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Martin Luther King Jr. in the civil rights movement in the US during 1960-1970
Martin Luther King Jr. in the civil rights movement in the US during 1960-1970
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In the spring of 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. organized a demonstration in downtown Birmingham, Alabama. Entire families attended. City police turned dogs and fire hoses on demonstrators. Martin Luther King was jailed along with large numbers of his supporters, but the event drew nationwide attention. However, King was personally criticized by black and white clergy alike for taking risks and endangering the children who attended the demonstration. From the jail in Birmingham, King eloquently spelled out his theory of non-violence: "Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community, which has constantly refused to negotiate, is forced to confront the issue."
By the end of the Birmingham campaign,
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expanded his civil rights efforts into other larger American cities, including Chicago and Los Angeles. But he met with increasing criticism and public challenges from young black power leaders. King's patient, non-violent approach and appeal to white middle-class citizens alienated many black militants who considered his methods too weak, too late and ineffective. To address this criticism, King began making a link between discrimination and poverty, and he began to speak out against the Vietnam War. He felt that America's involvement in Vietnam was politically untenable and the government's conduct in the war discriminatory to the poor. He sought to broaden his base by forming a multi-race coalition to address economic and unemployment problems of all disadvantaged …show more content…
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Forest Whitaker - Inspired by Martin Luther King
(TV-14; 1:13) Mahatma Gandhi - A Legacy of Peace
Mahatma Gandhi - A Legacy of Peace
(TV-14; 1:14) Condoleezza Rice - Growing Up in Birmingham
Condoleezza Rice - Growing Up in Birmingham
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Rosa Parks - Civil Rights Pioneer
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(TV-PG;
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested on April 12, 1963, in Birmingham, for having a protest without a proper permit. On the exact day King was arrested, eight clergymen from Alabama wrote a letter called “A Call for Unity.” The letter called for termination of civil activities and demonstrations and designated King an “outsider” and saying that outsiders were the problems in Birmingham and not the blacks that are from there. On April 16 King wrote “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, which was his responds to his fellow clergymen. He wrote the letter as a means to convince the clergymen and the white moderate that the nonviolent demonstrations that had got him arrested, were a necessity and to enlighten them on why the segregation laws in the southern states needed to be changed. In “Letter from Birmingham Jail” King uses logos, pathos, and ethos to persuade the clergymen and convince them in assisting him in putting an end to segregation laws of blacks in Birmingham, Alabama.
On April 3rd, 1963, the Birmingham campaign began and people were protesting against racism and injustice. The non-violent campaign was coordinated by King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference and Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. However, King was roughly arrested with other main leaders of the campaign on April 12th for disobeying the rules of “no parading, demonstrating, boycotting, trespassing and picketing”. While jailed, King read a letter (“A call for unity”) written by eight white Alabama clergymen against King and his methods from the newspaper. In the letter, the clergymen stated that the campaign were "directed and led in part by outsiders," urging activists to use the courts if rights were being denied rather than to protest. The letter provoked King and “the Letter from Birmingham jail” was a written response to the white clergy men and to defend the strategy of non-violent protesting. Throughout the letter, King used many stylistic writing elements and effective emotional appealing to make people want to join his case.
In the "Letter from a Birmingham Jail", Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. responds to an article by eight clergymen, in which he explains the racial injustice in Birmingham, and reasons why King's organization is protesting for Civil Rights. He introduces himself and his actions at the beginning of his letter. He states that the purpose of his direct action protest is to open the door for negotiation on the Civil Rights. He tries to convince his audience by providing evidence in order to gain his audience to be involved in his movement and support him. He also highlights police actions against nonviolent Negros and crimes against humanity in Birmingham city jail.
Martin Luther King, Jr., born on January 15, 1929, was well known for his nonviolent movement to bring justice and to an end to the segregation of the people in the United States back in the 1950s. With King being the leader of a peaceful protest, it failed to bring equally to the colored people. Martin Luther King, Jr. was labeled as an “outsider” who was “hatred and violence” and that his actions were “unwise and untimely” from the Public Statement by Eight Alabama Clergymen (clergymen). In response, on the day of April 16, 1963, he wrote the Letter from Birmingham Jail to declare and defense his movement was not “unwise and untimely” at all. To analyze his points, King used the powerful literary devices of pathos- use of an emotional appeal.ethos-
The author, Dr. Martian Luther King Jr., makes a statement “Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue.” He uses this concept to convey the point of the Negros hard work to negotiate the issue has failed, but now they must confront it. The March on Good Friday, 1963, 53 blacks, led by Reverend Martian Luther King, Jr., was his first physical protest to segregation laws that had taken place after several efforts to simply negotiate. The author uses several phrases that describe his nonviolent efforts and his devotion to the issue of segregation that makes the reader believe his how seriously King takes this issue. “Conversely, one has the moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.” Dr. Martian Luther King, Jr. explains with this that an “unjust law is no law at all.” King does not feel like he has broken any laws in his protest against segregation. In his eyes, laws are made to protect the people, not degrade and punish. “The Negro has many pent up resentments and latent frustrations, and he must release them. So let him March.” As far as King is concerned, the Negros will continue to do whatever is necessary, preferably non-violently, to obtain the moral and legal right that is theirs. If they are not allowe...
...n, and this may be due to his use of media coverage but was not the most successful. Some argued that he was a glory seeker, who used the civil rights movement to gain publicity. He was a vital part of the civil rights movement and this is shown through his death, as after which the civil right movement fizzled out. King was led several successful campaigns such as the March on Washington, which brought many civil rights organisations together. The emotional impact of the March on Washington is thought to have helped the passage of civil rights legislation. Overall, Although King and the SCLC made some contribution it was no more than others, such as the NAACP who received less publicity but were equally if not more effective. For example, the NAACP won a unanimous victory with Brown V Board Of Education, in which segregated education was said to be unconstitutional.
Non-violent direct action and respectful disagreement are a form of civil disobedience. Martin Luther King, Jr. defines “civil disobedience” as a way to show others what to do when a law is unjust and unreasonable. King is most famous for his role in leading the African American Civil Rights Movement and using non-violent civil disobedience to promote his beliefs. King also firmly believed that civil disobedience was the way to defeat racial segregation against African Americans. While leading a protest march on the streets, King was arrested and sent to jail. In response to his imprisonment and an article he read while there, King wrote Letter from Birmingham Jail, explaining that an injustice affects everyone and listed his own criteria for
Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote an argumentative persuasive essay, the “Letter from Birmingham Jail” on April 16, 1963. King had written this letter to address and respond to the criticism made by the white clergymen. The letter was an approach to end racism and hatred in a non-violent manner. The non-violent movement was organized by King and his pro-black organization called “The Southern Christian Leadership Conference”.
In Dr. Martin Luther King’s Letter from the Birmingham City Jail, King speaks about the society he and all other African Americans are living in. He starts to discuss just and unjust laws and states the difference between the two: “A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law.” Most people, at the time, thought that if a law is in place, it is for the better of society. The idea held by mostly white America that the brutality the police officers are inflicting on civilians who fight against systemic racism as a way to keep order adds to Kings problems with the current state of society. He is fighting against the ‘white moderate’, who is the white
In 1963, Birmingham was one of the most segregated cities in the South, so civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. brought his campaign of nonviolent resistance to Birmingham. After leading a demonstration on April 12, 1963, King was arrested for violating demonstration ordinances. Shortly after, eight white clergymen in Birmingham sent out a public statement claiming that although they support desegregation, they advise against anymore protests advocated by King, stating that the “demonstrations are unwise and untimely” (Carpenter et al,). While in jail, King took an opportunity to continue his campaign by responding to these eight white clergymen. In his “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” King uses religious and philosophical allusions to
“ But something else less easy to conquer stands in the ways of his dreams for himself”.
Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. had faith in his beliefs of equality, and that all people, regardless of race should be free and governed under the same laws. In the later part of the 1960's, Birmingham, Alabama, the home of King, was considered to be the most racially divided city in the South. "Birmingham is so segregated, we're within a cab ride of being in Johannesburg, South Africa", 1 when King said this he was only speaking half jokingly. In Birmingham the unwritten rule towards blacks was that "if the Klan doesn't stop you, the police will."2 When King decided that the time had come to end the racial hatred, or at least end the violence, he chose to fight in a non-traditional way. Rather than giving the white people the pleasure of participating in violent confrontations, King believed if they fought without violence for their rights, they would have a faster success rate. King also saw Birmingham as the major problem in America.
Over the course of his life, Dr. King would lead and participate in multiple non-violent protests against segregation. On the first of December, 1955, the arrest of Rosa Parks in Montgomery, Alabama would trigger the first of many protests led by King. The Montgomery bus boycott would last for 385 days and was so tense that King’s house was bombed. He was later arrested and released after the United States District Courts ruled that segregation on all Montgomery public buses was illegal. This paved the way for King to lead many more protests in his life and becoming a major leader in the desegregation movement.
From the Boston Tea Party of 1773, the Civil Rights Movement and the Pro-Life Movement of the 1960s, to the Tea Party Movement and Occupy Wall Street Movement of current times, “those struggling against unjust laws have engaged in acts of deliberate, open disobedience to government power to uphold higher principles regarding human rights and social justice” (DeForrest, 1998, p. 653) through nonviolent protests. Perhaps the most well-known of the non-violent protests are those associated with the Civil Rights movement. The movement was felt across the south, yet Birmingham, Alabama was known for its unequal treatment of blacks and became the focus of the Civil Rights Movement. Under the leadership of Martin Luther King Jr., president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, African-Americans in Birmingham, began daily demonstrations and sit-ins to protest discrimination at lunch counters and in public facilities. These demonstrations were organized to draw attention to the injustices in the city. The demonstrations resulted in the arrest of protesters, including Martin Luther King. After King was arrested in Birmingham for taking part in a peaceful march to draw attention to the way that African-Americans were being treated there, their lack of voter rights, and the extreme injustice they faced in Alabama he wrote his now famous “Letter from Birmingham.”
King traveled the country making speeches and inspiring people to become involved in the Civil Rights Movement. He organized non-violent student sit-ins and fought for the rights of the black population. In his speech, he proclaimed a free and better nation of equality and that both races, the blacks and the whites, should join together to achieve common ground and to support each other instead of fighting against one another. King’s vision is that all people should be judged by their “personality and character and not by their color of skin”(‘I Have a Dream”). All the points he made in his speech were so strong that lots of people were interested in his thoughts. He dreamed of a land where the blacks could vote and have a reason to vote and where every citizen would be treated the same and with the same justice.