How Has King Martin Luther Influenced America & Our Lives Today?



How Has King Martin Luther Influenced America & Our Lives Today?

Introduction

Martin Luther was Baptist minister and key leader of the civil rights movement. King eloquently articulated a philosophy of nonviolent resistance and put this doctrine into practice as he led peaceful marches and demonstrations throughout the southern United States. He was an active proponent of black civil rights from the mid-1950s until his tragic death by assassination in 1968.

King Martin Luther and His Life

Martin Luther King Jr. was born on January 15, 1929, into a middle-class family in Atlanta, Georgia. His grandfather, A. D. Williams, and his father, Martin Luther King Sr., were both Baptist pastors at the Ebenezer Baptist Church. Following in their foot-steps, King became an ordained minister at the age of eighteen.

Graduating from high school at age fifteen, King enrolled in Morehouse College, a distinguished black college in Atlanta. After earning a bachelor's degree in sociology from Morehouse in 1948, he began formal theological training at the Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania, receiving a bachelor of divinity degree in 1951. King graduated from Crozer with honors and was named valedictorian of his class. Eager to refine his religious and ethical philosophy, he decided to continue his studies and enrolled at Boston University, where he earned a doctoral degree in systematic theology in 1955.

While studying theology, King first encountered the teachings of Mohandas Gandhi (also known as Mahatma Gandhi), an Indian activist who advocated nonviolent resistance against oppression in his native India. King gradually came to believe that it was ethical to disobey unjust laws but rejected violence as a justifiable or effective tool to use when fighting for justice.

While studying in Boston, King met Coretta Scott, a student at the New England Conservatory of Music. The couple married on June 18, 1953. In 1954, the couple moved to Montgomery, Alabama, where King became pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. It was in Montgomery that King was soon catapulted into a central position in the burgeoning civil rights movement.

How Has King Martin Luther Influenced America & Our Lives Today?

On December 1, 1955, a Montgomery seamstress named Rosa Parks refused to give her seat to a white passenger on a segregated city bus. Parks was taken to jail and fined for her defiance. Local civil rights leaders decided to use Parks's case to challenge laws mandating segregation. To protest Parks's arrest, a group of politically active local women quickly organized a bus boycott.

Local ministers, including Martin Luther King Jr., rallied to form the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA), an organization designed to support the boycott. King was elected president of the MIA. He was chosen because of his reputation as a powerful public speaker and because he was new to the community and had no enemies.

Angry whites tried to defeat the bus boycott and even bombed King's home. However, King and the other protesters remained firm, continuing the boycott for a year. By the time the Supreme Court ruled ...