Civil Rights Movement: Martin Luther King Jr.

1. Civil Rights Movement:Martin Luther King Jr. Ms. Gomez, U.S. History, Period 3 Anita Tango, Perris Rein, and Sonny May

2. Background Information Who was Martin Luther King Jr.? • Born on January 15, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia (the South) • Education • Attended Segregated Public Schools in Georgia • Attended Morehouse College in Atlanta • African American male liberal arts college (Sociology) • Studied Divinity at Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania • Religion • Pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama • Inspired by Mahatma Gandhi • Went on a Missionary Trip to India • Use and Power of Nonviolent Resistance

3. Background Information (Cont’d.) What was his motivation to get involved in the Civil Rights Movement? • Dedicated to Civil Rights for African Americans • National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) • Executive Committee Member • Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) • Based on Christian Ideals and Gandhi’s Principles of Nonviolence • Demonstration Organizer • Nonviolent Protests and Marches • Birmingham Campaign in April of 1963 • March on Washington on August 28, 1963 • Powerful Orator and Writer • “Letter from Birmingham Jail” • “I Have a Dream” speech • Assassinated on April 4, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee

4. Brief Outline 3 Main Points of Interest and Summary • Montgomery Bus Boycott -Involvement and Results • Birmingham Campaign -Opportunity, Purpose and Consequences • March on Washington -Message and Results • Contributions and Accomplishments -Bus Desegregation -Nonviolent Resistance, Desegregation -The Civil Rights Act of 1964

5. To Get an Idea… Segregation in the U.S. before the Brown Decision (1954).

6. Montgomery Bus Boycott • First Act of Civil Disobedience • Rosa Parks • Against Racial Segregation on Buses • Lasted Dec. 1, 1955-Dec. 20, 1956 (382 Days) • NAACP Organization • Executive Committee Member • Congregation Meetings • Carpools • Volunteer Drivers • Participation • Martin Luther King Jr.: • Arrested for Leading/ Participating in Boycott • House was Bombed • Received Political Abuse • Rose as a Prominent Civil Rights Leader • Results • Successful Boycott • Nonviolence Resistance • Cost Public Transportation System Millions in Lost Dollars • Bus Desegregation • Browder v. Gayle (1956) • U.S. Supreme Court Ruling found bus segregation laws in the South were UNCONSTITUTIONAL!

7. More Images of the Montgomery Bus Boycott

8. Birmingham Campaign • Opportunity and Purpose • Wanted ALL Americans to Witness the Physical Violence, Brutality, and Hate • Needed to “provoke a crisis” through Direct Action Protests (Nonviolent) • MLK and SCLC Planned to Campaign Birmingham, Alabama • “The most violently racist city in America…” • Plan “Project C” – Referring to “Confrontation” • Understood the implications: • Guaranteed Violent Response Against Peaceful Protesters • Consequences • Police Commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor Ordered for: • Armed Police, Use of High Powered Water Guns and Tear Gas, and Police Loosed Attack Dogs • Hundreds (Including Children) Attacked and Arrested • Results • MLK Arrested • “Letter from Birmingham Jail”-Responds that African Americans Can No Longer “Wait” for Justice • Atrocities Captured by Television Media • Americans Horrified • Kennedy Administration Forced to Take Action-Government and White Businesses to Abandon Jim Crow Laws

9. More Images of theBirmingham Campaign

10. March on Washington • March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom • Message • A Quarter of a Million Americans Came from All Over the U.S • Demonstrate to Congress: • Support to Pass Kennedy’s Civil Right’s Bill • Wanted Federal Action Guaranteeing Fair & Equal Job Opportunities for African Americans • Results • Celebration of Unity • MLK’s “I Have a Dream” speech • Prophesized for a day in which “all God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, ‘Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last.’” • Demonstrated Determination of African Americans to Secure Equality and Justice • Tensions within the Movement had been Growing • Belief that Kennedy’s Bill was Too Little, Too Late • Civil Rights Movement Begins to Splinter

11. More Images of the March on Washington

12. Summary of Significance • Martin Luther King Jr. was a very important figure of the Civil Rights Movement. • Along with Civil Rights organizations and ordinary Americans, he organized important demonstrations that showed the rest of the U.S. they were determined to gain equality and justice. • His nonviolent principles were effective and protests, demonstrations and marches achieved not only bus segregation, but city-wide and even national ban on legal discrimination. • His words and strategies gained the attention of the nation and federal government. It ultimately led to Kennedy’s civil rights bill, which was passed under Johnson’s administration as the Civil Rights Act of 1964. • People now cannot be denied access to voting, employment, federal programs, or public facilities on the basis of one’s color, race, ethnicity, or gender. • Their struggles and triumphs improved the lives of future generations, including ours, especially for minorities who would not enjoy the same rights as white Americans if it were not for the Civil Rights Movement.

13. Work Cited "Martin Luther King Jr. - Biography". Nobelprize.org. 10 Nov 2012 http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1964/king-bio.html Norton, Mary, et al., A People and A Nation Volume 11: Since 1865. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2005.