolved.