Martin Luther King, Jr.: “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence”

About the Author

Born Michael King, Jr., in Atlanta, Georgia, on January 15, 1929, King became Martin Luther King, Jr., in 1934 when his father changed his own and his son’s name to honor the famous German theologian. King’s grandfather and father were pastors of Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church and leaders of the local branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. King, too, decided to study for the ministry after graduating from Morehouse College in 1948. He earned a divinity degree in 1951 at Crozier Theological Seminary, where he finished first in his class. Three years later, he graduated from Boston University with a PhD in theology. Long after King’s death, a panel of experts appointed by the university concluded that King had plagiarized portions of his dissertation.

King gained national recognition as a civil rights activist during the Montgomery bus boycott that began in December 1955. African Americans had organized a boycott of the segregated local bus lines in Montgomery, Alabama, after the arrest of a black woman who had refused to give up her seat to a white patron and move to the back of the bus. King, who was pastor of a local Baptist church, became the most eloquent voice of the boycott movement, urging supporters to protest in a Christian fashion—that is, with courage but also dignity and love. Although King faced intimidation and violence, including the bombing of his house, he insisted on nonviolent protest. In November 1956, the U.S. Supreme Court declared the southern bus segregation laws unconstitutional. In 1957, King founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to promote civil rights. In 1960 he returned to Atlanta, where, along with his father, he became copastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church.

During the mid-1960s, King led the civil rights movement to two of its greatest victories. In spring 1963, he organized demonstrations in Birmingham, Alabama, to challenge racial segregation at lunch counters and secure job opportunities for African Americans. When television cameras showed local authorities using fire hoses and police dogs against the nonviolent demonstrators, many of them youths, national outrage led not only to desegregation in Birmingham but also to a decision on the part of President John F. Kennedy to ask Congress for civil rights legislation that would bar discrimination on account of race in employment and in public accommodations, such as restaurants, hotels, and theaters. On August 28, 1963, King spoke at a huge rally in Washington, D.C., to mobilize support for the legislation. Standing before the Lincoln Memorial, he famously proclaimed, “I have a dream,” and his moving vision of a society where blacks and whites enjoyed equal rights helped build a broad coalition in favor of the legislation. On July 2, 1964, King attended the ceremony at which President Johnson signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In March 1965, demonstrations against discriminatory voting practices that King helped organize in Selma, Alabama, produced another ugly incident of police violence. The resulting national outcry led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which gave the federal government new powers to ensure that all citizens could exercise their constitutional right to vote.

King earned honors and acclaim for his nonviolent struggle for civil rights. He was Time magazine’s Man of the Year for 1964, and he received the Nobel Peace Prize in December 1964. Yet despite his achievements, he endured a campaign of harassment carried on by the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, J. Edgar Hoover. A fierce opponent of the civil rights movement, Hoover used information from wiretaps on King’s telephones to try to discredit his leadership and prove that he was a Communist. King also faced criticism from younger African American leaders, who began calling for “Black Power” in the mid-1960s and advocating armed resistance to white oppression. King remained faithful to his nonviolent principles, and he maintained that “Black Power” was “a slogan without a program.” Instead, he called for “a new turn toward greater economic justice” that would close the gap between rich and poor and eliminate the squalor in predominantly black inner-city neighborhoods. In November 1967, he announced the beginning of a Poor People’s Campaign aimed at boosting federal efforts to reduce poverty. In March 1968, he led a march of striking sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee. King delivered his final speech in that city on the evening of April 3, when he told supporters, “I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land.” The next evening, he was shot dead by James Earl Ray as he stood on a Memphis motel balcony. In 1986, Americans began observing an annual federal holiday on the third Monday of January to honor his life and achievements.