MLK's Speech and Its Effect on Local Civil Rights Movement

1920 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Précede of Martin Luther King's speech

MLK's Speech and Its Effect on Local Civil Rights Movement

The white man won’t hand out integration on a silver platter.

The history of the civil rights is often told on the national scale or following well-known figures and direct-action events such as the sit-in campaign and Rosa Parks’ famous stand on a Montgomery bus. More recently, historians have focused their research on the local level, revealing events that are not prominent, but integral to the larger scale history of civil rights in the United States. Although national power determined the “deliberate speed” of desegregation legislation, local communities determined the actual speed in which they would be enforced. Some communities pressed for immediate social change through the integration of public facilities, such as swimming pools and restaurants, while others gained prominence through the desegregation of educational institutions. The work of Dr. Martin Luther King is inseparable from the modern civil rights movement and for that purpose this paper focuses on the events surrounding a speech he made in Columbus, Georgia, in 1958 and the way it affected the civil rights movement within the local community. King’s speech and appearance are examples of the local and national movements converging for a common purpose.

On the evening of July 1, 1958, Dr. Martin Luther Jr. gave a speech to an audience of over one-thousand at the Prince Hall Masonic Lodge in the Liberty District of Columbus. He was invited by D.P. Nesbitt, a member of Saint James AME Church and cousin to a senior deacon at King’s home church in Montgomery. Although King had yet to reach his peak as the leading activist of his day, he was well-known for his non-violent theme and message. The succ...

... middle of paper ...

... Center Digital Archive, Accessed via, http://www.thekingcenter.org/archive/document/mlks-remarks-conference-president.

McGill, Ralph, and Cal M. (Calvin McLeod) Logye. No Place to Hide: The South and Human Rights. Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 1984.

Ridenour, Earnestine. and Columbus College School of Education. Thomas H. Brewer and the Struggle for Civil Rights, 1990.

“The Forgotten Speech” Columbus Ledger-Enquirer, 15 January, 2007, A1.

Tuck, Stephen G. N. Beyond Atlanta: The Struggle for Racial Equality in Georgia, 1940-1980. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2001.

United States. Congress. House. Committee on the Judiciary, Civil Rights: Hearings Before Subcommittee No. 5 on H. R. 300 [and Other] Miscellaneous Bills Regarding the Civil Rights of Persons Within the Jurisdiction of the United States, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1959, 188.

Show More
Related

  • Racism, Society, and Martin Espada's Beloved Spic

    1314 Words  | 3 Pages

    On April 4, 1968 America experienced the tragic loss of one of its greatest social leaders, Martin Luther King, Jr. He was a pivotal leader in the civil rights movement who permeated American history as a man who maintained the importance of nonviolent social change. He fought racism within the public domain by pursuing school integration and basic civil rights for the African-American community. Thirty-one years after his death, America is forced to evaluate the exact implications of his legacy on modern society's attitudes towards race and race relations. Did the civil rights movement really promote positive changes in race relations? How far has American society really come?

    Read More

  • C. Vann Woodward's The Strange Career of Jim Crow

    1227 Words  | 3 Pages

    Although some of Woodward’s peripheral ideas may have been amended in varying capacities his central and driving theme, often referred to as the “Woodward Thesis,” still remains intact. This thesis states that racial segregation (also known as Jim Crow) in the South in the rigid and universal form that it had taken by 1954 did not begin right after the end of the Civil War, but instead towards the end of the century, and that before Jim Crow appeared there was a distinct period of experimentation in race relations in the South. Woodward’s seminal his...

    Read More

  • The Emmett Till: His Murder

    1154 Words  | 3 Pages

    Younge, Gary. "America dreaming: the horrors of segregation bound the US civil rights movement together. Fifty years on from Martin Luther King's great speech, inequality persists--but in subtler ways." New Statesman [1996] 23 Aug. 2013: 20+. Student Resources in Context. Web. 28 Jan. 2014.

    Read More

  • The Strange Career of Jim Crow

    1332 Words  | 3 Pages

    C. Vann Woodward’s book, The Strange Career of Jim Crow, has been hailed as a book which shaped our views of the history of the Civil Rights Movement and of the American South. Martin Luther King, Jr. described the book as “the historical Bible of the civil rights movement.” The argument presented in The Strange Career of Jim Crow is that the Jim Crow laws were relatively new introductions to the South that occurred towards the turn of the century rather than immediately after the end of Reconstruction after the Civil War. Woodward examines personal accounts, opinions, and editorials from the eras as well as the laws in place at the times. He examines the political history behind the emergence of the Jim Crow laws. The Strange Career of Jim Crow gives a new insight into the history of the American South and the Civil Rights Movement.

    Read More

  • The Scottsboro Turning Point

    1180 Words  | 3 Pages

    Few things have impacted the United States throughout its history like the fight for racial equality. It has caused divisions between the American people, and many name it as the root of the Civil War. This issue also sparked the Civil Rights Movement, leading to advancements towards true equality among all Americans. When speaking of racial inequality and America’s struggle against it, people forget some of the key turning points in it’s history. Some of the more obvious ones are the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed slaves in the North, and Martin Luther King Jr.’s march on Washington D.C. in 1963. However, people fail to recount a prominent legal matter that paved the way for further strides towards equality.

    Read More

  • Baldwin and The Little Rock Nine

    2329 Words  | 5 Pages

    United States. “Commission on Civil Rights. School Desegregation in Little Rock, Arkansas June 1977.” Washington, D.C. June 1977.

    Read More

  • The Little Rock Nine

    1547 Words  | 4 Pages

    Without Federal support, African Americans would have never been able to achieve what they have. Little Rock and the civil rights movement dramatically changed the face of the nation and gave a sense of dignity and power to black Americans. Most of all, the millions of Americans who participated in the movement brought about changes that reinforced our nation’s basic constitutional rights for all Americans- black and white, men and women, young and old. Bibliography Chalmers, David. And the Crooked Places Made Straight: The Struggle for Social Change in the 1960s.

    Read More

  • Malcolm X: From Petty Criminal to Civil Rights Leader

    1083 Words  | 3 Pages

    Brown, Frank the Journal of Negro Education, Vol. 73, No. 3, Special Issue: Brown v. Board of Education at 50 (summer, 2004), pp. 182-190.

    Read More

  • Martin Luther King: Letter from Birmingham Jail

    1437 Words  | 3 Pages

    Vettese, J. (2011, September 20). Speak Outs - What are the civil rights issues of

    Read More

  • Success and Failure of the Civil Rights Movement

    1574 Words  | 4 Pages

    Success was a big part of the Civil Rights Movement. Starting with the year 1954, there were some major victories in favor of African Americans. In 1954, the landmark trial Brown vs. The Board of Education of Topeka Kansas ruled that segregation in public education was unfair. This unanimous Supreme Court decision overturned the prior Plessy vs. Ferguson case during which the “separate but equal” doctrine was created and abused. One year later, Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. launched a bus boycott in Montgomery Alabama after Ms. Parks was arrested for not giving up her seat in the “colored section”. This boycott, which lasted more than a year, led to the desegregation of buses in 1956. Group efforts greatly contributed to the success of the movement. This is not only shown by the successful nature of the bus boycott, but it is shown through the success of Martin Luther King’s SCLC or Southern Christian Leadership Conference. The conference was notable for peacefully protesting, nonviolence, and civil disobedience. Thanks to the SCLC, sit-ins and boycotts became popular during this time, adding to the movement’s accomplishments. The effective nature of the sit-in was shown during 1960 when a group of four black college students sat down at a Woolworth’s lunch counter in hopes of being served. While they were not served the first time they commenced their sit-in, they were not forced to leave the establishment; their lack of response to the heckling...

    Read More

  • The March on Washington - August 28, 1963

    1353 Words  | 3 Pages

    One hundred years after the Emancipation Proclamation was written, African Americans were still fighting for equal rights in every day life. The first real success of this movement did not come until the Brown vs. Board of Education decision in 1954 which was followed by many boycotts and protests. The largest of these protests, the March on Washington, was held on August 28, 1963 “for jobs and freedom” (March on Washington 11). An incredible amount of preparation went into the event to accommodate the hundreds of thousands of people attending from around the nation and to deal with any potential incidents.

    Read More

  • My Soul Is Rested Summary

    155 Words  | 1 Pages

    The book, “My Soul Is Rested” by Howell Raines is a remarkable history of the civil rights movement. It details the story of sacrifice and audacity that led to the changes needed. The book described many immeasurable moments of the leaders that drove the civil rights movement. This book is a wonderful compilation of first-hand accounts of the struggles to desegregate the American South from 1955 through 1968. In the civil rights movement, there are the leaders and followers who became astonishing in the face of chaos and violence. The people who struggled for the movement are as follows: Hosea Williams, Rosa Parks, Ralph Abernathy, and others; both black and white people, who contributed in demonstrations for freedom rides, voter drives, and

    Read More

  • The Central Theme of Southern History by Ulrich B. Phillips

    1616 Words  | 4 Pages

    Imagine a historian, author of an award-winning dissertation and several books. He is an experienced lecturer and respected scholar; he is at the forefront of his field. His research methodology sets the bar for other academicians. He is so highly esteemed, in fact, that an article he has prepared is to be presented to and discussed by the United States’ oldest and largest society of professional historians. These are precisely the circumstances in which Ulrich B. Phillips wrote his 1928 essay, “The Central Theme of Southern History.” In this treatise he set forth a thesis which on its face is not revolutionary: that the cause behind which the South stood unified was not slavery, as such, but white supremacy. Over the course of fourteen elegantly written pages, Phillips advances his thesis with evidence from a variety of primary sources gleaned from his years of research. All of his reasoning and experience add weight to his distillation of Southern history into this one fairly simple idea, an idea so deceptively simple that it invites further study.

    Read More

  • Racism in America - Past and Present

    2883 Words  | 6 Pages

    Whenever people discuss race relations today and the effect of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s, they remember the work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He was and continues to be one of the most i...

    Read More

  • Essay On Civil Rights Movement

    2889 Words  | 6 Pages

    Massive protests against racial segregation and discrimination broke out in the southern United States that came to national attention during the middle of the 1950’s. This movement started in centuries-long attempts by African slaves to resist slavery. After the Civil War American slaves were given basic civil rights. However, even though these rights were guaranteed under the Fourteenth Amendment they were not federally enforced. The struggle these African-Americans faced to have their rights ...

    Read More

More about MLK's Speech and Its Effect on Local Civil Rights Movement

Open Document