The Life & Times of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Michael King Jr was born on January 15, 1929, the world knows him by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. King was an American Baptist minister and activist who became the most visible spokesman and leader in the American civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968. Dr. King played a pivotal role in ending the legal segregation of African American citizens in the U.S., influencing the creation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Dr. King advanced civil rights through nonviolence and civil disobedience, inspired by his Christian beliefs and the nonviolent activism of Mahatma Gandhi. Dr. King organized and led marches for blacks' right to vote, desegregation, labor rights, and other basic civil rights. Most of these rights were successfully enacted into the law of the United States with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Dr. King led the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott and later became the first president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and helped organize some of the nonviolent 1963 protests in Birmingham, Alabama. Dr. King helped organize the 1963 March on Washington, where he delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Dr. King was assassinated, on 4 April, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee he was 39 years old. Dr. King received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, among other honors.
Key historical events
Montgomery bus boycott, 1955
In March 1955, Claudette Colvin a fifteen-year-old black schoolgirl in Montgomery, AL refused to give up her bus seat to a white man which was consider a direct violation of Jim Crow laws, local laws in the Southern United States that enforced racial segregation. Nine months later on December 1, 1955, a similar incident occurred when Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a city bus. These two incidents led to the Montgomery bus boycott. Dr. King was in his twenties, and had just taken up his clerical role. He was asked to take a leadership and led the effort because his relative newness to community. The boycott lasted for 385 days, and the situation became so tense that Dr. King's house was bombed. Dr. King was arrested and jailed during this campaign, which overnight drew the attention of national media, and greatly increased Dr. King's public stature. The controversy ended when the United States District Court issued a ruling in Browder v. Gayle that prohibited racial segregation on all Montgomery public buses. Blacks resumed riding the buses again, and were able to sit in the front with full legal authorization. Dr. King's role in the bus boycott transformed him into a national figure and the best-known spokesman of the civil rights movement.
Founding of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), 1957
In 1957, Dr. King, Ralph Abernathy, Fred Shuttlesworth, Joseph Lowery, and other civil rights activists founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). The group was created to harness the moral authority and organizing power of black churches to conduct nonviolent protests in the service of civil rights reform. The group was inspired by the crusades of evangelist Billy Graham, who befriended Dr. King, as well as the national organizing of the group In Friendship, founded by Dr. King allies Stanley Levison and Ella Baker. Dr. King led the SCLC until his death.
The SCLC's 1957 Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom was the first time Dr. King addressed a national audience. Dr. King believed that organized, nonviolent protest against the system of southern segregation known as Jim Crow laws would lead to extensive media coverage of the struggle for black equality and voting rights. Journalistic accounts and televised footage of the daily deprivation and indignities suffered by southern blacks, and of segregationist violence and harassment of civil rights workers and marchers, produced a wave of sympathetic public opinion that convinced the majority of Americans that the civil rights movement was the most important issue in American politics in the early 1960s. The SCLC put into practice the tactics of nonviolent protest with great success by strategically choosing the methods and places in which protests were carried out. There were often dramatic stand-offs with segregationist authorities, who sometimes turned violent. Other civil rights leaders involved in the SCLC with Dr. King included: James Bevel, Allen Johnson, Curtis W. Harris, Walter E. Fauntroy, C. T. Vivian, Andrew Young, The Freedom Singers, Cleveland Robinson, Randolph Blackwell, Annie Bell Robinson Devine, Charles Kenzie Steele, Alfred Daniel Williams King, Benjamin Hooks, Aaron Henry and Bayard Rustin.
Survived the first attacked on his life, 1958
On September 20, 1958, Dr. King was signing copies of his book Stride Toward Freedom in Blumstein's department store in Harlem when he narrowly escaped death. Izola Curry a mentally ill black woman who thought that Dr. King was conspiring against her with communists stabbed him in the chest with a letter opener, which nearly impinged on the aorta. Dr. King received first aid by police officers Al Howard and Philip Romano. Dr. King underwent emergency surgery with three doctors: Aubre de Lambert Maynard, Emil Naclerio and John W. V. Cordice; he remained hospitalized for several weeks. Curry was later found mentally incompetent to stand trial.
Surveillance, Arrest, Atlanta sit-ins, 1959 thur 1960
Georgia’s governor Ernest Vandiver expressed open hostility towards Dr. King's return to his hometown in late 1959. He claimed that wherever Dr. King, goes he is followed in his wake a wave of crimes, and he vowed to keep Dr. King under surveillance. On May 4, 1960, several months after his return, Dr. King drove writer Lillian Smith to Emory University when police stopped them. Dr. King was cited for "driving without a license" because he had not yet been issued a Georgia license. Dr. King's Alabama license was still valid, and Georgia’s law did not mandate any time limit for issuing a local license. Dr. King paid a fine but was apparently unaware that his lawyer agreed to a plea deal that also included a probationary sentence. This oversight would later become a major issue in his future arrests.
The Atlanta Student Movement had been working to desegregate businesses and public spaces in the city, organizing the Atlanta sit-ins from March 1960 onwards. In August the movement asked Dr. King to participate in a mass October sit-in, timed to highlight how 1960's Presidential election campaign had ignored civil rights. The coordinated day of action took place on October 19. Dr. King participated in a sit-in at the restaurant inside Rich's, Atlanta's largest department store, and was among the many arrested that day. The authorities released everyone over the next few days, except for Dr. King. Invoking his probationary plea deal, judge J. Oscar Mitchell sentenced Dr. King on October 25 to four months of hard labor. Before dawn the next day, Dr. King was taken from his county jail cell and transported to a maximum-security state prison.
The arrest and harsh sentence drew nationwide attention. Many feared for Dr. King's safety, as he started a prison sentence with people convicted of violent crimes, many of them white and hostile to his activism. Both Presidential candidates were asked to weigh in, at a time when both parties were courting the support of Southern Whites and their political leadership including Governor Vandiver. Nixon, with whom Dr. King had a closer relationship prior to the sit-in, declined to make a statement despite a personal visit from Jackie Robinson requesting his intervention. Nixon's opponent John F. Kennedy called the governor directly, enlisted his brother Robert Kennedy to exert more pressure on state authorities, and also, at the personal request of Sargent Shriver, made a phone call to Dr. King's wife to express his sympathy and offer his help. The pressure from Kennedys and others proved effective, and Dr. King was released two days later. Dr. King's father decided to openly endorse Kennedy's candidacy for the November 8 election which he narrowly won.
After the October 19 sit-ins and following unrest, a 30-day truce was declared in Atlanta for desegregation negotiations. However, the negotiations failed and sit-ins and boycotts resumed in full swing for several months. On March 7, 1961, a group of Black elders including Dr. King notified student leaders that a deal had been reached: the city's lunch counters would desegregate in fall 1961, in conjunction with the court-mandated desegregation of schools. Many students were disappointed at the compromise. While holding the large meeting March 10 at Warren Memorial Methodist Church, the audience was hostile and frustrated towards the elders and the compromise. Dr. King then gave an impassioned speech calling participants to resist the "cancerous disease of disunity," and helping to calm tensions.
The Albany Movement, 1961
The Albany Movement was a desegregation coalition formed in Albany, Georgia, in November 1961. In December, Dr. King and the SCLC became involved. The movement mobilized thousands of citizens for a broad-front nonviolent attack on every aspect of segregation within the city and attracted nationwide attention. When Dr. King first visited on December 15, 1961, he "had planned to stay a day or so and return home after giving counsel. The following day he was swept up in a mass arrest of peaceful demonstrators, and he declined bail until the city made concessions. According to Dr. King, "that agreement was dishonored and violated by the city" after he left town.
Dr. King returned in July 1962 and was given the option of forty-five days in jail or a $178 fine he chose jail. Three days into his sentence, Police Chief Laurie Pritchett discreetly arranged for Dr. King's fine to be paid and ordered his release. We had witnessed persons being kicked off lunch counter stools, ejected from churches, and thrown into jail. However, for the first time, we witnessed someone being kicked out of jail. It was later acknowledged by the King Center that Billy Graham was the one who bailed Dr. King out of jail during this time.
After nearly a year of intense activism with few tangible results, the movement began to deteriorate. Dr. King requested a halt to all demonstrations and a "Day of Penance" to promote nonviolence and maintain the moral high ground. Divisions within the black community and the canny, low-key response by local government defeated efforts. Though the Albany effort proved a key lesson in tactics for Dr. King and the national civil rights movement, the national media was highly critical of King's role in the defeat, and the SCLC's lack of results contributed to a growing gulf between the organization and the more radical Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). After Albany, Dr. King sought to choose engagements for the SCLC in which he could control the circumstances, rather than entering into pre-existing situations.
Birmingham campaign &"Letter from Birmingham Jail", 1963
In April 1963, the SCLC began a campaign against racial segregation and economic injustice in Birmingham, Alabama. The campaign used nonviolent but intentionally confrontational tactics, developed in part by Wyatt Tee Walker. Black people in Birmingham, organizing with the SCLC, occupied public spaces with marches and sit-ins, openly violating laws that they considered unjust.
Dr. King's intent was to provoke mass arrests and "create a situation so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation. The campaign's early volunteers did not succeed in shutting down the city, or in drawing media attention to the police's actions. Over the concerns of an uncertain King, SCLC strategist James Bevel changed the course of the campaign by recruiting children and young adults to join in the demonstrations. Newsweek called this strategy a Children's Crusade.
During the protests, the Birmingham Police Department, led by Eugene "Bull" Connor, used high-pressure water jets and police dogs against protesters, including children. Footage of the police response was broadcast on national television news and dominated the nation's attention, shocking many white Americans and consolidating black Americans behind the movement. Not all of the demonstrators were peaceful, despite the avowed intentions of the SCLC. In some cases, bystanders attacked the police, who responded with force. Dr. King and the SCLC were criticized for putting children in harm's way. But the campaign was a success: Connor lost his job, the "Jim Crow" signs came down, and public places became more open to blacks. Dr. King was arrested and jailed early in the campaign his 13th arrests out of 29. From his cell, he composed the now-famous "Letter from Birmingham Jail" that responds to calls on the movement to pursue legal channels for social change. The letter has been described as "one of the most important historical documents penned by a modern political prisoner.” Dr. King argues that the crisis of racism is too urgent, and the current system too entrenched: "We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. He points out that the Boston Tea Party, a celebrated act of rebellion in the American colonies, was illegal civil disobedience, and that, conversely, "everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was 'legal'. Walter Reuther, president of the United Auto Workers, arranged for $160,000 to bail out King and his fellow protestors.
The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, 1963
Dr. King, representing the SCLC, was among the leaders of the "Big Six" civil rights organizations who were instrumental in the organization of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, which took place on August 28, 1963. The other leaders and organizations comprising the Big Six were Roy Wilkins from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; Whitney Young, National Urban League; A. Philip Randolph, Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters; John Lewis, SNCC; and James L. Farmer Jr., of the Congress of Racial Equality.
Bayard Rustin's open homosexuality, support of socialism, and his former ties to the Communist Party USA caused many white and African-American leaders to demand Dr. King distance himself from Rustin, which King agreed to do. Dr King did work with Rustin who was the primary logistical and strategic organizer for the 1963 March on Washington. Dr. King, received controversy, since he was one of the key figures who acceded to the wishes of United States President John F. Kennedy in changing the focus of the march.
The march originally was conceived as an event to dramatize the desperate condition of blacks in the southern U.S. and an opportunity to place organizers' concerns and grievances squarely before the seat of power in the nation's capital. Organizers intended to denounce the federal government for its failure to safeguard the civil rights and physical safety of civil rights workers and blacks. The group acquiesced to presidential pressure and influence, and the event ultimately took on a far less strident tone. As a result, some civil rights activists felt it presented an inaccurate, sanitized pageant of racial harmony; Malcolm X called it the "Farce on Washington,” and the Nation of Islam forbade its members from attending the march.
President Kennedy initially opposed the march outright, because he was concerned it would negatively impact the drive for passage of civil rights legislation. However, the organizers were firm that the march would proceed. With the march going forward, the Kennedys decided it was important to work to ensure its success. President Kennedy was concerned the turnout would be less than 100,000. Therefore, he enlisted the aid of additional church leaders and Walter Reuther, president of the United Automobile Workers, to help mobilize demonstrators for the cause.
The march made specific demands: an end to racial segregation in public schools; meaningful civil rights legislation, including a law prohibiting racial discrimination in employment; protection of civil rights workers from police brutality; a $2 minimum wage for all workers (equivalent to $17 in 2021); and self-government for Washington, D.C., then governed by congressional committee. Despite tensions, the march was a resounding success. More than a quarter of a million people of diverse ethnicities attended the event, sprawling from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial onto the National Mall and around the reflecting pool. At the time, it was the largest gathering of protesters in Washington, D.C.'s history.
Dr. King delivered a 17-minute speech, later known as "I Have a Dream". Dr. King departed from his prepared text, possibly at the prompting of Mahalia Jackson, who shouted behind him, "Tell them about the dream!" The original typewritten copy of the speech, including Dr. King's handwritten notes on it, was discovered in 1984 to be in the hands of George Raveling, the first African-American basketball coach of the University of Iowa. In 1963, Raveling, then 26 years old, was standing near the podium, and immediately after the oration, impulsively asked Dr. King if he could have his copy of the speech, and he got it. "I Have a Dream" came to be regarded as one of the finest speeches in the history of American oratory. The March, and especially Dr. King's speech, helped put civil rights at the top of the agenda of reformers in the United States and facilitated passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Click here to hear this inspirational speech that still rings true in 2021.
Meeting with President Johnson and The Signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
Jan. 18, 1964, President Johnson invited Dr King and three of his allies: Roy Wilkins, executive director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; National Urban League Executive Director Whitney Young and Congress of Racial Equality National Director James Farmer to the White House.
Though the 90-minute meeting was not open to the public or press the civil rights leaders who attended the meeting said the discussion with the president revolved around how to address the fact that poverty afflicted blacks far more than whites. Dr. King walked out of the White House having agreed to help Johnson's anti-poverty agenda but emphasized that blacks would not accept "any watering down" of a civil rights bill. They both work in concert to build coalitions in Congress and the streets respectively. To get their agenda spread. The Civil Rights Act would be approved by the Senate.
Johnson invited the four activists back to the White House to witness the signing of the Civil Rights Act. they accepted. On July 2, 1964, in the East Room of the White House, Johnson signed the provision into law. less than six months after the January meeting. The president gave Dr. King the pen used to sign the bill. Dr. King described it as one of his "most cherished possessions."
St. Augustine, Florida, 1964
In March 1964, Dr. King and the SCLC joined forces with Robert Hayling's then-controversial movement in St. Augustine, Florida. Hayling's group had been affiliated with the NAACP but was forced out of the organization for advocating armed self-defense alongside nonviolent tactics. However, the pacifist SCLC accepted them. Dr. King and the SCLC worked to bring white Northern activists to St. Augustine, including a delegation of rabbis and the 72-year-old mother of the governor of Massachusetts, all of whom were arrested. During June, the movement marched nightly through the city, "often facing counter demonstrations by the Klan, and provoking violence that garnered national media attention." Hundreds of the marchers were arrested and jailed. During the course of this movement, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed.
Biddeford, Maine, 1964
On May 7, 1964, Dr. King spoke at Saint Francis College's "The Negro and the Quest for Identity," in Biddeford, Maine. This was a symposium that brought many civil rights leaders together such as Dorothy Day and Roy Wilkins. Dr. King spoke about how "We must get rid of the idea of superior and inferior races," through nonviolent tactics.
New York City, 1964
On February 6, 1964, Dr. King delivered the inaugural speech of a lecture series initiated at the New School called "The American Race Crisis." No audio record of his speech has been found, but in August 2013, almost 50 years later, the school discovered an audiotape with 15 minutes of a question-and-answer session that followed Dr. King's address. In these remarks, Dr. King referred to a conversation he had recently had with Jawaharlal Nehru in which he compared the sad condition of many African Americans to that of India's untouchables. In his March 18, 1964 interview by Robert Penn Warren, Dr. Dr. King compared his activism to his father's, citing his training in non-violence as a key difference. He also discusses the next phase of the civil rights movement and integration.
Receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, 1964
On October 14, 1964, Dr. King won the Nobel Peace Prize for combating racial inequality through nonviolent resistance. In 1965, he helped organize two of the three Selma to Montgomery marches. In his final years, he expanded his focus to include opposition towards poverty, capitalism, and the Vietnam War.
March From Selma, Voting rights movement and "Bloody Sunday", 1965
In December 1964, Dr. King and the SCLC joined forces with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in Selma, Alabama, where the SNCC had been working on voter registration for several months. A local judge issued an injunction that barred any gathering of three or more people affiliated with the SNCC, SCLC, DCVL, or any of 41 named civil rights leaders. This injunction temporarily halted civil rights activity until Dr. King defied it by speaking at Brown Chapel on January 2, 1965. During the 1965 march to Montgomery, Alabama, violence by state police and others against the peaceful marchers resulted in much publicity, which made racism in Alabama visible nationwide.
Acting on James Bevel's call for a march from Selma to Montgomery, Bevel and other SCLC members, in partial collaboration with SNCC, attempted to organize a march to the state's capital. The first attempt to march on March 7, 1965, at which Dr. King was not present, was aborted because of mob and police violence against the demonstrators. This day has become known as Bloody Sunday and was a major turning point in the effort to gain public support for the civil rights movement. It was the clearest demonstration up to that time of the dramatic potential of Dr. King and Bevel's nonviolence strategy.
On March 5, Dr. King met with officials in the Johnson’s Administration in order to request an injunction against any prosecution of the demonstrators. He did not attend the march due to church duties, but he later wrote, "If I had any idea that the state troopers would use the kind of brutality they did, I would have felt compelled to give up my church duties altogether to lead the line.” Footage of police brutality against the protesters was broadcast extensively and aroused national public outrage.
Dr. King next attempted to organize a march for March 9. The SCLC petitioned for an injunction in federal court against the State of Alabama; this was denied and the judge issued an order blocking the march until after a hearing. Nonetheless, Dr. King led marchers on March 9 to the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, then held a short prayer session before turning the marchers around and asking them to disperse so as not to violate the court order. The unexpected ending of this second march aroused the surprise and anger of many within the local movement. On March 11, Dr. King was overjoyed as he watched on television as President Johnson supported a voting right bill. The march finally went ahead fully on March 25, 1965.at the conclusion of the march on the steps of the state capitol, Dr. King delivered a speech that became known as "How Long, Not Long." Dr. King speech stated that equal rights for African Americans could not be far away, "because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice" and "you shall reap what you sow.”
Chicago open housing movement, 1966
In 1966, after several successes in the south, Dr. King, and others in the civil rights organizations took the movement to the North, with Chicago as their first destination. Dr. King and Ralph Abernathy, both from the middle class, moved into a building at 1550 S. Hamlin Avenue, in the slums of North Lawndale on Chicago's West Side, as an educational experience and to demonstrate their support and empathy for the poor.
The SCLC formed a coalition with CCCO, Coordinating Council of Community Organizations, an organization founded by Albert Raby, and the combined organizations' efforts were fostered under the aegis of the Chicago Freedom Movement. During that spring, several white couple/black couple tests of real estate offices uncovered racial steering: discriminatory processing of housing requests by couples who were exact matches in income, background, number of children, and other attributes.
Dr. King later stated and Abernathy wrote that the movement received a worse reception in Chicago than in the South. Marches, especially the one through Marquette Park on August 5, 1966, were met by thrown bottles and screaming throngs, rioting seemed very possible. Dr. King's beliefs militated against his staging a violent event, and he negotiated an agreement with Mayor Richard J. Daley to cancel a no march order to avoid the violence that he feared would result. Dr, King was hit by a brick during one march, but continued to lead marches in the face of personal danger.
Opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War
Dr. King opposed to American involvement in the Vietnam War, but at first avoided the topic in public speeches in order to avoid the interference with civil rights goals that criticism of President Johnson's policies might have created. At the urging of SCLC's former Director of Direct Action and now the head of the Spring Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, James Bevel, and inspired by the outspokenness of Muhammad Ali, King eventually agreed to publicly oppose the war as opposition was growing among the American public.
Dr. King opposed the Vietnam War because it took money and resources that could have been spent on social welfare at home. The United States Congress was spending more and more on the military and less and less on anti-poverty programs at the same time. He summed up this aspect by saying, "A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death. He stated that North Vietnam "did not begin to send in any large number of supplies or men until American forces had arrived in the tens of thousands,” and accused the U.S. of having killed a million Vietnamese, “mostly children. Dr. King also criticized American opposition to North Vietnam's land reforms.
During an April 4, 1967, appearance at the New York City Riverside Church, Dr. King delivered a speech titled "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence. He spoke strongly against the U.S.'s role in the war, arguing that the U.S. was in Vietnam "to occupy it as an American colony and calling the U.S. government "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today. He connected the war with economic injustice, arguing that the country needed serious moral change.
Dr. King's opposition cost him significant support among white allies, including President Johnson, Billy Graham, union leaders and powerful publishers. "The press is being stacked against me”, Dr. King said, complaining of what he described as a double standard that applauded his nonviolence at home, but deplored it when applied "toward little brown Vietnamese children. Life magazine called the speech "demagogic slander that sounded like a script for Radio Hanoi", and The Washington Post declared that Dr. King had "diminished his usefulness to his cause, his country, his people."
Dr. King began to speak of the need for fundamental changes in the political and economic life of the nation, and more frequently expressed his opposition to the war and his desire to see a redistribution of resources to correct racial and economic injustice. He guarded his language in public to avoid being linked to communism by his enemies.
Dr. King's stance on Vietnam encouraged Allard K. Lowenstein, William Sloane Coffin and Norman Thomas, with the support of anti-war Democrats, to attempt to persuade Dr. King to run against President Johnson in the 1968 United States presidential election. Dr. King contemplated but ultimately decided against the proposal on the grounds that he felt uneasy with politics and considered himself better suited for his morally unambiguous role as an activist.
On April 15, 1967, Dr. King participated and spoke at an anti-war march from Manhattan's Central Park to the United Nations. The march was organized by the Spring Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam and initiated by its chairman, James Bevel. At the U.N. King brought up issues of civil rights and the draft.
Seeing an opportunity to unite civil rights activists and anti-war activists, Bevel convinced Dr. King to become even more active in the anti-war effort. Despite his growing public opposition towards the Vietnam War, King was not fond of the hippie culture which developed from the anti-war movement
On January 13, 1968 the day after President Johnson's State of the Union Address, Dr. King called for a large march on Washington against "one of history's most cruel and senseless wars. Dr. King stated “We need to make clear in this political year, to congressmen on both sides of the aisle and to the president of the United States, that we will no longer tolerate, we will no longer vote for men who continue to see the killings of Vietnamese and Americans as the best way of advancing the goals of freedom and self-determination in Southeast Asia.”
Correspondence with Thích Nhất Hạnh
Thích Nhất Hạnh was an influential Vietnamese Buddhist who taught at Princeton University and Columbia University. He had written a letter to Dr. King in 1965 entitled: "In Search of the Enemy of Man". It was during his 1966 stay in the US that Nhất Hạnh met with Dr. King and urged him to publicly denounce the Vietnam War. In 1967, Dr. King gave a famous speech at the Riverside Church in New York City, his first to publicly question the U.S. involvement in Vietnam. Later that year, Dr. King nominated Nhất Hạnh for the 1967 Nobel Peace Prize. In his nomination, Dr. King said, "I do not personally know of anyone more worthy of this prize than this gentle monk from Vietnam. His ideas for peace, if applied, would build a monument to ecumenism, to world brotherhood, to humanity."
Poor People's Campaign, 1968
In 1968, Dr. King and the SCLC organized the "Poor People's Campaign" to address issues of economic justice. Dr. King traveled the country to assemble "a multiracial army of the poor" that would march on Washington to engage in nonviolent civil disobedience at the Capitol until Congress created an "economic bill of rights" for poor Americans.
The campaign was preceded by Dr. King's final book, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? which laid out his view of how to address social issues and poverty. Dr. King quoted from Henry George and George's book, Progress and Poverty, particularly in support of a guaranteed basic income. The campaign culminated in a march on Washington, D.C., demanding economic aid to the poorest communities of the United States.
Dr. King and the SCLC called on the government to invest in rebuilding America's cities. He felt that Congress had shown "hostility to the poor" by spending "military funds with alacrity and generosity." He contrasted this with the situation faced by poor Americans, claiming that Congress had merely provided "poverty funds with miserliness. His vision was for change that was more revolutionary than mere reform: he cited systematic flaws of "racism, poverty, militarism and materialism", and argued that "reconstruction of society itself is the real issue to be faced.
The Poor People's Campaign was controversial even within the civil rights movement. Rustin resigned from the march, stating that the goals of the campaign were too broad, that its demands were unrealizable, and that he thought that these campaigns would accelerate the backlash and repression on the poor and the black.
Assassination, 1968
On March 29, 1968, Dr. King went to Memphis, Tennessee, in support of the black sanitary public works employees, who were represented by AFSCME Local 1733. The workers had been on strike since March 12 for higher wages and better treatment. In one incident, black street repairmen received pay for two hours when they were sent home because of bad weather, but white employees were paid for the full day.
On April 3, Dr. King addressed a rally and delivered his "I've Been to the Mountaintop" address at Mason Temple, the world headquarters of the Church of God in Christ. King's flight to Memphis had been delayed by a bomb threat against his plane. In the prophetic peroration of the last speech of his life, in reference to the bomb threat. To hear the last speech by Dr. King click here.
Dr. King was booked in Room 306 at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. Dr. King was fatally shot by James Earl Ray at 6:01 p.m., Thursday, April 4, 1968, as he stood on the motel's second-floor balcony. Ralph Abernathy heard the shot from inside the motel room and ran to the balcony to find King on the floor. After emergency chest surgery, Dr. King died at St. Joseph's Hospital at 7:05 p.m. According to biographer Taylor Branch, Dr. King's autopsy revealed that though only 39 years old, he "had the heart of a 60-year-old", which Branch attributed to the stress of 13 years in the civil rights movement. Dr. King was initially interred in South View Cemetery in South Atlanta, but in 1977 his remains were transferred to a tomb on the site of the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park.
Aftermath, 1968
The assassination led to a nationwide wave of race riots in Washington, D.C., Chicago, Baltimore, Louisville, Kansas City, and dozens of other cities. Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy was on his way to Indianapolis for a campaign rally when he was informed of King's death. He gave a short, improvised speech to the gathering of supporters informing them of the tragedy and urging them to continue Dr. King's ideal of nonviolence. The following day, he delivered a prepared response in Cleveland. James Farmer Jr. and other civil rights leaders also called for non-violent action, while the more militant Stokely Carmichael called for a more forceful response. The city of Memphis quickly settled the strike on terms favorable to the sanitation workers.
President Lyndon B. Johnson tried to quell the riots by making several telephone calls to civil rights leaders, mayors and governors across the United States and told politicians that they should warn the police against the unwarranted use of force. But his efforts didn't work out: "I'm not getting through," Johnson told his aides. "They're all holing up like generals in a dugout getting ready to watch a war. Johnson declared April 7 a National Day of Mourning for the civil rights leader. Vice President Hubert Humphrey attended Dr. King's funeral on behalf of the President, as there were fears that Johnson's presence might incite protests and perhaps violence. At his widow's request, Dr. King's last sermon at Ebenezer Baptist Church was played at the funeral, a recording of his "Drum Major" sermon, given on February 4, 1968. In that sermon, Dr. King made a request that at his funeral no mention of his awards and honors be made, but that it be said that he tried to "feed the hungry", "clothe the naked", "be right on the Vietnam war question", and "love and serve humanity. His good friend Mahalia Jackson sang his favorite hymn, "Take My Hand, Precious Lord", at the funeral.
Two months after Dr. King's death, James Earl Ray who was on the loose from a previous prison escape was captured at London Heathrow Airport while trying to leave England on a false Canadian passport. He was using the alias Ramon George Sneyd on his way to white-ruled Rhodesia. Ray was quickly extradited to Tennessee and charged with Dr. King's murder. He confessed to the assassination on March 10, 1969, though he recanted this confession three days later. On the advice of his attorney Percy Foreman, Ray pleaded guilty to avoid a trial conviction and thus the possibility of receiving the death penalty. He was sentenced to a 99-year prison term. Ray later claimed a man he met in Montreal, Quebec, with the alias "Raoul" was involved and that the assassination was the result of a conspiracy. He spent the remainder of his life attempting, unsuccessfully, to withdraw his guilty plea and secure the trial he never had. Ray died in 1998 at age 70. Allegations that James Earl Ray, the man convicted of killing King, had been framed or acted in concert with government agents persisted for decades after the shooting.
The assassination helped to spur the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1968.
Dr. King championed a movement that draws fully from the deep well of America's potential for freedom, opportunity, and justice. His vision of America is captured in his message of hope and possibility for a future anchored in dignity, sensitivity, and mutual respect; a message that challenges each of us to recognize that America's true strength lies in its diversity of talents.
The delivery of his message of love and tolerance through the means of his powerful gift of speech and eloquent writings inspire to this day, those who yearn for a gentler, kinder world. His inspiration broke the boundaries of intolerance and even national borders, as he became a symbol, recognized worldwide of the quest for civil rights of the citizens of the world.
Dr. King was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977 and the Congressional Gold Medal in 2003. Martin Luther King Jr. Day was established as a holiday in cities and states throughout the United States beginning in 1971; the holiday was enacted at the federal level by legislation signed by President Ronald Reagan in 1986. Hundreds of streets in the U.S. have been renamed in his honor, and the most populous county in Washington State was rededicated for him. The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., was dedicated in 2011.
The Lorraine Motel, where Dr. King was assassinated, is now the site of the National Civil Rights Museum.