Martin Luther King

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Martin Luther King

• Who was he?
• Why did he work for racial justice?

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Who was Martin Luther King?
Martin Luther King was born in Atlanta in 1929.
he was the son of a Baptist minister and after
studying theology at university he became a
minister too. At university he studied Gandhis
idea of satyagraha (if what you fight for is
true, and you use non-violent methods, eventually
your case will overcome your opponents)
He became a minister of the Baptist church in
Montgomery, Alabama, and was soon leading the
black civil rights movement. In many of the
southern states at the time black people were
denied their civil rights to equal treatment,
equal education and the right to vote. In many
places, blacks were kept apart from whites.
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Why did he work for racial justice?
In Montgomery, there were whites only seats on
the buses. A black woman, Rosa Parks, sat on one
of these seats on the buses. This led to a threat
of violence from the black people. Martin was
chairman of the Montgomery Improvement Society
and he decided to fight against segregation on
the buses saying we will not resort to
viloence. We will not degrade ourselves with
hatred. Love will be returned for hate.
He ultimately fought for racial justice because
he wanted everyone in the world to be treated as
equal and for the children of the day to have a
better tomorrow
Because he didnt resort to violence he was
frequently beaten and arrested.
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What happened whilst and after he was fighting
for justice?
In 1963 a black church was bombed when king led a
march to stop segregation in shops and hotels
which killed four girls whilst they were at
Sunday school. When he called a march on
Washington in august of the same year in support
of civil rights legislation, over 250 000
Americans of all colours and religions joined in.
Like his hero Ghandi he was assassinated by a
violent opponent in April 1968 4 years after he
won the Nobel peace prize as the youngest person
ever