Chukwudifu oputa biography of martin luther king

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On August 28, , the historic March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom drew an estimated , people in the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial. It remains one of the largest peaceful demonstrations in American history. The rising tide of civil rights agitation that had culminated in the March on Washington produced a strong effect on public opinion.

This resulted in the passage of the Civil Rights Act of , authorizing the federal government to enforce desegregation of public accommodations and outlawing discrimination in publicly owned facilities. But the Selma march quickly turned violent as police with nightsticks and tear gas met the demonstrators as they tried to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma.

The attack was televised, broadcasting the horrifying images of marchers being bloodied and severely injured to a wide audience. Not to be deterred, activists attempted the Selma-to-Montgomery march again. This time, King made sure he was part of it. Because a federal judge had issued a temporary restraining order on another march, a different approach was taken.

On March 9, , a procession of 2, marchers, both Black and white, set out once again to cross the Pettus Bridge and confronted barricades and state troopers. Instead of forcing a confrontation, King led his followers to kneel in prayer, then they turned back. Johnson pledged his support and ordered U. Army troops and the Alabama National Guard to protect the protestors.

On March 21, , approximately 2, people began a march from Selma to Montgomery. On March 25, the number of marchers, which had grown to an estimated 25, gathered in front of the state capitol where King delivered a televised speech. Five months after the historic peaceful protest, President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act. Standing at the Lincoln Memorial, he emphasized his belief that someday all men could be brothers to the ,strong crowd.

Six years before he told the world of his dream, King stood at the same Lincoln Memorial steps as the final speaker of the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom. Dismayed by the ongoing obstacles to registering Black voters, King urged leaders from various backgrounds—Republican and Democrat, Black and white—to work together in the name of justice. Speaking at the University of Oslo in Norway, King pondered why he was receiving the Nobel Prize when the battle for racial justice was far from over, before acknowledging that it was in recognition of the power of nonviolent resistance.

He then compared the foot soldiers of the Civil Rights Movement to the ground crew at an airport who do the unheralded-yet-necessary work to keep planes running on schedule. At the end of the bitterly fought Selma-to-Montgomery march, King addressed a crowd of 25, supporters from the Alabama State Capitol. Offering a brief history lesson on the roots of segregation, King emphasized that there would be no stopping the effort to secure full voting rights, while suggesting a more expansive agenda to come with a call to march on poverty.

Explaining why his conscience had forced him to speak up, King expressed concern for the poor American soldiers pressed into conflict thousands of miles from home, while pointedly faulting the U. The well-known orator delivered his final speech the day before he died at the Mason Temple in Memphis, Tennessee. They were married on June 18, , and had four children—two daughters and two sons—over the next decade.

The couple welcomed Bernice King in In addition to raising the children while Martin travelled the country, Coretta opened their home to organizational meetings and served as an advisor and sounding board for her husband. His lengthy absences became a way of life for their children, but Martin III remembered his father returning from the road to join the kids playing in the yard or bring them to the local YMCA for swimming.

Leery of accumulating wealth as a high-profile figure, Martin Jr. However, he was known to splurge on good suits and fine dining, while contrasting his serious public image with a lively sense of humor among friends and family. Due to his relationships with alleged Communists, King became a target of FBI surveillance and, from late until his death, a campaign to discredit the civil rights activist.

Edgar Hoover , which urged King to kill himself if he wanted to prevent news of his dalliances from going public. In , historian David Garrow wrote of explosive new allegations against King following his review of recently released FBI documents. Among the discoveries was a memo suggesting that King had encouraged the rape of a parishioner in a hotel room as well as evidence that he might have fathered a daughter with a mistress.

The original surveillance tapes regarding these allegations are under judicial seal until From late through , King expanded his civil rights efforts into other larger American cities, including Chicago and Los Angeles. He was met with increasing criticism and public challenges from young Black power leaders. To address this criticism, King began making a link between discrimination and poverty, and he began to speak out against the Vietnam War.

He sought to broaden his base by forming a multiracial coalition to address the economic and unemployment problems of all disadvantaged people.

Chukwudifu oputa biography of martin luther king

By , the years of demonstrations and confrontations were beginning to wear on King. He had grown tired of marches, going to jail, and living under the constant threat of death. He was becoming discouraged at the slow progress of civil rights in America and the increasing criticism from other African American leaders. In the spring of , a labor strike by Memphis, Tennessee, sanitation workers drew King to one last crusade.

Longevity has its place. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord. Activists coordinated a bus boycott that would continue for days. The Montgomery Bus Boycott placed a severe economic strain on the public transit system and downtown business owners. They chose Martin Luther King Jr. By the time the Supreme Court ruled segregated seating on public buses unconstitutional in November , King—heavily influenced by Mahatma Gandhi and the activist Bayard Rustin —had entered the national spotlight as an inspirational proponent of organized, nonviolent resistance.

King had also become a target for white supremacists, who firebombed his family home that January. Emboldened by the success of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, in he and other civil rights activists—most of them fellow ministers—founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference SCLC , a group committed to achieving full equality for African Americans through nonviolent protest.

In King and his family moved to Atlanta, his native city, where he joined his father as co-pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This new position did not stop King and his SCLC colleagues from becoming key players in many of the most significant civil rights battles of the s. With the slogan, "I am a man," workers in Memphis sought financial justice in a strike that fatefully became Martin Luther King Jr.

King penned of the civil rights movement's seminal texts while in solitary confinement, initially on the margins of a newspaper. The civil rights leader was attacked in by Izola Ware Curry, a decade before his murder.