An man from India deeply influenced a black man in America who persuaded black Americans to peacefully seek civil rights. Blacks in America were once slaves. They had neither freedom nor rights. Now, in the 20th century, segregation has been abolished and discrimination has largely been reduced and blacks are more able to live freely as American citizens. In Early 1950’s, blacks did not have civil rights, so they had to fight for their freedom. In 1955, blacks decided to rally together for social justice and planned a boycott. This boycott became known as the Montgomery Bus Boycott. This boycott was pivotal in the Civil Right Movement by energizing blacks, particularly in the South, to become more involved in politics. This occurred with the help of Claudette Colvin, Rosa Parks, President Nixon, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and especially with the influence of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., inspired by Mahatma Gandhi. From King’s studies of nonviolence, he guided blacks peacefully through the boycott and taught the boycotters that violence is not the way.
King and Gandhi
There were several factors that caused the Montgomery Bus Boycott. In the 1950’s, black people were protesting for their civil rights, because of the “Plessy vs. Ferguson” case in 1896. In this case, the term “separate but equal” was put into effect. This meant segregation between blacks and whites could happen legally. Due to “Plessy vs. Ferguson” case, the “Jim Crow” laws were firmly cemented by the highest court. These laws called for racial segregation and discrimination throughout the United States, during the late 1800’s through to the 1960’s. These laws were applied to the use of everything such as, bathrooms, wate...
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History.com Staff. “Montgomery Bus Boycott.” History.com. 2010. Accessed April 24, 2014.http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/montgomery-bus-boycott.
Martin Luther King Jr., The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Vol. 3: Birth of a New Age, December 1955-December 1956 (n.p.: University of California Press, 1997).
Meier, August, and Elliot Rudwick. Black Protest in the Sixties. New York City: New York Times Company, 1970.
Sanford Wexler and Julian Bond, The Civil Rights Movement: An Eyewitness History (New York: Facts On File, 1993).
Theoharis, Jeanne, and Theoharis, Athan. These yet to Be United States: Civil Rights and Civil Liberties in America Since 1945. Stamford, Connecticut: Wadsworth, Thomson Learning Inc., 2003.
Wolfgang Mieder, “Making a Way Out of No Way”: Martin Luther King's Sermonic Proverbial Rhetoric (New York: Peter Lang, 2010).
Gilbert, Ben W. Ten blocks from the White House: Anatomy of the Washington Riots of 1968. FA Praeger, 1968.
Lischer, Richard The Preacher King: Martin Luther King Jr. and the word that moved America Oxford University Press: 1995. Print
Martin Luther King led the boycott. turned out to be an immediate success, despite the threats and violence against white people. A federal court ordered Montgomery buses. desegregated in November 1956, and the boycott ended in triumph. King led several sit-ins, this kind of movement was a success.
The Tallahassee Democrat; "The Pain and the Promise: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Tallahassee, Florida," by Glenda Alice Rabby; and research by Mike Pope, former Democrat letters editor.
In the book, Colaiaco presents the successes that Dr. King achieves throughout his work for Civil Rights. The beginning of Dr. King’s nonviolent civil rights movements started in Montgomery, Alabama when Rosa Parks refused to move for a white person, violating city’s transportation rules. After Parks was convicted Dr. King, who was 26 at the time, was elected president of the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA). “For 381 days, thousands of blacks walked to work, some as many as 12 miles a day, rather than continue to submit to segregated public transportation” (18). This boycott ended up costing the bus company more than $250,000 in revenue. The bus boycott in Montgomery made King a symbol of racial justice overnight. This boycott helped organize others in Birmingham, Mobile, and Tallahassee. During the 1940s and 1950s the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) won a series of cases that helped put it ahead in the civil rights movement. One of these advancements was achieved in 1944, when the United States Supreme Court banned all-white primaries. Other achievements made were the banning of interstate bus seating segregating, the outlawing of racially restraining covenants in housing, and publicly supporting the advancement of black’s education Even though these advancements meant quite a lot to the African Americans of this time, the NAACP’s greatest accomplishment came in 1954 with the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Brown vs. Board of Education case, which overturned the Plessy vs.
Bainton, Roland H. Here I Stand: A life of Martin Luther. New York. Abington Printing Press. 1950
Wexler, Sanford. The Civil Rights Movement: An Eyewitness History. New York: Facts On File, Inc, 1993.
Garrow, David. Protest at Selma: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Voting rights act of 1965. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1978. 135-147. Print.√
In late 1955, Dr. King was elected to lead his first public peaceful protest. For the rest of the year and throughout all of 1956, African Americans decided to boycott the Montgomery bus system in response to the arrest of Rosa Parks. After 382 days of protest, the city of Montgomery was forced to lift the law mandating segregated public transportation because of the large financial losses they suffered from the protest. King began to receive notice on a national level in 1960. On October ...
Lee, Alfred McClung. Race Riot/by Alfred McClung Lee and Norman Daymond Humphrey. New York: The Dryden Press, 1943.
In “Letter from Birmingham Jail” Martin Luther King is able to effectively argue against criticisms through the use of passionate and calm tones, vivid metaphors, and biblical and historical allusions. King uses numerous biblical allusions to resonate with his clergymen audience and to make them realize that they were condemning a righteous movement. The vivid language in metaphors captures emotion and expands understanding. Mr. King was able to do anything to end the injustice in Birmingham and his commitment was shown in his tone.
Garrow, David J. Protest at Selma: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. New York: New Haven and London Yale University Press. 1978
American & World History. http://www.history.com/topics/martin-luther-king-jr (accessed October 1, 2013). Primary source: a. King, Martin Luther, and Clayborne Carson. The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. New York: Intellectual Property Management in association with Warner Books, 1998.
Blacks walked miles to work, organized carpools, and despite efforts from the police to discourage this new spark of independence, the boycotts continued for more than a year until in November 1956 the Supreme Court ruled that the Montgomery bus company must desegregate it's busses. Were it not for the leadership of Rosa Parks and Jo Ann Robinson, and the support the black community through church congregations, these events may have not happened for many years to come.