Martin Luther King, Jr. was born on January 15, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia. There Growing up in the south, he would witness first hand the brutality and oppression black people endured at the hands of white America. Ironically, at a young age King criticized what he deemed religious emotionalism and balked at literal interpretations of the Bible. However he held a great admiration for what he believed the black church could do in regards to social reform and the improvement upon the lives of black people.

The legacy of two generations of Baptist preachers, King would earn his Bachelors of Divinity in 1951. During his studies he attended a lecture by a Dr. Mordeca Johnson on the life and work of Mahatma Gandhi. The non-violent teachings of the Indian social philosopher would influence the young King deeply. Rather than taking up an academic position, King returned South after his PhD and became pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. This placed King in a position of power and responsibility at a very urgent time in black America. In May of that same year, the Brown vs. the Board of Education in Topeka, Kansas decision had paved the way for school desegregation. King paid very close attention to these events that were shaking the very foundation of American society.

On a fateful day in December of 1955 a seamstress named Rosa Parks decided to take the bus home rather than walk as she normally did. She was sitting in the middle section of the vehicle when a white man boarded the bus and demanded that her row be cleared because the white section was full. The other blacks in the row obediently moved to the back of the bus, but Parks quietly refused. She would later tell others that she was tired, and just did not feel like moving. Angry at her individual act of rebellion the white bus driver threatened to call the police unless Park gave up her seat. A calm Parks only replied, "Go ahead and call them". By the time the police arrived the now enraged bus driver insisted on arrest. Parks was subsequently arrested, fingerprinted and jailed. With her one allowed phone call, she contacted an NAACP lawyer who arranged for her to be released on bail.

Word of Parks's arrest spread quickly, and the Black Women's Political Council decided to protest her treatment by organizing a boycott of the buses. The boycott was set for December 5, the day of Park's trial, but some prominent members of Montgomery's black community realized that this was a chance to take a firm stand on segregation. One of these was the young King. As a result, the Montgomery Improvement Association was formed to organize a boycott that would continue until the bus segregation laws were changed. King was elected president of the newly formed organization and assumed leadership of the boycott, thrusting him into the spotlight. Under King's guidance leaflets were distributed telling people not to ride the buses. And other forms of transport were set up and relied upon.

As the boycott continued, King's house was bombed and he was convicted along with other boycott leaders on charges of conspiring to interfere with the bus company's operations. Despite these terrorist and legal attacks, the United States Supreme Court declared Alabama's segregation laws unconstitutional. And by late December the buses of Montgomery were desegregated.

Capitalizing upon this victory, King called for a meeting of black Christian clergymen. More than sixty black ministers, committed to a southern civil rights movement, responded in Atlanta on January 9 and 10 forming the organization that would become the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SLCL). While King and Rev. Ralph Abernathy were in Atlanta for the meeting, Abernathy's home and church were bombed in Montgomery. Three other Baptist churches and the home of a white minister were also bombed in response to the victory of the bus boycott. On February 14, the SCLC met formally for the first time in New Orleans. King was unanimously elected president.

Yet even with his goals of securing black voting rights, King did not immediately make any large moves during the first 5 years following the Montgomery boycott. He sat by cautiously waiting for what he thought would be the right moment to form any mass protests. And that moment it would come from an unexpected source: the black youth.

On Feb. 1, 1960, four A & T University students, Joseph McNeil, Franklin McCain, Billy Smith and Clarence Henderson sat down at the whites-only lunch counter at the Woolworth Store on South Elm Street in Greensboro, North Carolina. Their goal was to challenge the segregation code of Jim Crow. A few days later the "Greensboro Four", as they were later called, would be joined by other students at the Woolworth counter and at the Kress 5 & 10 lunch counter a half-block away.

Black college students took up the challenge all across the south, launching a wave of sit-in protests during the winter and spring of 1960. King watched the student movement with interest and lent his support by speaking at the founding meeting of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in April 1960. But his caution and seeming inactivity following the Montgomery boycott led him to soon became the target of criticisms from the younger SNCC activists, who wanted to assert their independence from older leaders like King. In March of 1961, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), along with SNCC and SCLC, announced a new campaign - the Freedom Rides. This tactic consisted of bussing students and demonstrators in from the North and other areas of the South to combat segregation. The 1961 Freedom Rides, dominated by students, would demonstrate that King nor any of the older leaders were able to control the expanding protest movement now spearheaded by students and other youth. This generation conflict nevertheless did not stop both King's SCLC and the SNCC to join forces numerous times such as during the Albany, Georgia Movement's campaign of mass protests during December of 1961 and the summer of 1962. Yet after these events, King decided it was time to expand the protest movement to a more sophisticated level beyond what either the SCLC or SNCC could have imagined.

Under King's leadership mass demonstrations begin in Birmingham, Alabama on April 3, 1963 to protest segregation of public facilities. King and other ministers were arrested for their involvement. King was placed in solitary confinement. While imprisoned, King wrote his famous "Letter From Birmingham Jail" explaining the need for non-violent civil disobedience. When school children joined the demonstrators in Birmingham in early May, then police commissioner Eugene "Bull" Connor ordered the use of fire hoses and police dogs to halt the youthful protestors. Images of police brutality, especially upon black teens, shocked the nation and drew criticisms worldwide.

Under such pressure, by May 10 an agreement was announced in Birmingham to slowly desegregate public accommodations, increase job opportunities for blacks and provide amnesty to those arrested. White segregationists react violently to the agreement and on May 11, a bomb exploded at the home of King's brother, Reverend A.D. King, in Birmingham. A second explosion blasted King's headquarters in the Gaston Motel. In response frustrated blacks in Birmingham, against King's wishes, initiated a riot. Two hundred and fifty state troopers were sent to keep peace. But the tide was turning for on May 20, the Supreme Court ruled Birmingham's segregation ordinances unconstitutional. In June, President John F. Kennedy agreed to submit broad civil rights legislation to Congress (which eventually passed as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 signed by Lyndon B. Johnson). With this victory secure, King's movement pushed ahead.

Subsequent mass demonstrations in many communities led to the August 28, 1963 March on Washington. It became the largest and most dramatic civil rights demonstration in history. More than 250,000 marchers, including 60,000 of whom were non-black, filled the mall from the Lincoln Memorial to the Washington Monument. King and other civil rights leaders met with President Kennedy in the White House who expressed reservations about the March. After reaching an agreement the event went on as planned. King's "I Have A Dream" Speech would become the high point of the event.

White segregationists, angry at King's prominence and the swift victories of the Civil Rights Movement struck back with horrific acts of terrorism. On September 15, a bomb exploded during Sunday school at Birmingham's 16th Avenue Baptist Church killing four little girls: aged eleven to fourteen. This would the twenty-first bombing terrorist attack against blacks in Birmingham in eight years. The impact of the killing of the four girls in a place or worships stunned even King and much of the nation and world, deeply turning public opinion against segregationists and portraying them as violent terrorists.

However, though they are the victims of violence, King and his allies are put under surveillance by then FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. At one time the head of the Bureau of Negro Affairs and responsible for infiltrating Marcus Garvey's UNIA of the early 1900s, Hoover continued his surveillance and interference of black groupings with what would later be known as COINTELPRO: the Counter Intelligence Program aimed at what were deemed "subversive elements" in American society. Hoover, believing King to be a communist, monitored him along with numerous other black leaders across the political divide.

None of this deters Time Magazine from naming King "Man of the Year" in 1964. And despite threats from the FBI (who went as far as hinting at suicide), King accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway on December 10th. He became the twelfth American, third black and at age thirty-five, the youngest person to win the coveted honor. Yet King found challenges about him. Prominent black-nationalist leader Malcolm X's message of self-defense struck a chord with the discontent and anger of many blacks, especially those in the north, much better than King's messages of moderation. What was more a new tide of black youths, dissatisfied with the slow progress of the movement, were espousing a much more radical form of protest.

Aware of these factors, King nevertheless initiated his Selma campaign on February 2, 1965 where he was arrested for demonstrating as part of the SCLC's voter registration drive. Several days later, a federal district court banned the literacy test and other technicalities used against black voter applicants, and on February 9, King met with President Lyndon B. Johnson at the White House to discuss voting rights. On March 7 demonstrators in Selma met with state patrolmen as they attempted to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge on a march from Selma to the state capitol in Montgomery. The demonstrators are savagely beaten. Even King was shocked at the brutality. White Reverend James Reeb would die from his injuries after being attacked by white thugs. Watching all of this unfold, King knew that many of the already disillusioned youth in the movement were as well. And if something was not done soon, he feared tensions would mount beyond anyone's control.

To this end President Johnson addressed a joint session of Congress on March 15 to appeal for the passage of the Voting Rights Bill, which he submitted two days later. In the televised address, he even used the slogan of the non-violent movement - "We Shall Overcome". On March 21, King and three thousand protestors began a five-day march from Selma to the Alabama state capitol in Montgomery. By agreement, only three hundred were allowed to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge and continue the entire way to the state capitol. They were escorted by hundreds of army troops and national guardsmen.

More violence erupted when Viola Liuzzo, a white civil rights worker from Detroit, was shot to death while driving returning marchers back to Selma on March 25. As a result, President Johnson finally denounced the Ku Klux Klan and announced the arrests of four Klan members in connection with the murder. On March 30, the House Un-American Activities Committee opened a full investigation of the Klan and its "shocking crimes".

On August 6, President Johnson signed the 1965 Voting Rights Act into law. But as six days of rioting broke out in Watts, Los Angeles on August 11th, King's worst fears were realized. More than thirty-five hundred people were arrested and 35 killed. Watching these events unfold King began to wonder if the Civil Rights Act would be enough to ensure that blacks gained empowerment. In February 1966 King and his family moved into a tenement apartment in Chicago to initiate the Chicago Project. The SCLC joined forces with Al Raby's Coordinating Council of Community Organizations. While there King also held a historic meeting with the Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad, who was on the opposite political spectrum. Some have suggested that on more than one occasion, the NOI and King's movement had worked secretly when it came to matters of protection and security.

After James Meredith was shot on June 6, the first day of his 220-mile "March Against Fear" King and other civil rights leaders decided to continue the protest. In Greenwood, Mississippi Stokely Carmichael, the newly elected head of SNCC, and Willie Ricks used the slogan "Black Power" for the first time in front of reporters. The tensions between the SCLC and SNCC growing wider, King met with Carmicheal and stated he took no issue with the slogan but was concerned with the tactics it may cause to come about. The two men left each other amicably, but come away understanding that different visions were definitely forming. Carmichael would later go on to become a major proponent of the newly emerging Black Power Movement.

Designating July 10th "Freedom Sunday", King initiated a drive to make Chicago an "open city", demanding an end to discrimination in housing, schools and employment. Rioting erupted on Chicago's West Side on July 12 and two black youths were killed. On August 5, King was assaulted with stones as he led marchers through Chicago's Southwest Side. SNCC and CORE marched on Chicago's Cicero suburb on September 4 and to their anger King and the SCLC refused participate. Two hundred blacks, protected by National Guardsmen, were fiercely attacked and forced to retreat. Such action in the North shocked and disturbed King as he began to ponder upon the scope of American racism and the enormity of the struggle before him. It also leaves his SCLC deeply at odds with the younger members of CORE and SNCC.

On February 15, President Johnson proposed the 1967 Civil Rights Act to Congress, including a strong open-housing provision. The bill did not pass, but similar provisions were later incorporated in the 1968 Civil Rights Act. A more militant and frustrated King seemed to emerge during this time. At a news conference in New York on April 16, King warned that at least ten cities "could explode in racial violence this summer" because conditions that caused riots last summer still existed. At a meeting of Clergy and Laity Concerned at Riverside Church in New York City on April 4, 1967, King made his historic speech against what he saw as American injustice in the ongoing war against Vietnam. These new perspectives shocked and angered many of his white liberal supporters. And his ties with President Johnson became near severed. Even his own SCLC did not support him.

Yet just as King warned, riots erupted in the Roxbury section of Boston that June. More than 60 people were injured, and nearly 100 arrested. Before the summer was over, riots occured in Newark, Detroit, Milwaukee, and more than 30 other American cities. In Detroit alone, 43 died and 324 were injured. Blaming figures like King for such violence, the FBI intensified its surveillance and extensive efforts to undermine his leadership.

Certain now that desegregation was not enough to help empower black people, on November 2 King announced the creation of the Poor People's Campaign: focusing on jobs and freedom. On February 12, 1968 sanitation workers went on strike in Memphis, Tennessee. King led a demonstration in Memphis on March 28 in support of them. When the march became violent, one black demonstrator was killed and more than fifty people are injured. King left Memphis, more distressed than ever over the violence. He returned on April 3 in the hopes of leading a more peaceful march. He told the mostly black crowd at the Memphis Masonic Temple, "I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promise land".

The following morning on April 4 as King stood upon a balcony of the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis, a sniper fatally wounded him. Martin Luther King, Jr. died at St. Joseph's Hospital of a gunshot wound to the neck. Reaction to his death was swift as rioting erupted in Washington DC's black section. President Johnson quickly declared April 7 a national day of mourning for King. On April 8 Coretta Scott King assumed her husband's place, leading a massive silent funeral march through the streets of Memphis. Thousands of people attended King's funeral on April 9 at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. Millions more watched at home and abroad on television. As one figure noted, "with the death of Martin Luther King, Jr. died America's conscience and her last chance at redemption".

For More Information See:

Branch, Taylor. Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-63

Branch, Taylor. Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years, 1963-65.

Garrow, David. J. Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference

Williams, Juan. Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years, 1954-65.

Martin Luther King Jr. Papers Project: - http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/

Letter from a Birmingham Jail - http://almaz.com/nobel/peace/MLK-jail.html