# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Freedom rides and civil rights marches

As with eating areas and schools, there was resistance to buses and bus stations. In May 1961, the organised 'freedom rides'. On these rides, black Americans deliberately broke customs and laws. This was to highlight that despite the ruling that segregation on buses was unconstitutional, there had been little change across the South.

The first freedom ride was on 4 May 1961 and it went from Washington, DC, to New Orleans. It travelled through many of the southern states.

In Anniston, Alabama, one bus had its windows smashed and a petrol bomb thrown into it, but the passengers escaped unharmed.

When the next bus reached Anniston, the passengers were taken off the bus and attacked by an angry mob of white Americans.

Freedom RidersFreedom Riders Civil rights activists who travelled on public transport between states to show desegregation had not been achieved. were also attacked in Birmingham and Montgomery, in Alabama. Others were arrested in Jackson, Mississippi.

The police did little to help the Freedom Riders, so President John F Kennedy sent to protect them. In September 1961, the Interstate Commerce Commission ordered that buses and bus stations must be desegregated immediately.

By the spring of 1963, Birmingham, Alabama, became the focus of civil rights protests. This was because the authorities had done nothing to desegregate public facilities and nearly half the population were black Americans. Birmingham had no black police officers, firefighters, bus drivers or store cashiers. Only 10 per cent of the city's black population was registered to vote. The civil rights leaders in Birmingham realised that there were two factors that could help them to get publicity for their protests:

The local commissioner for public safety, Eugene 'Bull' Connor, held racist views.

Birmingham had a lot of members of the Ku Klux Klan.Ku Klux Klan A white supremacist organisation that used violence and intimidation to target black, immigrant, Jewish and Catholic people. Its members believe, based on incorrect and unscientific ideas about evolution, that white people are superior and should therefore hold the power in society. If these people reacted violently to the protesters, it would generate a lot of media coverage that was sympathetic to the civil rights cause.

The first civil rights march, in April 1963, ended with Dr Martin Luther King Jnr and other leaders of the march being arrested and put in prison. While in prison, King wrote 'Letter from Birmingham Jail', which explained the case for continuing to protest and for an end to

At the beginning of May, a second set of marches began. Many of the marchers were young people, mostly teenagers, but some were as young as six years old. The marches were known as the 'children's crusade'. The police arrested so many protesters that the prisons were full, and they used police dogs and water cannons to force the protesters off the streets. This was seen on television and in photographs around the world. It created a lot of sympathy for the protesters.

President Kennedy sent a representative to negotiate an end to the protests. George Wallace (the of Alabama) and the Ku Klux Klan tried to stop this, but the white Americans who owned businesses wanted the protests to end. Birmingham began to desegregate, and the protests ended. Kennedy was now convinced that America needed a Civil Rights Act to give African Americans equality and to make sure these protests did not happen again.

March on Washington, 1963

In August 1963, was debating President Kennedy's civil rights Many of the civil rights organisations - including the the and the - organised a joint march in Washington, DC, to show their support for the bill. Some worried that this would lead to violent clashes with protesters. Kennedy asked for the march to be called off in case it damaged the chances of the bill being passed.

The Lincoln Memorial commemorates the life of Abraham Lincoln, the president who introduced the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation. In front of it, around 250,000 people gathered to hear speeches and music about the need to improve civil rights. It is estimated that between 20 and 25 per cent of the people marching were white. The final speech of the day was by King. In this complex speech, known as 'I Have a Dream', he explained how he hoped that black and white Americans could live together as equals, linking his beliefs to the American dream and the US Constitution.

Despite the profile of women in the like Rosa Parks and Ella Baker, women were given limited roles. For example, they sang or introduced male speakers at the event. Prominent women were instructed to walk in a group behind the male leaders, meaning King's wife, Coretta Scott King, couldn't walk beside her husband. The limited role of women at this event highlighted the inequalities in both race and gender in America.

The March on Washington further raised the profile of the civil rights movement and increased awareness if the effectiveness of peaceful protest. However, there was still a lot of resistance to equality in Congress, and violence against black Americans continued. President Kennedy was in November 1963, but his successor, Lyndon B Johnson, managed to get Kennedy's civil rights law passed in 1964.

More guides on this topic

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Freedom rides and civil rights marches - Civil rights in the USA 1954-1964 - OCR A - GCSE History Revision - OCR A - BBC Bitesize

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Learn about and revise the civil rights movement in the USA from 1954 to 1964 with BBC Bitesize GCSE History - OCR A.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Emergence of the civil rights movement - continued - Civil rights in the USA 1954-1964 - OCR A - GCSE History Revision - OCR A - BBC Bitesize

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Learn about and revise the civil rights movement in the USA from 1954 to 1964 with BBC Bitesize GCSE History - OCR A.

# data[].attributes.headline
Martin Luther King and segregation in the USA 1960s

# data[].attributes.subject
Martin Luther King and segregation in the USA 1960s

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Martin Luther King: Who is He and Why Was He So Important? | Newsround

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Eyes on the Prize | Article

The Supreme Court Declares Bus Segregation Unconstitutional (1956)
After African Americans boycotted the Montgomery, Alabama bus system for over a year, the local bus company had agreed to desegregate its buses because it had lost so much revenue. The city and state, however, insisted that bus drivers continue to enforce Jim Crow laws. A Federal District Court then ruled that segregation on the buses was illegal. The Supreme Court affirmed that decision, Browder v. Gayle, in November 1956, handing NAACP lawyers a major victory. The following month, when the Supreme Court indicated that it would not hear an appeal of that decision, all avenues to delay bus integration had been exhausted. The next day, December 21, 1956, thousands of black riders were on the buses again - and sitting in any seats they chose. Yet the troubles did not end. Shots were fired at the buses and Rev. Ralph Abernathy's home and church were bombed. The success of the protests led the boycott leaders to form the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with another rising community leader, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., as its president.

The 1960 Presidential Election
The presidential election of 1960 was one of the closest in history. During the campaign, Republican Richard M. Nixon and Democrat John F. Kennedy mostly avoided civil rights issues, afraid to alienate Southern voters. In October of that year, civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. was arrested at a sit-in in Atlanta. Word reached the Kennedy campaign and two aides, Harris Wofford and Sargent Shriver, arranged for the candidate to make a sympathetic call to King's wife, Coretta Scott King. Meanwhile, Robert Kennedy called the judge in the case.

"It's time for all of us to take off our Nixon button," Martin Luther King, Sr. said after the Kennedy brothers' show of support. Because state Democratic parties held a lock on the political process in the South, baseball great Jackie Robinson and other African Americans had been supporting the Republican candidate. Republicans had attracted African American votes since the days of Abraham Lincoln, emancipation, and the Fifteenth Amendment. Now that tradition of support vanished - Kennedy received 68 percent of the black vote and won the presidency.

The Desegregation of Interstate Travel (1960)
In the months following John F. Kennedy's inauguration, civil rights activists were disappointed that the president did not introduce any new legislation on the issue. However, the Supreme Court had issued a ruling in December 1960 that interstate buses and bus terminals were required to integrate. This legal development inspired members of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) to ride Greyhound buses from Washington, D.C. to New Orleans, Louisiana. The black and white volunteers, known as Freedom Riders, would find out whether the law would be enforced in the land of Jim Crow. CORE director James Farmer recalled, "What we had to do was to make it more dangerous politically for the federal government not to enforce federal law than it would be for them to enforce federal law... This was not civil disobedience really, because we would be merely doing what the Supreme Court said we had a right to do."

The Supreme Court Orders Ole Miss to Integrate (1962)
In 1954, in Brown v. Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the integration of public schools. The landmark decision ended an era of "separate but equal" treatment of African Americans that in practice had proven anything but equal. Yet Southern states defied the court's decision. In Mississippi, Medgar Evers and other African American applicants were denied admission to the University of Mississippi, known as Ole Miss. In January 1961, James Howard Meredith, a nine-year Air Force veteran and student at Jackson State College, applied for admission to Ole Miss. When his application was returned, he took his case to court with the help of an NAACP legal team. The issue ended up before the Supreme Court, which ruled that Meredith should be allowed to attend the state-funded school. With the support of angry mobs of white Mississippians, Governor Ross Barnett did everything he could to prevent Meredith from enrolling, although his efforts were ultimately futile. Hatred directed toward Meredith as a symbol of integration would lead a white man from Memphis to shoot and wound the activist during his 1966 "march against fear."

The March on Washington (1963)
African American activist A. Philip Randolph had been fighting for equality since he founded a union, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, in 1925. In 1941, he planned a march on Washington to demand jobs for African Americans in the booming wartime economy. That protest was called off after President Franklin D. Roosevelt agreed to ban discrimination by defense industries or government.

Two decades later, Randolph decided a march was required to speed the rate of change in the nation. President John F. Kennedy asked that the march be called off, afraid that it would hurt his civil rights bill. Faced with Randolph's determination, however, Kennedy endorsed the protest.

On August 28, 1963, a quarter of a million black and white people - more than twice as many as had been expected - marched to the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. in a show of unity, racial harmony and support for the civil rights bill. Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and other folk singers entertained the crowd before John Lewis of SNCC and others made speeches. Civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. gave one of his best known speeches, inspiring the assembled crowd with the words, "I have a dream."

Randolph also spoke: "Fellow Americans, we are gathered here in the largest demonstration in the history of this nation. Let the nation and the world know the meaning of our numbers. We are not a pressure group, we are not an organization or a group of organizations, we are not a mob. We are the advance guard of a massive moral revolution for jobs and freedom."

The Civil Rights Act of 1964
Support for a federal Civil Rights Act was one of the goals of the 1963 March on Washington. President John F. Kennedy had introduced the bill before his assassination. His successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, signed it into law on July 2, 1964. It achieved many of the aims of a Reconstruction-era law, the Civil Rights Act of 1875, which was passed but soon overturned.

The landmark 1964 act barred discrimination based on race, color, religion, or national origin in public facilities - such as restaurants, theaters, or hotels. Discrimination in hiring practices was also outlawed, and the act established the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to help enforce the law. Although the law attempted to legislate fair election practices, not all the ways used to deny blacks a vote could be covered; the Voting Rights Act of 1965 would be required to address this issue comprehensively.

The 1964 Presidential Election
In the presidential election of 1964, incumbent Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson soundly defeated Republican Barry Goldwater. After defeating the more progressive Nelson Rockefeller for the Republican nomination, Goldwater won electoral votes from only his home state of Arizona and the five states of the Deep South. Yet Goldwater's nomination marked a conservative shift within the party.

At the Democratic convention in Atlantic City that summer, the delegation from Mississippi had found itself with challengers of its own. The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party sent black and white delegates to the convention to replace the delegation of the whites-only Mississippi Democratic Party. The MFDP worked the rules to their advantage, embarrassed President Johnson and then rejected his compromise of two "at large" seats. Nominally, the MFDP had failed, but televised proceedings of sharecroppers and field workers like Fannie Lou Hamer taking on the entrenched political forces inspired more people to become politically active.

Lyndon Johnson's "We Shall Overcome" speech
On March 15, 1965, just days after the "Bloody Sunday" confrontation in Selma, Alabama that shocked the nation, President Lyndon Johnson addressed a joint session of Congress and the American people in a nationally televised speech. He announced the voting rights legislation he would be introducing. "Their cause must be our cause, too," he said, referring to civil rights activists. "[A]ll of us... must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. And we shall overcome." In his closing words, the president invoked a rallying cry of the civil rights movement. An SCLC staffer watching the speech with Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. remembered seeing a tear of joy run down the minister's cheek. Upon passage, Johnson's legislation would be known as the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 had one major flaw. It did not address all the legal and illegal methods whites had used to systematically deny blacks the right to vote in state and local elections. As legislation to amend this omission wound its way through Congress, Martin Luther King, Jr. led a march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, in March 1965. At its conclusion, activists presented Governor George Wallace with a petition asking him to remove obstacles to voter registration. Americans saw the heroes of the civil rights movement on the national news, and then heard about the Ku Klux Klan's murder of a white homemaker from Michigan named Viola Liuzzo who had volunteered for the cause. Support for the Voting Rights Act increased.

On August 6, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the act into law with Alabama NAACP activist Rosa Parks by his side. Laying out the importance of the bill, Johnson said, "The vote is the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for breaking down injustice and destroying the terrible walls which imprison men because they are different from other men."

The Kerner Commission Report (1968)
Appointed by President Lyndon B. Johnson, a commission chaired by Governor Otto Kerner of Illinois explored the reasons behind the Detroit riots of 1967. The commission presented a report in February 1968. "Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white - separate and unequal," the report said. "What white Americans have never fully understood - but what the Negro can never forget - is that...white institutions created [the ghetto], white institutions maintain it, and white society condones it."

Detroit had seemed immune to the race riots that overwhelmed dozens of American cities - after all, the local economy was excellent and black culture and commerce were thriving in the music of Motown. However, urban renewal projects appeared designed to sweep away black neighborhoods, complaints about Detroit police abuse were not addressed, and blacks found limits to career advancement in the auto industry. Following five days of riots during which military tanks rolled through the streets, 41 were dead, hundreds injured and thousands left homeless.

As soon as the Kerner Commission Report was published, controversy emerged when a host of the social science researchers who worked on the study protested that the report had eliminated their major finding: the riots were actually protests against racial oppression. The Kerner Commission's recommendations for reform included suggestions for economic empowerment that came with a large increase in the federal budget - but the president was unwilling to pay this price in the face of escalating military costs for the war in Vietnam.

The 1968 Election
Richard Nixon, the Republican candidate, won a three way race in the presidential election of 1968 against Independent George Wallace and Democrat Hubert Humphrey. It was a year of tumult. Major turmoil had shaken the Democratic Party that summer. Incumbent president Lyndon B. Johnson had decided not to run for reelection as Eugene McCarthy won many early delegates on an anti-war platform. Robert Kennedy entered the race as well and was campaigning in Indianapolis when news came that Martin Luther King, Jr. had been killed. Later that summer Kennedy won the California primary and was himself assassinated. The Democratic Party convention, held in Chicago that year, became a center of protests and riots as Mayor Richard Daley had the city police enforce curfews and brutally suppress protesters.

The Attica Prison Riot (1971)
In 1971, the Attica State Correctional Facility in upstate New York was overcrowded and the conditions for prisoners were inhumane. The majority of prisoners were minorities. A group of five prisoners representing the inmate population sent a letter to the authorities requesting reforms, including such humble changes as more frequent showers and more toilet paper. At the time, inmates were allotted one bucket of water a week as a "shower" and given only one bar of soap and one roll of toilet paper a month. The prisoners also asked for more visits and less censorship of their mail. The new commissioner of correctional services, Russell Oswald, asked for more time to make the reforms. Understanding Oswald's reply to be a delaying tactic, the prisoners took over the facility on September 9 and kept 40 guards as hostages. One guard, injured during the uprising, died in hospital. After four days of negotiations, state troopers and correctional officers took the prison back by force, killing ten hostages and twenty-nine inmates, and brutalized other inmates they had recaptured.

The National Black Political Convention (1972)
"Economic, cultural, and spiritual depression stalk Black America, and the price for survival often appears to be more than we are able to pay." This was the state of the union according to delegates to the first National Black Political Convention, March 10-12, 1972. The disparate group included elected officials and revolutionaries, integrationists and black nationalists, Baptists and Muslims (the widows of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X - Coretta Scott King and Betty Shabazz - both attended). They met in Gary, Indiana, a majority black city where they were welcomed by a black mayor, Richard Hatcher. The one group that was excluded was whites (for that reason, Roy Wilkins of the NAACP, an organization that supported integration, criticized the meeting). Participants were buoyed by the spirit of possibility, and themes of unity and self-determination.

Delegates created a National Black Political Agenda with stated goals including the election of a proportionate number of black representatives to Congress, community control of schools, national health insurance, and the elimination of capital punishment. The news media fixed on the most controversial debates about the recognition of a Palestinian homeland and the use of busing to integrate schools, but for the most part the convention was united.

When published, the Agenda included a note addressing the notion that the process was idealistic: "At every critical moment of our struggle in America we have had to press relentlessly against the limits of the 'realistic' to create new realities for the life of our people. This is our challenge at Gary and beyond, for a new Black politics demands new vision, new hope and new definitions of the possible. Our time has come. These things are necessary. All things are possible."

The Federal Court Order to Integrate Boston Schools
During the 1950s and 1960s, Ruth Batson of the NAACP and other activists investigated Boston public schools and found tremendous differences and inequities in the staffing, supplying and maintenance of schools that served mostly white or mostly black students. They held meetings and rallies, organized freedom schools and independent busing programs, and successfully lobbied for state legislation to demonstrate the segregated and unequal nature of Boston schools. The Boston School Committee continued to reject the notion that the schools were essentially a segregated system and took steps to maintain that segregation. So the NAACP turned to the federal courts. In 1974, US District Court Judge W. Arthur Garrity, Jr. found the city of Boston guilty of unconstitutional and intentional segregation in its schools. The remedy proposed by the court was desegregation; the most controversial aspect of his plan was two-way busing - sending black students into predominantly white schools and white children into predominantly black schools.

The Bakke Case and the Status of Affirmative Action in 1978
From the late 1960s on, local governments and businesses attempted to level the economic playing field through a set of assistance programs for minorities known as Affirmative Action. Although opponents claimed that Affirmative Action gave minorities an unfair advantage, those in favor argued that the strategy reduced the towering advantages of patronage, exclusive experience and economic power that whites had enjoyed for centuries. In 1974, Allan Bakke, a white applicant to medical school, sued the University of California, claiming that he had suffered discrimination when less qualified minority students were given places in the medical school class that rejected him. The case went to the Supreme Court.

Bakke's lawyer argued that constitutional rights were meant for individuals and not for racial groups. In June 1978, the nine justices of the Supreme Court handed down six separate opinions. Some of the justices felt that race should not be used in the admissions process while others felt that race was a legitimate factor. The Court ruled that the school's application system was unconstitutional. However, the decision written by Associate Justice Lewis Powell also held that race could be used as a factor in admissions.

Because of the number of opinions in the case, the legal status of Affirmative Action continues to be debated. In 2003, the Supreme Court reaffirmed Powell's core holding that race could be considered in the admissions policy of the University of Michigan law school.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Milestones Of The Civil Rights Movement | American Experience | PBS

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Take a closer look at milestones that occured during the civil rights movement.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr: Biography for Children, American History for Kids - FreeSchool

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Why is Martin Luther King famous?
Martin Luther King Jr was an American campaigner for the fair and equal treatment of all people and an end to racial discrimination.
A brilliant and brave man and a brilliant speaker, he was the youngest-ever person to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

Top 10 facts

1. Martin Luther King Jr's father was the pastor of the Ebeneezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, in the United States of America.

2. Martin was a gifted student. He was awarded several university degrees and became a Doctor of Divinity.

3. He decided he wanted to become a minister and delivered his first sermon at his father's church at the age of 18.

4. In December 1955, in Montgomery Alabama, Rosa Parks, a black woman, was arrested for failing to give up her bus seat to a white man.

5. Martin Luther King was appointed president of the Montgomery Improvement Association which led the boycott of the Montgomery bus services. (A boycott is where you stop using goods or services to bring about a change.)

6. The bus boycott lasted 381 days at the end of which the US Supreme Court ruled that segregation was illegal.

7. Martin Luther King was a very brave man who believed in non violent protest. During the course of his campaign his house was bombed, he was arrested on numerous occasions and he was stabbed. Finally he was shot at the age of 39.

8. Dr King was a very powerful orator (speech maker). His most famous speech, I Have A Dream,was delivered to an audience of 250,000 people.

9. Following Martin Luther King's murder a national day of mourning was declared in the USA.

10. Martin Luther King Day, held on the third Monday of January, is now a public holiday in the USA.

Timeline

Delivers I Have a Dream speech to crowd of 250,000 at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC

Did you know?

Martin Luther was born Michael Luther King but his father later changed both of their names to Martin.

The original Martin Luther was a German Protestant who wanted to reform the Catholic Church.

Martin Luther King was so clever that he was two years ahead at school and he started his college education at the age of 15.

At age 35 he was the youngest-ever person to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

He is recognised as one of the greatest speakers in American history.

Over 750 streets in the United States are named after him.

In 1986, Martin Luther King Day was declared a national holiday in the United States.

More than 300,000 people marched alongside Dr King's coffin.

Martin Luther King gallery:

Martin Luther King

With Malcolm X

As Time Magazine's Man of the Year (Artwork Credit: Robert Vickrey)

Some of the values MLK stood for

The statue of Dr King in Washington DC is known as the Martin Luther King Memorial

Gallery

About

Martin Luther King was brought up in a Christian household and based many of his ideas about how people should treat each other on Christian teachings. His father was active in the civil rights movement and the young Martin was aware of the unfair treatment of black people from an early age. His religion also influenced his ideas about war and poverty; he protested against the Vietnam War and on behalf of poor people. He was also impressed by Mahatma Gandhi's use of non violence in his campaign against British rule in India.

The southern United States where Martin Luther King was born commonly treated black people as being inferior to white people. As a result the condition of black people in those states was poor. Laws aimed at keeping black and white people apart meant that black people had poorer living conditions and schooling and had fewer rights than white people. Laws treated black people unfairly and prevented nearly all of them from having the vote, even in states where they formed the majority of the population. This meant that they had little political power and their interests were ignored. Because the laws had kept people apart, many white people believed they were superior to black people.

Although a civil rights campaign had been protesting against these injustices since before the First World War, only limited progress had been made. Martin Luther King's involvement in the Montgomery Bus Boycott and his leadership of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference marked him out from an early age as a gifted campaigner.

His intelligence, his speechmaking skills, his courage and his insistence on the use of non-violent means of protest such as marches, sit-ins and boycotts, helped to make civil rights the most important issue in American public life by the 1960s. New laws such as the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act helped to improve the situation of black people.

Martin Luther King's achievements and abilities were admired and celebrated by people the world over. He received many awards for his courageous leadership and vision. His speeches and writings still have the power to inspire people today.

Famous friends

Rosa Parks (1913-2005) - a civil rights activist, Rosa grew up in the Southern United States and lived with her husband in Montgomery, Alabama. Montgomery was a segregated city - black people and white people had to live separately.

Rosa travelled to work on the buses. Black people had to sit at the back of the bus in seats marked 'For Colored". On the 1 December 1955 a white man asked Rosa to give up her seat on the bus. Rosa refused and was arrested. She was fined $10. Rosa appealed to a higher court. In support of Rosa's cause all the black people of Montgomery stopped using the buses. Martin Luther King became head of the Montgomery Improvement Society which helped lead the bus boycott. The boycott lasted 381 days at the end of which the United States Supreme Court ruled that segregation was against the law.

Rosa received many threats as a result of her campaign but she remained strong. She was awarded the Congregational Gold Medal and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Related Videos

Just for fun...

Kids' books about Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement in the USA

Find out more about Dr. Martin Luther King

Dr Martin Luther King: famous quotes

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

"I submit to you that if a man hasn't discovered something he will die for, he isn't fit to live."

"I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. [...] I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character."

"We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools."

See for yourself

Also see

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Fascinating facts, information, videos and images about the life of Dr Martin Luther King Jr, to support primary-school topic work.

# data[].attributes.headline
Ducksters segregation and civil right act 

# data[].attributes.subject
Ducksters segregation and civil right act 

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
History >> Civil Rights for Kids

African-American Civil Rights Movement

March on Washington Aug 28, 1963
from the United States Information Agency

The African-American Civil Rights Movement was an ongoing fight for racial equality that took place for over 100 years after the Civil War. Leaders such asMartin Luther King, Jr., Booker T. Washington, and Rosa Parks paved the way for non-violent protests which led to changes in the law. When most people talk about the "Civil Rights Movement" they are talking about the protests in the 1950s and 1960s that led to the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Background

The Civil Rights Movement has its background in the abolitionist movement before theCivil War. Abolitionists were people that thought slavery was morally wrong and wanted it to come to an end. Before the Civil War, many of the northern states had outlawed slavery. During the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln freed the enslaved with the Emancipation Proclamation. After the war, slavery was made illegal with the thirteenth amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Segregation and the Jim Crow Laws

Jim Crow Drinking Fountain
by John Vachon

After the Civil War, many southern states continued to treat African-Americans as second class citizens. They implemented laws that kept black people separate from white people. These laws became known as Jim Crow laws. They required separate schools, restaurants, restrooms, and transportation based on the color of a person's skin. Other laws prevented many black people from voting.

Early Protests

In the early 1900s, black people began to protest the Jim Crow laws that southern states were implementing to enforce segregation. Several African-American leaders such as W.E.B. Du Bois and Ida B. Wells joined together to found the NAACP in 1909. Another leader, Booker T. Washington, helped to form schools to educate African-Americans in order to improve their status in society.

The Movement Grows

The civil rights movement gained momentum in the 1950s when theSupreme Court ruled that segregation in schools was illegal in the case of Brown v. Board of Education. Federal troops were brought in to Little Rock, Arkansas to allow the Little Rock Nine to attend a previously all white high school.

Major Events in the Movement

The 1950's and early 1960's brought about several major events in the fight for the civil rights of African-Americans. In 1955, Rosa Parks was arrested for not giving up her seat on the bus to a white passenger. This sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott which lasted for over a year and brought Martin Luther King, Jr. to the forefront of the movement. King led a number of non-violent protests including the Birmingham Campaign and the March on Washington.

Lyndon Johnson signing Civil Rights Act
by Cecil Stoughton

Civil Rights Act of 1964

In 1964, the Civil Rights Act was signed into law byPresident Lyndon Johnson. This act outlawed segregation and the Jim Crow laws of the south. It also outlawed discrimination based on race, national background, and gender. Although there were still many issues, this law gave the NAACP and other organizations a strong base on which to fight discrimination in the courts.

Voting Rights Act of 1965

In 1965, another law was passed called the Voting Rights Act. This law said that citizens could not be denied the right to vote based on their race. It outlawed literacy tests (a requirement that people be able to read) and poll taxes (a fee that people had to pay to vote).

Interesting Facts about the African-American Civil Rights Movement

The Civil Rights Act was originally proposed by President John F. Kennedy.

The 1968 Civil Rights Act, also known as the Fair Housing Act, outlawed discrimination in the selling or renting of housing.

The National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee was once the Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot and killed in 1968.

Today, African-Americans have been elected or appointed to the highest positions in the U.S. government including Secretary of State (Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice) and President (Barack Obama).

Activities

Take a ten question quiz about this page.

Listen to a recorded reading of this page:

Your browser does not support the audio element.
To learn more about Civil Rights:

Civil Rights Leaders

Overview Works Cited

History >> Civil Rights for Kids

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Kids learn about the history of the African-American Civil Rights Movement including segregation, Jim Crow laws, protests, Martin Luther King, and the passage of the Civil Rights Act.

# data[].attributes.headline
segregation : the Jim Crow Laws Britannica for kids

# data[].attributes.subject
segregation : the Jim Crow Laws Britannica for kids

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Jim Crow laws were an official effort to keep African Americans separate from whites in the southern United States for many years. The laws were in place from the late 1870s until the civil rights movement began in the 1950s.

The name Jim Crow comes from a once popular stage performance that began in 1828. This type of show, called a minstrel show, involved lively entertainment that encouraged a negative view of Blacks. The term Jim Crow became an unfavorable name for Blacks as well as a term for their segregation, or separation, from whites.

Beginning in the late 1870s, Southern state lawmakers passed laws that required whites and Blacks to attend separate schools and to sit in different areas on public transportation. The laws extended to parks, cemeteries, theaters, and restaurants. Blacks and whites had to use different drinking fountains, waiting rooms, housing, and shops. The laws kept Black and white people from relating to one another as equals. The laws limited freedom and opportunity for African American people.

Each state had its own set of Jim Crow laws. Segregation spread beyond the South to other states in the country as well. Signs were used to show where "people of color" were not allowed to go. In addition to African American people, Jim Crow law limited many racial and ethnic groups in the United States who were not seen as white.

In 1954 the U.S. Supreme Court decided in the case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka that segregation in public schools was unconstitutional, or against the country's set of rules. This decision was the beginning of the end for Jim Crow law. The legal argument to end racial segregation was extended to other public areas. Soon Jim Crow law was removed completely.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Jim Crow laws were an official effort to keep African Americans separate from whites in the southern United States for many years. The laws were in place from the late 1870s until the civil rights movement began in the 1950s. The name Jim Crow comes from a once popular stage performance that began in 1828.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Black Codes

The roots of Jim Crow laws began as early as 1865, immediately following the ratification of the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery in the United States.

Black codes were strict local and state laws that detailed when, where and how formerly enslaved people could work, and for how much compensation. The codes appeared throughout the South as a legal way to put Black citizens into indentured servitude, to take voting rights away, to control where they lived and how they traveled and to seize children for labor purposes.

The legal system was stacked against Black citizens, with former Confederate soldiers working as police and judges, making it difficult for African Americans to win court cases and ensuring they were subject to Black codes.

These codes worked in conjunction with labor camps for the incarcerated, where prisoners were treated as enslaved people. Black offenders typically received longer sentences than their white equals, and because of the grueling work, often did not live out their entire sentence.

Ku Klux Klan

During the Reconstruction era, local governments, as well as the national Democratic Party and President Andrew Johnson, thwarted efforts to help Black Americans move forward.

Violence was on the rise, making danger a regular aspect of African American life. Black schools were vandalized and destroyed, and bands of violent white people attacked, tortured and lynched Black citizens in the night. Families were attacked and forced off their land all across the South.

The most ruthless organization of the Jim Crow era, the Ku Klux Klan, was born in 1865 in Pulaski, Tennessee, as a private club for Confederate veterans.

The KKK grew into a secret society terrorizing Black communities and seeping through white Southern culture, with members at the highest levels of government and in the lowest echelons of criminal back alleys.

Jim Crow Laws Expand

At the start of the 1880s, big cities in the South were not wholly beholden to Jim Crow laws and Black Americans found more freedom in them.

This led to substantial Black populations moving to the cities and, as the decade progressed, white city dwellers demanded more laws to limit opportunities for African Americans.

Jim Crow laws soon spread around the country with even more force than previously. Public parks were forbidden for African Americans to enter, and theaters and restaurants were segregated.

Segregated waiting rooms in bus and train stations were required, as well as water fountains, restrooms, building entrances, elevators, cemeteries, even amusement-park cashier windows.

Laws forbade African Americans from living in white neighborhoods. Segregation was enforced for public pools, phone booths, hospitals, asylums, jails and residential homes for the elderly and handicapped.

Some states required separate textbooks for Black and white students. New Orleans mandated the segregation of prostitutes according to race. In Atlanta, African Americans in court were given a different Bible from white people to swear on. Marriage and cohabitation between white and Black people was strictly forbidden in most Southern states.

It was not uncommon to see signs posted at town and city limits warning African Americans that they were not welcome there.

Ida B. Wells

As oppressive as the Jim Crow era was, it was also a time when many African Americans around the country stepped forward into leadership roles to vigorously oppose the laws.

Memphis teacher Ida B. Wells became a prominent activist against Jim Crow laws after refusing to leave a first-class train car designated for white people only. A conductor forcibly removed her and she successfully sued the railroad, though that decision was later reversed by a higher court.

Angry at the injustice, Wells devoted herself to fighting Jim Crow laws. Her vehicle for dissent was newspaper writing: In 1889 she became co-owner of the Memphis Free Speech and Headlight and used her position to take on school segregation and sexual harassment.

Wells traveled throughout the South to publicize her work and advocated for the arming of Black citizens. Wells also investigated lynchings and wrote about her findings.

A mob destroyed her newspaper and threatened her with death, forcing her to move to the North, where she continued her efforts against Jim Crow laws and lynching.

Charlotte Hawkins Brown

Charlotte Hawkins Brown was a North Carolina-born, Massachusetts-raised Black woman who returned to her birthplace at the age of 17, in 1901, to work as a teacher for the American Missionary Association.

After funding was withdrawn for that school, Brown began fundraising to start her own school, named the Palmer Memorial Institute.

Brown became the first Black woman to create a Black school in North Carolina and through her education work became a fierce and vocal opponent of Jim Crow laws.

Isaiah Montgomery

Not everyone battled for equal rights within white society-some chose a separatist approach.

Convinced by Jim Crow laws that Black and white people could not live peaceably together, formerly enslaved Isaiah Montgomery created the African American-only town of Mound Bayou, Mississippi, in 1887.

Montgomery recruited other former enslaved people to settle in the wilderness with him, clearing the land and forging a settlement that included several schools, an Andrew Carnegie-funded library, a hospital, three cotton gins, a bank and a sawmill. Mound Bayou still exists today, and is still almost 100 percent Black.

Jim Crow Laws in the 20th Century

As the 20th century progressed, Jim Crow laws flourished within an oppressive society marked by violence.

Following World War I, the NAACP noted that lynchings had become so prevalent that it sent investigator Walter White to the South. White had lighter skin and could infiltrate white hate groups.

As lynchings increased, so did race riots, with at least 25 across the United States over several months in 1919, a period sometimes referred to as " Red Summer." In retaliation, white authorities charged Black communities with conspiring to conquer white America.

With Jim Crow dominating the landscape, education increasingly under attack and few opportunities for Black college graduates, the Great Migration of the 1920s saw a significant migration of educated Black people out of the South, spurred on by publications like The Chicago Defender, which encouraged Black Americans to move north.

Read by millions of Southern Black people, white people attempted to ban the newspaper and threatened violence against any caught reading or distributing it.

The poverty of the Great Depression only deepened resentment, with a rise in lynchings, and after World War II, even Black veterans returning home met with segregation and violence.

Jim Crow in the North

The North was not immune to Jim Crow-like laws. Some states required Black people to own property before they could vote, schools and neighborhoods were segregated, and businesses displayed "Whites Only" signs.

In Ohio, segregationist Allen Granbery Thurman ran for governor in 1867 promising to bar Black citizens from voting. After he narrowly lost that political race, Thurman was appointed to the U.S. Senate, where he fought to dissolve Reconstruction-era reforms benefiting African Americans.

After World War II, suburban developments in the North and South were created with legal covenants that did not allow Black families, and Black people often found it difficult or impossible to obtain mortgages for homes in certain "red-lined" neighborhoods.

When Did Jim Crow Laws End?

The post-World War II era saw an increase in civil rights activities in the African American community, with a focus on ensuring that Black citizens were able to vote. This ushered in the civil rights movement, resulting in the removal of Jim Crow laws.

In 1948 President Harry Truman ordered integration in the military, and in 1954, the Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that educational segregation was unconstitutional, bringing to an end the era of "separate-but-equal" education.

In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, which legally ended the segregation that had been institutionalized by Jim Crow laws.

And in 1965, the Voting Rights Act halted efforts to keep minorities from voting. The Fair Housing Act of 1968, which ended discrimination in renting and selling homes, followed.

Jim Crow laws were technically off the books, though that has not always guaranteed full integration or adherence to anti-racism laws throughout the United States. Several recent pieces of legislation-such as House Bill 1020 in Mississippi, which aimed to disenfranchise the majority-Black capital city of Jackson by creating a new judicial district overseen by white leaders-are often compared to Jim Crow laws.

Sources

The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow. Richard Wormser.
Segregated America. Smithsonian Institute.
Jim Crow Laws. National Park Service.
"Exploiting Black Labor After the Abolition of Slavery." The Conversation.
"Hundreds of black Americans were killed during 'Red Summer.' A century later, still ignored." Associated Press/USA Today.
"Here's What's Become Of A Historic All-Black Town In The Mississippi Delta." NPR.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Jim Crow Laws: Definition, Facts & Timeline | HISTORY

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Jim Crow laws were state and local statutes that legalized racial segregation. Enacted after the Civil War, the laws denied equal opportunity to Black citizens.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
African Americans have faced discrimination throughout the history of the United States. They were enslaved for more than 200 years. After that they faced segregation and other forms of unequal treatment. Segregation means that they were kept separate from the white population. That began to change in the late 1940s and early 1950s. In 1948 President Harry S. Truman ordered that the armed forces be integrated. In 1954 the Supreme Court ruled that schools could not longer be segregated.

During this period the U.S. Congress began to consider passing a civil rights act. It did that in 1957 and in 1960. Those laws were not effective, but the 1957 act established the Commission on Civil Rights to look into civil rights issues. The commission sent President John F. Kennedy a report, and, as a result, Kennedy proposed a new civil rights bill in 1963. It was a controversial issue. There were still many people, especially in the South, who did not want African Americans to have equal rights. Kennedy was unable to pass the bill before his assassination in November of that year. However, the next president, Lyndon B. Johnson supported a stronger version of the bill. After one of the longest debates in Senate history, Congress finally approved the bill in July 1964. Johnson signed the bill into law on July 2. The backlash from white groups opposed to integration with African Americans was significant. There were protests, racial violence, and increased support for pro-segregation politicians.

Some whites did not think the Civil Rights Act was constitutional (that it agreed with the U.S. Constitution), so the law was challenged in court. In the case, the white owner of a motel refused to accept Black customers. He claimed that Title II of the Civil Rights Act was not legal according to the Constitution. In the end, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Title II was constitutional. In the decades since the Civil Rights Act was passed, there have been a number of other Supreme Court cases that have involved the law.

The 50th anniversary of the act was celebrated in April 2014 with an event at the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library in Austin, Texas. Speakers included U.S. President Barack Obama and former presidents Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush. The U.S. Congress marked the anniversary by posthumously awarding the Congressional Gold Medal to civil rights leaders Martin Luther King, Jr., and Coretta Scott King.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Civil Rights Act was a hallmark of the American civil rights movement. The law was passed by the U.S. Congress in 1964. Its purpose was to end discrimination based on...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In 1865, a organisation called the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) was formed. Membership of the KKK was kept secret. Klan members wore white robes and white pointed hats, which also covered their faces, to hide their identities. The KKK leader was known as the 'Grand Wizard'. Racist members of the KKK carried out violent attacks against many Black Americans. They also targeted other groups of people, including Jews, immigrants and Catholics. Black people were , assaulted and .

In southern states, such as Texas and Mississippi, Klan members would walk openly through the streets. Some police officers, judges and government officials were members of the Klan.

In 1870 and 1871, the government passed the Enforcement Acts, which were laws that aimed to prevent and prosecute crimes committed by KKK members. After this, the KKK's power declined for several years.

In 1915, the KKK re-emerged after a film called 'The Birth of a Nation' was released. Its racist depictions of Black Americans attracted KKK members, and their popularity increased. The KKK also had a surge in membership after World War One, as there was an increased against from some American people, including politicians.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The origins of the civil rights movement

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Find out about the origins of the civil rights movement with BBC Bitesize History. For students between the ages of 11 and 14.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Emergence of the civil rights movement in the 1950s - Civil rights in the USA 1954-1964 - OCR A - GCSE History Revision - OCR A - BBC Bitesize

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Learn about and revise the civil rights movement in the USA from 1954 to 1964 with BBC Bitesize GCSE History - OCR A.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Kids learn about the history of Jim Crow Laws including segregation in the South, example laws, grandfather clauses, black codes, and how they got the name Jim Crow.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Thank you, sister Rosa! Ms. Parks, that is! This movie is all about the civil rights movement, from segregation trials to freedom marches. Plus a few words from Dr. Martin Luther King!

# data[].attributes.body
Quotations fro “ I have a dream

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Martin Luther King, Jr was born January 15, 1929. He graduated from Morehouse College in Atlanta, GA in 1948. In 1953 King married Coretta Scott in Marion, Ala. They had four children: Yolanda, Martin III, Dexter, and Bernice.

King most famous speech is called " I Have A Dream." He spoke to 250,000 people in the March on Washington on August 28, 1963.

King was assassinated in Memphis, Tenn. by James Earl Ray in 1968. On January 20, 1986 the United States celebrated King's birthday as a holiday for the first time.

I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

Read or listen to the entire speech (new window)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Martin Luther King, Jr was born January 15, 1929. He graduated from Morehouse College in Atlanta, GA in 1948. In 1953 King married Coretta Scott in Marion, Ala. They had four children: Yolanda, Martin III, Dexter, and Bernice. King most famous speech is called " I Have A Dream."

# data[].attributes.body
Video

# data[].attributes.body
King on bbc, lots of details

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Presented by Dr John A Kirk Donaghey Professor, UALR

A visionary leader

Martin Luther King combined radical thought, political nous and oratorical brilliance. His I Have A Dream speech described a vision of racial equality in America that inspired millions. Despite provocation, he stayed true to non-violence.

King had great success in helping to end segregation and the disenfranchisement of African-Americans. Yet the economic gap between black and white America remained. Find out if King's dream was truly realised.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Did Martin Luther King achieve his life's dream?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Presented by Dr John A Kirk Donaghey Professor, UALR Martin Luther King combined radical thought, political nous and oratorical brilliance. His I Have A Dream speech described a vision of racial equality in America that inspired millions. Despite provocation, he stayed true to non-violence.

# data[].attributes.body
His life and actions

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
A hero is born

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was born in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1929. At the time in that part of the country, segregation-or the separation of races in places like schools, buses, and restaurants-was the law. He experienced racial predjudice from the time he was very young, which inspired him to dedicate his life to achieving equality and justice for Americans of all colors. King believed that peaceful refusal to obey unjust law was the best way to bring about social change.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Civil Rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., never backed down in his stand against racism. Learn more about the life of this courageous hero who inspired millions of people to right a historical wrong.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Dr Martin Luther King

When you hear the name Martin Luther King Jr., four words immediately come to mind, "I have a dream." On August 28, 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered those famous words in a speech at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC.

Born in Atlanta during the height of racial segregation, Martin Luther King dedicated his life to bringing attention to these social injustices to light in a powerful but non-violent way. His dedication to God and his country lead him to be of service to his fellow man.
Some of Dr. King's mentors and sources of inspiration range from Henry David Thoreau to Mahatma Gandhi. His words are timeless and hold as much truth and insight as they did over forty years ago.

Raised in a family of preachers, Dr. King himself was a reverend at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. He began his journey as a civil rights early starting with the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955. A few years later he founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and by 1963 delivered his famous speech to the world.

The author of numerous books on social consciousness and spirituality, Dr. King was the youngest person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. His dedication to ending racial segregation through non-violent means earned him this prestigious honor. In his later years, MLK focused his energies on ending poverty and protesting the Vietnam War.

With his actions, words and presence all reflecting his unfailing stance on non-violence, it was a tragedy to see Dr. King struck down in the prime of his life. Martin Luther King was assassinated on the balcony of the Lorraine Hotel in Tennessee on April 4, 1968. Dr. King was only 39 years old.

Today his legacy lives on through The King Center located close to where he grew up and delivered his weekly sermons. Martin Luther King and his wife Coretta raised four children who have gone on to continue their father's work in a variety of ways.

In 1977 Dr. King was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously and in 2004, the Congressional Gold Medal. In 1983, Ronald Reagan signed the bill that named the third Monday in January, Martin Luther King Jr. Day. This is only one of three federal holidays that is honor of an individual person.

In 2008, then president-elect Barack Obama challenged everyone to change this legal holiday from just a day off from work to the chance to volunteer and help those in need. It received one of the biggest responses ever and even more events are planned in 2010.

Even though Martin Luther King Jr. was only here for 39 years, he made an impression that is as strong today as when he was alive. His legend lives on.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
When you hear the name Martin Luther King Jr., four words immediately come to mind, "I have a dream." On August 28, 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered those famous words in a speech at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Why is Martin Luther King famous?
Martin Luther King Jr was an American campaigner for the fair and equal treatment of all people and an end to racial discrimination.
A brilliant and brave man and a brilliant speaker, he was the youngest-ever person to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

Top 10 facts

1. Martin Luther King Jr's father was the pastor of the Ebeneezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, in the United States of America.

2. Martin was a gifted student. He was awarded several university degrees and became a Doctor of Divinity.

3. He decided he wanted to become a minister and delivered his first sermon at his father's church at the age of 18.

4. In December 1955, in Montgomery Alabama, Rosa Parks, a black woman, was arrested for failing to give up her bus seat to a white man.

5. Martin Luther King was appointed president of the Montgomery Improvement Association which led the boycott of the Montgomery bus services. (A boycott is where you stop using goods or services to bring about a change.)

6. The bus boycott lasted 381 days at the end of which the US Supreme Court ruled that segregation was illegal.

7. Martin Luther King was a very brave man who believed in non violent protest. During the course of his campaign his house was bombed, he was arrested on numerous occasions and he was stabbed. Finally he was shot at the age of 39.

8. Dr King was a very powerful orator (speech maker). His most famous speech, I Have A Dream,was delivered to an audience of 250,000 people.

9. Following Martin Luther King's murder a national day of mourning was declared in the USA.

10. Martin Luther King Day, held on the third Monday of January, is now a public holiday in the USA.

Timeline

Delivers I Have a Dream speech to crowd of 250,000 at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC

Did you know?

Martin Luther was born Michael Luther King but his father later changed both of their names to Martin.

The original Martin Luther was a German Protestant who wanted to reform the Catholic Church.

Martin Luther King was so clever that he was two years ahead at school and he started his college education at the age of 15.

At age 35 he was the youngest-ever person to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

He is recognised as one of the greatest speakers in American history.

Over 750 streets in the United States are named after him.

In 1986, Martin Luther King Day was declared a national holiday in the United States.

More than 300,000 people marched alongside Dr King's coffin.

Martin Luther King gallery:

Martin Luther King

With Malcolm X

As Time Magazine's Man of the Year (Artwork Credit: Robert Vickrey)

Some of the values MLK stood for

The statue of Dr King in Washington DC is known as the Martin Luther King Memorial

Gallery

About

Martin Luther King was brought up in a Christian household and based many of his ideas about how people should treat each other on Christian teachings. His father was active in the civil rights movement and the young Martin was aware of the unfair treatment of black people from an early age. His religion also influenced his ideas about war and poverty; he protested against the Vietnam War and on behalf of poor people. He was also impressed by Mahatma Gandhi's use of non violence in his campaign against British rule in India.

The southern United States where Martin Luther King was born commonly treated black people as being inferior to white people. As a result the condition of black people in those states was poor. Laws aimed at keeping black and white people apart meant that black people had poorer living conditions and schooling and had fewer rights than white people. Laws treated black people unfairly and prevented nearly all of them from having the vote, even in states where they formed the majority of the population. This meant that they had little political power and their interests were ignored. Because the laws had kept people apart, many white people believed they were superior to black people.

Although a civil rights campaign had been protesting against these injustices since before the First World War, only limited progress had been made. Martin Luther King's involvement in the Montgomery Bus Boycott and his leadership of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference marked him out from an early age as a gifted campaigner.

His intelligence, his speechmaking skills, his courage and his insistence on the use of non-violent means of protest such as marches, sit-ins and boycotts, helped to make civil rights the most important issue in American public life by the 1960s. New laws such as the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act helped to improve the situation of black people.

Martin Luther King's achievements and abilities were admired and celebrated by people the world over. He received many awards for his courageous leadership and vision. His speeches and writings still have the power to inspire people today.

Famous friends

Rosa Parks (1913-2005) - a civil rights activist, Rosa grew up in the Southern United States and lived with her husband in Montgomery, Alabama. Montgomery was a segregated city - black people and white people had to live separately.

Rosa travelled to work on the buses. Black people had to sit at the back of the bus in seats marked 'For Colored". On the 1 December 1955 a white man asked Rosa to give up her seat on the bus. Rosa refused and was arrested. She was fined $10. Rosa appealed to a higher court. In support of Rosa's cause all the black people of Montgomery stopped using the buses. Martin Luther King became head of the Montgomery Improvement Society which helped lead the bus boycott. The boycott lasted 381 days at the end of which the United States Supreme Court ruled that segregation was against the law.

Rosa received many threats as a result of her campaign but she remained strong. She was awarded the Congregational Gold Medal and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Related Videos

Just for fun...

Kids' books about Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement in the USA

Find out more about Dr. Martin Luther King

Dr Martin Luther King: famous quotes

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

"I submit to you that if a man hasn't discovered something he will die for, he isn't fit to live."

"I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. [...] I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character."

"We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools."

See for yourself

Also see

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Fascinating facts, information, videos and images about the life of Dr Martin Luther King Jr, to support primary-school topic work.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
A hero is born

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was born in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1929. At the time in that part of the country, segregation-or the separation of races in places like schools, buses, and restaurants-was the law. He experienced racial predjudice from the time he was very young, which inspired him to dedicate his life to achieving equality and justice for Americans of all colors. King believed that peaceful refusal to obey unjust law was the best way to bring about social change.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Civil Rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., never backed down in his stand against racism. Learn more about the life of this courageous hero who inspired millions of people to right a historical wrong.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Kids learn about Martin Luther King, Jr.'s biography. A great civil rights leader.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Martin Luther King Jr. goes down in history as one of the principal leader of the civil rights movement in the United States and a prominent advocate of nonviolent protest. King's challenges to segregation and racial discrimination helped convince many white Americans to support the cause of civil rights in the United States.

King was born in Atlanta, Georgia, and was ordained as a Baptist minister at age 18. He graduated from Morehouse College in 1948 and from Crozer Theological Seminary in 1951. In 1955 he earned a doctoral degree in systematic theology from Boston University. While in Boston, King met Coretta Scott, whom he married in 1953.

In 1954 King accepted his first pastorate at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. Montgomery's black community had long-standing grievances about the mistreatment of blacks on city buses. Heading the year-long bus-boycott against segregation in buses, King soon became a national figure.

In 1957 King helped found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), an organization of black churches and ministers that aimed to challenge racial segregation. King and other SCLC leaders encouraged the use of nonviolent marches, demonstrations, and boycotts to protest discrimination.

King and other black leaders organized the 1963 March on Washington, a massive protest in Washington, D.C., for jobs and civil rights. King delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech to an audience of more than 200,000 civil rights supporters. The speech and the march created the political momentum that resulted in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibited segregation in public accommodations and discrimination in education and employment. As a result of King's effective leadership, he was awarded the 1964 Nobel Prize for peace.

Throughout 1966 and 1967 King increasingly turned the focus of his activism to the redistribution of the nation's economic wealth to overcome entrenched black poverty. In the spring of 1968 he went to Memphis, Tennessee, to support striking black garbage workers. King was assassinated in Memphis on April 4, 1968.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Martin Luther King, Jr. | Pitara Kids Network

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Martin Luther King Jr. goes down in history as one of the principal leader of the civil rights movement in the United States and a prominent advocate of nonviolent protest. King's challenges to segregation and racial discrimination helped convince many white Americans to support the cause of civil rights in the United States.

# data[].attributes.body
http://www.theschoolrun.com/homework-help/dr-martin-luther-king-jrhttp://www.theschoolrun.com/homework-help/dr-martin-luther-king-jr