Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr. | |
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1st President of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference | |
In office January 10, 1957 – April 4, 1968 | |
Preceded by | Position established |
Succeeded by | Ralph Abernathy |
Personal details | |
Born | Michael King Jr. January 15, 1929 Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. |
Died | April 4, 1968 Memphis, Tennessee, U.S. | (aged 39)
Manner of death | Assassination by gunshot |
Resting place | Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park |
Spouse |
Baptist minister and activist
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Monuments | Full list |
Movement | |
Awards |
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Signature | |
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Campaigns
Death and memorial |
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Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American
King participated in and led marches for the
The SCLC put into practice the tactics of nonviolent protest with some success by strategically choosing the methods and places in which protests were carried out. There were several dramatic standoffs with
On
Early life and education
Birth
Michael King Jr. was born on January 15, 1929 in
Shortly after marrying Alberta, Michael King Sr. became assistant pastor of the Ebenezer church.[17] Senior pastor Williams died in the spring of 1931[17] and that fall Michael Sr. took the role. With support from his wife, he raised attendance from six hundred to several thousand.[6][17][20] In 1934, the church sent King Sr. on a multinational trip, one of the stops on the trip was Berlin for the Congress of the Baptist World Alliance [BWA]).[21] He also visited sites in Germany which are associated with the Reformation leader Martin Luther.[21] In reaction to the rise of Nazism, the BWA made a resolution saying, "This Congress deplores and condemns as a violation of the law of God the Heavenly Father, all racial animosity, and every form of oppression or unfair discrimination toward the Jews, toward colored people, or toward subject races in any part of the world."[22] After returning home in August 1934, Martin Sr. changed his name to Martin Luther King Sr. and his five-year-old son's name to Martin Luther King Jr.[21][23][16][a]
Early childhood
At his childhood home, Martin King Jr. and his two siblings read aloud the
Martin King Jr. became friends with a white boy whose father owned a business across the street from his home.[31] In September 1935, when the boys were about six years old, they started school.[31][32] King had to attend a school for black children, Yonge Street Elementary School,[31][33] while his playmate went to a separate school for white children only.[31][33] Soon afterwards, the parents of the white boy stopped allowing King to play with their son, stating to him, "we are white, and you are colored".[31][34] When King relayed this to his parents, they talked with him about the history of slavery and racism in America,[31][35] which King would later say made him "determined to hate every white person".[31] His parents instructed him that it was his Christian duty to love everyone.[35]
Martin King Jr. witnessed his father stand up against
Martin King Jr. memorized
On May 18, 1941, when King had sneaked away from studying at home to watch a parade, he was informed that something had happened to his maternal grandmother.[38] After returning home, he learned she had a heart attack and died while being transported to a hospital.[19] He took her death very hard and believed that his deception in going to see the parade may have been responsible for God taking her.[19] King jumped out of a second-story window at his home but again survived.[19][27][28] His father instructed him that Martin Jr. should not blame himself and that she had been called home to God as part of God's plan.[19][45] Martin Jr. struggled with this.[19] Shortly thereafter, Martin Sr. decided to move the family to a two-story brick home on a hill overlooking downtown Atlanta.[19]
Adolescence
As an adolescent, he initially felt resentment against whites due to the "racial humiliation" that he, his family, and his neighbors often had to endure.
Martin Jr. was brought up in a
In high school, Martin King Jr. became known for his public-speaking ability, with a voice that had grown into an orotund baritone.[53][48] He joined the school's debate team.[53][48] King continued to be most drawn to history and English,[48] and chose English and sociology as his main subjects.[54] King maintained an abundant vocabulary.[48] However, he relied on his sister Christine to help him with spelling, while King assisted her with math.[48] King also developed an interest in fashion, commonly wearing polished patent leather shoes and tweed suits, which gained him the nickname "Tweed" or "Tweedie" among his friends.[55][56][57][58] He liked flirting with girls and dancing.[57][56][59] His brother A.D. later remarked, "He kept flitting from chick to chick, and I decided I couldn't keep up with him. Especially since he was crazy about dances, and just about the best jitterbug in town."[56]
On April 13, 1944, in his junior year, King gave his first public speech during an oratorical contest.[60][56][61][62] In his speech he stated, "black America still wears chains. The finest negro is at the mercy of the meanest white man."[63][60] King was selected as the winner of the contest.[60][56] On the ride home to Atlanta by bus, he and his teacher were ordered by the driver to stand so that white passengers could sit.[56][64] The driver of the bus called King a "black son-of-a-bitch".[56] King initially refused but complied after his teacher told him that he would be breaking the law if he did not.[64] As all the seats were occupied, he and his teacher were forced to stand the rest of the way to Atlanta.[56] Later King wrote of the incident: "That night will never leave my memory. It was the angriest I have ever been in my life."[64]
Morehouse College
During King's junior year in high school, Morehouse College—an all-male historically black college that King's father and maternal grandfather had attended[65][66]—began accepting high school juniors who passed the entrance examination.[56][67][64] As World War II was underway many black college students had been enlisted,[56][67] so the university aimed to increase their enrolment by allowing juniors to apply.[56][67][64] In 1944, aged 15, King passed the examination and was enrolled at the university that autumn.[b][56][67][65][68]
In the summer before King started at Morehouse, he boarded a train with his friend—Emmett "Weasel" Proctor—and a group of other Morehouse College students to work in
He played freshman football there. The summer before his last year at Morehouse, in 1947, the 18-year-old King chose to enter the ministry. He would later credit the college's president, Baptist minister Benjamin Mays, with being his "spiritual mentor".[74] King had concluded that the church offered the most assuring way to answer "an inner urge to serve humanity", and he made peace with the Baptist Church, as he believed he would be a "rational" minister with sermons that were "a respectful force for ideas, even social protest."[75] King graduated from Morehouse with a Bachelor of Arts in sociology in 1948, aged nineteen.[76]
Religious education
King enrolled in
King reproved another student for keeping beer in his room once, saying they shared responsibility as African Americans to bear "the burdens of the Negro race". For a time, he was interested in Walter Rauschenbusch's "social gospel".[81] In his third year at Crozer, King became romantically involved with[85] the white daughter of an immigrant German woman who worked in the cafeteria. King planned to marry her, but friends, as well as King's father,[85] advised against it, saying that an interracial marriage would provoke animosity from both blacks and whites, potentially damaging his chances of ever pastoring a church in the South. King tearfully told a friend that he could not endure his mother's pain over the marriage and broke the relationship off six months later. One friend was quoted as saying, "He never recovered."[81] Other friends, including Harry Belafonte, said Betty had been "the love of King's life."[85] King graduated with a Bachelor of Divinity in 1951.[77] He applied to the University of Edinburgh for a doctorate in the School of Divinity but ultimately chose Boston instead.[86]
In 1951, King began doctoral studies in
At the age of 25 in 1954, King was
An academic inquiry in October 1991 concluded that portions of his doctoral dissertation had been plagiarized and he had acted improperly. However, "[d]espite its finding, the committee said that 'no thought should be given to the revocation of Dr. King's doctoral degree,' an action that the panel said would serve no purpose."[91][87][92] The committee found that the dissertation still "makes an intelligent contribution to scholarship." A letter is now attached to the copy of King's dissertation in the university library, noting that numerous passages were included without the appropriate quotations and citations of sources.[93] Significant debate exists on how to interpret King's plagiarism.[94]
Marriage and family
While studying at Boston University, he asked a friend from Atlanta named Mary Powell, a student at the
Activism and organizational leadership
Montgomery bus boycott, 1955
The Dexter Avenue Baptist Church was influential in the Montgomery African-American community. As the church's pastor, King became known for his oratorical preaching in Montgomery and the surrounding region.[98]
In March 1955,
The boycott lasted for 385 days,[103] and the situation became so tense that King's house was bombed.[104] King was arrested for traveling 30 mph in a 25 mph zone[105] and jailed, which overnight drew the attention of national media, and greatly increased 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 Montgomery public buses.[106][1][102]
King's role in the bus boycott transformed him into a national figure and the best-known spokesman of the civil rights movement.[107]
Southern Christian Leadership Conference
In 1957, 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 King,[108] as well as the national organizing of the group In Friendship, founded by King allies Stanley Levison and Ella Baker.[109] King led the SCLC until his death.[110] The SCLC's 1957 Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom was the first time King addressed a national audience.[111]
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. Journalistic accounts and televised footage of the daily indignities suffered by southern blacks, and of segregationist violence and harassment of civil rights supporters, 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.[115][116]
King organized and led marches for blacks' right to
The SCLC used 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.[2]
Survived knife attack, 1958
On September 20, 1958, King was signing copies of his book
Atlanta sit-ins, prison sentence, and the 1960 elections
In December 1959, after being based in Montgomery for five years, King announced his return to Atlanta at the request of the SCLC.
Meanwhile, the Atlanta Student Movement had been acting to desegregate businesses and public spaces, organizing the Atlanta sit-ins from March 1960 onwards. In August the movement asked King to participate in a mass October sit-in, timed to highlight how 1960's Presidential election campaigns had ignored civil rights. The coordinated day of action took place on October 19. 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 King. Invoking his probationary plea deal, judge J. Oscar Mitchell sentenced King on October 25 to four months of hard labor. Before dawn the next day, King was transported to Georgia State Prison.[126]
The arrest and harsh sentence drew nationwide attention. Many feared for King's safety, as he started a prison sentence with people convicted of violent crimes, many of them White and hostile to his activism.[127] 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 King had a closer relationship before, declined to make a statement despite a personal visit from Jackie Robinson requesting his intervention. Nixon's opponent John F. Kennedy called the governor (a Democrat) directly, enlisted his brother Robert to exert more pressure on state authorities, and, at the personal request of Sargent Shriver, called King's wife to offer his help. The pressure from Kennedy and others proved effective, and King was released two days later. King's father decided to openly endorse Kennedy's candidacy for the November 8 election which he narrowly won.[128]
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 for several months. On March 7, 1961, a group of Black elders including 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.[129][130] Many students were disappointed at the compromise. In a large meeting on March 10 at Warren Memorial Methodist Church, the audience was hostile and frustrated. King then gave an impassioned speech calling participants to resist the "cancerous disease of disunity", helping to calm tensions.[131]
Albany Movement, 1961
The Albany Movement was a desegregation coalition formed in Albany, Georgia, in November 1961. In December, King and the SCLC became involved. The movement mobilized thousands of citizens for a nonviolent attack on every aspect of segregation in the city and attracted nationwide attention. When King first visited on December 15, 1961, he "had planned to stay a day or so and return home after giving counsel."[132] 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 King, "that agreement was dishonored and violated by the city" after he left.[132]
King returned in July 1962 and was given the option of forty-five days in jail or a $178 fine (equivalent to $1,800 in 2023); he chose jail. Three days into his sentence, Police Chief Laurie Pritchett discreetly arranged for 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 ... But for the first time, we witnessed being kicked out of jail."[133] It was later acknowledged by the King Center that Billy Graham was the one who bailed King out.[134]
After nearly a year of intense activism with few tangible results, the movement began to deteriorate. 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.
Birmingham campaign, 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.
King's intent was to provoke mass arrests and "create a situation so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation."[139] 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 the demonstrations.[140] Newsweek called this strategy a Children's Crusade.[141][142]
The Birmingham Police Department, led by
King was arrested and jailed early in the campaign—his 13th arrest[144] out of 29.[145] From his cell, he composed the now-famous "Letter from Birmingham Jail" that responds to calls 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".[146] 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."[147] 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'."[147] Walter Reuther, president of the United Auto Workers, arranged for $160,000 to bail out King and his fellow protestors.[148]
"I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season."
—Martin Luther King Jr.[147]
March on Washington, 1963
King, representing the
The march originally was planned to dramatize the desperate condition of blacks in the southern U.S. and 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 the event ultimately took on a far less strident tone.[158] 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.[158][159]
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 $20 in 2023); and self-government for Washington, D.C., then governed by congressional committee.[160][161][162] Despite tensions, the march was a resounding success.[163] More than a quarter of a million people of diverse ethnicities attended, sprawling from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial onto the National Mall. At the time, it was the largest gathering of protesters in Washington, D.C.'s history.[163]
King delivered a 17-minute speech, later known as "I Have a Dream". In the speech's most famous passage – in which he departed from his prepared text, possibly at the prompting of Mahalia Jackson, who shouted behind him, "Tell them about the dream!"[164][165] – King said:[166]
I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, 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 the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little 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.
I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today.
"I Have a Dream" came to be regarded as one of the finest speeches in the history of American oratory.[167] The March, and especially King's speech, helped put civil rights at the top of the agenda of reformers and facilitated passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.[168][169]
St. Augustine, Florida, 1964
In March 1964, 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.[170][171] 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.[172][173] 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 this movement, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed.[174]
Biddeford, Maine, 1964
On May 7, 1964, King spoke at Saint Francis College's "The Negro and the Quest for Identity", in Biddeford, Maine. This was a symposium that brought together many civil rights leaders.[175][176] King spoke about how "We must get rid of the idea of superior and inferior races," through nonviolent tactics.[177]
New York City, 1964
On February 6, 1964, King delivered the inaugural speech
Scripto strike in Atlanta, 1964
Starting in November 1964, King supported a
Selma voting rights movement and "Bloody Sunday", 1965
In December 1964, 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.[182] 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 King defied it by speaking at Brown Chapel on January 2, 1965.[183] 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 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 King and Bevel's nonviolence strategy.[52]
On March 5, King met with officials in the
King next attempted to organize a march for March 9. The SCLC petitioned for an injunction in federal court against Alabama; this was denied and the judge issued an order blocking the march until after a hearing. Nonetheless, 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.[186] The march finally went ahead fully on March 25, 1965.[187][188] At the conclusion of the march on the steps of the state capitol, King delivered a speech that became known as "How Long, Not Long". King 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".[c][189][190][191]
Chicago open housing movement, 1966
In 1966, after several successes in the south, King, Bevel, and others in the civil rights organizations took the movement to the North. King and Ralph Abernathy, both from the middle class, moved into a building at 1550 S. Hamlin Avenue, in the slums of
The SCLC formed a coalition with Coordinating Council of Community Organizations (CCCO), an organization founded by Albert Raby, and the combined organizations' efforts were fostered under the aegis of the Chicago Freedom Movement.[194] 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 and background.[195] Several larger marches were planned and executed: in Bogan, Belmont Cragin, Jefferson Park, Evergreen Park, Gage Park, Marquette Park, and others.[194][196][197]
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.[198][199] King's beliefs militated against his staging a violent event, and he negotiated an agreement with Mayor Richard J. Daley to cancel a march in order to avoid the violence that he feared would result.[200] King was hit by a brick during one march, but continued to lead marches in the face of personal danger.[201]
When King and his allies returned to the South, they left Jesse Jackson, a seminary student who had previously joined the movement in the South, in charge of their organization.[202] Jackson continued their struggle for civil rights by organizing the Operation Breadbasket movement that targeted chain stores that did not deal fairly with blacks.[203]
A 1967
Opposition to the Vietnam War
The black revolution is much more than a struggle for the rights of Negroes. It is forcing America to face all its interrelated flaws—racism, poverty, militarism, and materialism. It is exposing evils that are rooted deeply in the whole structure of our society. It reveals systemic rather than superficial flaws and suggests that radical reconstruction of society itself is the real issue to be faced
–Martin Luther King Jr.[205]
We must recognize that we can't solve our problem now until there is a radical redistribution of economic and political power... this means a revolution of values and other things. We must see now that the evils of racism, economic exploitation, and militarism are all tied together… you can't really get rid of one without getting rid of the others… the whole structure of American life must be changed. America is a hypocritical nation and [we] must put [our] own house in order.
—Martin Luther King Jr.[206]
King was long opposed to
During an April 4, 1967, appearance at the New York City Riverside Church, King delivered a speech titled "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence".[209] 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"[210] and calling the U.S. government "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today".[211] He connected the war with economic injustice, arguing that the country needed serious moral change:
A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say: "This is not just."[212]
King opposed the Vietnam War because it took money and resources that could have been spent on social welfare at home. 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."[212] 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",[213] and accused the U.S. of having killed a million Vietnamese, "mostly children".[214] King also criticized American opposition to North Vietnam's land reforms.[215]
King's opposition cost him significant support among white allies including President Johnson, Billy Graham, union leaders, and powerful publishers.[216][217][218] "The press is being stacked against me", King said,[219] 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".[220] Life magazine called the speech "demagogic slander that sounded like a script for Radio Hanoi",[212] and The Washington Post declared that King had "diminished his usefulness to his cause, his country, his people."[220][221]
The "Beyond Vietnam" speech reflected King's evolving political advocacy in his later years, which paralleled the teachings of the progressive Highlander Research and Education Center, with which he was affiliated.[222][223] King began to speak of the need for fundamental changes in the American political and economic situation, and more frequently expressed his opposition to the war and his desire to see a redistribution of resources to correct injustice.[224][225] He guarded his language in public to avoid being linked to communism, but in private he sometimes spoke of his support for democratic socialism.[226][227]
King stated in "Beyond Vietnam" that "true compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar ... it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring."[228] King quoted a U.S. official who said that from Vietnam to Latin America, the country was "on the wrong side of a world revolution."[228] King condemned America's "alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America", and said that the U.S. should support "the shirtless and barefoot people" in the Third World rather than suppressing their attempts at revolution.[228]
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 King to run against President Johnson in the 1968 presidential election. King contemplated but ultimately decided against the proposal as he felt uneasy with politics and considered himself better suited to activism.[229]
On April 15, 1967, King spoke at an anti-war march from Manhattan's Central Park to the United Nations. The march was organized by the
I have not urged a mechanical fusion of the civil rights and peace movements. There are people who have come to see the moral imperative of equality, but who cannot yet see the moral imperative of world brotherhood. I would like to see the fervor of the civil-rights movement imbued into the peace movement to instill it with greater strength. And I believe everyone has a duty to be in both the civil-rights and peace movements. But for those who presently choose but one, I would hope they will finally come to see the moral roots common to both.[230]
Seeing an opportunity to unite civil rights and anti-war activists,
The importance of the hippies is not in their unconventional behavior, but in the fact that hundreds of thousands of young people, in turning to a flight from reality, are expressing a profoundly discrediting view on the society they emerge from.[231]
On January 13, 1968, King called for a large march on Washington against "one of history's most cruel and senseless wars":[232][233]
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.[232][233]
Correspondence with Thích Nhất Hạnh
Thích Nhất Hạnh was an influential Vietnamese Buddhist who wrote a letter to Martin Luther King Jr. in 1965 entitled: "In Search of the Enemy of Man". It was during his 1966 stay in the US that Nhất Hạnh met with King and urged him to publicly denounce the Vietnam War.[234] In 1967, King gave a famous speech at the Riverside Church in New York City, his first to publicly question U.S. involvement in Vietnam.[235] Later that year, King nominated Nhất Hạnh for the Nobel Peace Prize. In his nomination, 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".[236]
Poor People's Campaign, 1968
In 1968, King and the SCLC organized the "Poor People's Campaign" to address issues of economic justice. 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".[237][238]
The campaign was preceded by King's final book, The campaign culminated in a march on Washington, D.C., demanding economic aid to the poorest communities of the U.S.
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".[238] 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."[242]
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 repression on the poor and the black.[243]
Global policy
King was one of the signatories of the agreement to convene a convention for drafting a
Assassination and aftermath
On March 29, 1968, King went to Memphis, Tennessee, in support of the black
On April 3, King addressed a rally and delivered his "I've Been to the Mountaintop" address at Mason Temple. King's flight to Memphis had been delayed by a bomb threat against his plane.[250] In reference to the bomb threat, King said:
And then I got to Memphis. And some began to say the threats, or talk about the threats that were out. What would happen to me from some of our sick white brothers? Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. So I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.[251]
King was booked in Room 306 at the
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. The bullet entered through his right cheek, smashing his jaw, then traveled down his spinal cord before lodging in his shoulder.[254][255] Abernathy heard the shot from inside the motel room and ran to the balcony to find King on the floor.[256]
After emergency surgery, King died at St. Joseph's Hospital at 7:05 p.m.[257] According to biographer Taylor Branch, King's autopsy revealed that though only 39 years old, he "had the heart of a 60 year old", which Branch attributed to stress.[258] 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.[259]
Aftermath
The assassination led to
The plan to set up a
President Johnson tried to quell the riots by making 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.[262] However, "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."[262] Johnson declared April 7 a national day of mourning for King.[269] Vice President
I'd like somebody to mention that day that Martin Luther King Jr. tried to give his life serving others. I'd like for somebody to say that day that Martin Luther King Jr. tried to love somebody.
I want you to say that day that I tried to be right on the war question. I want you to be able to say that day that I did try to feed the hungry. I want you to be able to say that day that I did try in my life to clothe those who were naked. I want you to say on that day that I did try in my life to visit those who were in prison. And I want you to say that I tried to love and serve humanity.
Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major. Say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter. I won't have any money to leave behind. I won't have the fine and luxurious things of life to leave behind. But I just want to leave a committed life behind.[265][272]
His good friend Mahalia Jackson sang his favorite hymn, "Take My Hand, Precious Lord", at the funeral.[273] The assassination helped to spur the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1968.[262] Two months after King's death,
Allegations of conspiracy
Ray's lawyers maintained he was a scapegoat similar to the way that John F. Kennedy's assassin Lee Harvey Oswald is seen by conspiracy theorists.[280] Supporters of this assertion said that Ray's confession was given under pressure and that he had been threatened with the death penalty.[276][281] They admitted that Ray was a thief and burglar, but claimed that he had no record of committing violent crimes with a weapon.[278] However, prison records in different U.S. cities have shown that he was incarcerated on numerous occasions for armed robbery.[282] In a 2008 interview with CNN, Jerry Ray, the younger brother of James Earl Ray, claimed that James was smart and was sometimes able to get away with armed robbery. "I never been with nobody as bold as he is," Jerry said. "He just walked in and put that gun on somebody, it was just like it's an everyday thing."[282]
Those suspecting a conspiracy point to the two successive ballistics tests which proved that a rifle similar to Ray's Remington Gamemaster had been the murder weapon. Those tests did not implicate Ray's specific rifle.[276][283] Witnesses near King said that the shot came from another location, from behind thick shrubbery near the boarding house—which had been cut away in the days following the assassination—and not from the boarding house window.[284] However, Ray's fingerprints were found on various objects in the bathroom where it was determined the gunfire came from.[282] An examination of the rifle containing Ray's fingerprints determined that at least one shot was fired from the firearm at the time of the assassination.[282]
In 1997, King's son Dexter Scott King met with Ray, and publicly supported Ray's efforts to obtain a new trial.[285] Two years later, King's widow Coretta Scott King and the couple's children, represented by William F. Pepper,[286] won a wrongful death claim against Loyd Jowers and "other unknown co-conspirators". Jowers claimed to have received $100,000 to arrange King's assassination. The jury found Jowers to be complicit in a conspiracy and that government agencies were party to the assassination.[287][288]
In 2000, the
In 2002, The New York Times reported that a church minister, Ronald Denton Wilson, claimed his father, Henry Clay Wilson, assassinated King. He stated, "It wasn't a racist thing; he thought Martin Luther King was connected with communism, and he wanted to get him out of the way." Wilson provided no evidence to back up his claims.[292]
King researchers David Garrow and Gerald Posner disagreed with Pepper's claims that the government killed King.[293] In 2003, Pepper published a book about the investigation and trial, as well as his representation of James Earl Ray in his bid for a trial.[294][295] James Bevel also disputed the argument that Ray acted alone, stating, "There is no way a ten-cent white boy could develop a plan to kill a million-dollar black man."[296] In 2004, Jesse Jackson stated:
The fact is there were saboteurs to disrupt the march. And within our own organization, we found a very key person who was on the government payroll. So infiltration within, saboteurs from without and the press attacks. ... I will never believe that James Earl Ray had the motive, the money and the mobility to have done it himself. Our government was very involved in setting the stage for and I think the escape route for James Earl Ray.[297]
Legacy
South Africa
King's legacy includes influences on the Black Consciousness Movement and civil rights movement in South Africa.[298][299] King's work was cited by, and served as, an inspiration for South African leader Albert Luthuli, who fought for racial justice in his country during apartheid and was later awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.[300]
United Kingdom
John Hume, the former leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party, cited King's legacy as quintessential to the Northern Ireland civil rights movement and the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, calling him "one of my great heroes of the century".[301][302][303]
The Martin Luther King Fund and Foundation in the UK was set up as a charity[304] on December 30, 1969, after King's assassination and following a visit to the UK in 1969 by his widow, Coretta King. The Foundation's first chairman, Canon John Collins, stated that the Foundation was to be an active UK national campaign for racial equality, its work also to include community projects in areas of social need, and education.[305] International Personnel (IP), an employment agency, was formed in 1970 out of the foundation's base in Balham, to find employment for professionally qualified black people. In its first year, the agency placed ten percent of its applicants in jobs equal to their ability.[306] The Balham Training Scheme operated an evening school with lecturers in Typing, Shorthand, English and Math.[305] The foundation was removed from the Charity Commission list on November 18, 1996, as it had ceased to exist.[304] The Northumbria and Newcastle Universities Martin Luther King Peace Committee[307] still exists to honor King's legacy, as represented by his final visit to the UK to receive an honorary degree from Newcastle University in 1967.[308][309] Northumbria and Newcastle remain centers for the study of Martin Luther King and the US civil rights movement. Inspired by King's vision, the committee undertakes a range of activities across the UK to "build cultures of peace".
In 2017, Newcastle University unveiled a bronze statue of King to celebrate the 50th anniversary of his honorary doctorate ceremony.[310] The Students Union also voted to rename their bar "Luther's".[311]
United States
King has become a national icon in the history of
King's wife Coretta Scott King was active in matters of social justice and civil rights until her death in 2006. The same year that King was assassinated, she established the King Center in Atlanta, Georgia, dedicated to preserving his legacy and the work of championing nonviolent conflict resolution and tolerance worldwide.[315] Their son, Dexter King, serves as the center's chairman.[316][317] Daughter Yolanda King, who died in 2007, was a motivational speaker, author and founder of Higher Ground Productions, an organization specializing in diversity training.[318]
Within the King family, members disagree about his views about
Martin Luther King Jr. Day
Beginning in 1971, cities and states established annual holidays to honor King.[321] On November 2, 1983, President Ronald Reagan signed a bill creating a federal holiday to honor King. Observed for the first time on January 20, 1986, it is called Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Following President George H. W. Bush's 1992 proclamation, the holiday is observed on the third Monday of January each year, near the time of King's birthday.[322][323] On January 17, 2000, for the first time, Martin Luther King Jr. Day was officially observed in all fifty U.S. states.[324] Arizona (1992), New Hampshire (1999) and Utah (2000) were the last states to recognize the holiday. Utah previously celebrated the holiday under the name Human Rights Day.[325]
Veneration
Martin Luther King of Georgia | |
---|---|
Pastor and Martyr | |
Honored in | Holy Christian Orthodox Church Episcopal Church (United States) Evangelical Lutheran Church in America |
Canonized | September 9, 2016, The Christian Cathedral by Timothy Paul Baymon |
Feast | April 4 January 15 (Episcopalian and Lutheran) |
King was
Ideas, influences, and political stances
Christianity
As a Christian minister, King's main influence was
Before I was a civil rights leader, I was a preacher of the Gospel. This was my first calling and it still remains my greatest commitment. You know, actually all that I do in civil rights I do because I consider it a part of my ministry. I have no other ambitions in life but to achieve excellence in the Christian ministry. I don't plan to run for any political office. I don't plan to do anything but remain a preacher. And what I'm doing in this struggle, along with many others, grows out of my feeling that the preacher must be concerned about the whole man.[334][335]
King's private writings show that he rejected biblical literalism; he described the Bible as "mythological", doubted that Jesus was born of a virgin and did not believe that the story of Jonah and the whale was true.[336]
Among the thinkers who influeced King's theological outlook were
The Measure of a Man
In 1959, King published a short book called The Measure of a Man, which contained his sermons "
Nonviolence
World peace through nonviolent means is neither absurd nor unattainable. All other methods have failed. Thus we must begin anew. Nonviolence is a good starting point. Those of us who believe in this method can be voices of reason, sanity, and understanding amid the voices of violence, hatred, and emotion. We can very well set a mood of peace out of which a system of peace can be built.
—Martin Luther King Jr.[339]
African-American civil rights activist
King initially knew little about Gandhi and rarely used the term "nonviolence" during his early activism. King initially believed in and practiced self-defense, even obtaining guns to defend against possible attackers. The pacifists showing him the alternative of nonviolent resistance, arguing that this would be a better means to accomplish his goals. King then vowed to no longer personally use arms.[343][344]
In a chapter of Stride Toward Freedom, King outlined his understanding of nonviolence, which seeks to win an opponent to friendship, rather than to humiliate or defeat him. The chapter draws from an address by Wofford, with Rustin and Stanley Levison also providing guidance and ghostwriting.[345]
King was inspired by Gandhi and his success with nonviolent activism, and as a theology student, King described Gandhi as being one of the "individuals who greatly reveal the working of the Spirit of God".[346] King had "for a long time ... wanted to take a trip to India."[347] With assistance from Harris Wofford, the American Friends Service Committee, and other supporters, he was able to fund the journey in April 1959.[348][349] The trip deepened his understanding of nonviolent resistance and his commitment to America's struggle for civil rights. In a radio address made during his final evening in India, King reflected, "Since being in India, I am more convinced than ever before that the method of nonviolent resistance is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for justice and human dignity."
When receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, King hailed the "successful precedent" of using nonviolence "in a magnificent way by Mohandas K. Gandhi to challenge the might of the British Empire ... He struggled only with the weapons of truth, soul force, non-injury and courage."[350]
Another influence for King's nonviolent method was Henry David Thoreau's essay On Civil Disobedience and its theme of refusing to cooperate with an evil system.[351] He also was greatly influenced by the works of Protestant theologians Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Tillich,[352] and said that Walter Rauschenbusch's Christianity and the Social Crisis left an "indelible imprint" on his thinking by giving him a theological grounding for his social concerns.[353][354] King was moved by Rauschenbusch's vision of Christians spreading social unrest in "perpetual but friendly conflict" with the state, simultaneously critiquing it and calling it to act as an instrument of justice.[355] However, he was apparently unaware of the American tradition of Christian pacifism exemplified by Adin Ballou and William Lloyd Garrison.[356] King frequently referred to Jesus' Sermon on the Mount as central for his work.[354][357][358][359] Before 1960, King also sometimes used the concept of "agape" (brotherly Christian love).[360][361]
Even after renouncing personal use of guns, King had a complex relationship with self-defense in the movement. He publicly discouraged it as a widespread practice but acknowledged that it was sometimes necessary.
Criticism within the movement
King was criticized by other black leaders in the civil rights movement. This included more militant thinkers such as
Activism and involvement with Native Americans
King was an avid supporter of Native American rights and Native Americans were active supporters of King's civil rights movement.[372] The Native American Rights Fund (NARF) was patterned after the NAACP's Legal Defense and Education Fund.[373] The National Indian Youth Council (NIYC) was especially supportive in King's campaigns especially the Poor People's Campaign in 1968.[374] In King's book Why We Can't Wait he writes:
Our nation was born in genocide when it embraced the doctrine that the original American, the Indian, was an inferior race. Even before there were large numbers of Negroes on our shores, the scar of racial hatred had already disfigured colonial society. From the sixteenth century forward, blood flowed in battles over racial supremacy. We are perhaps the only nation which tried as a matter of national policy to wipe out its indigenous population. Moreover, we elevated that tragic experience into a noble crusade. Indeed, even today we have not permitted ourselves to reject or to feel remorse for this shameful episode. Our literature, our films, our drama, our folklore all exalt it.[375]
In the late 1950, the remaining
In September 1959, after giving a speech at the
King was a major inspiration, along with the
Inspired by Dr. King, who was advancing the civil rights agenda of equality under the laws of this country, we thought that we could also use the laws to advance our Indianship, to live as tribes in our territories governed by our own laws under the principles of tribal sovereignty that had been with us ever since 1831. We believed that we could fight for a policy of self-determination that was consistent with U.S. law and that we could govern our own affairs, define our own ways and continue to survive in this society.[378]
Politics
As the leader of the SCLC, King maintained a policy of not publicly endorsing a U.S. political party or candidate: "I feel someone must remain in the position of non-alignment, so that he can look objectively at both parties and be the conscience of both—not the servant or master of either."[379] In a 1958 interview, he expressed his view that neither party was perfect, saying, "I don't think the Republican party is a party full of the almighty God nor is the Democratic party. They both have weaknesses ... And I'm not inextricably bound to either party."[380] King did praise Democratic Senator Paul Douglas of Illinois as being the "greatest of all senators" because of his fierce advocacy for civil rights causes.[381]
King critiqued both parties' performance on promoting racial equality:
Actually, the Negro has been betrayed by both the Republican and the Democratic party. The Democrats have betrayed him by capitulating to the whims and caprices of the Southern
Dixiecrats. The Republicans have betrayed him by capitulating to the blatant hypocrisy of reactionary right-wing northern Republicans. And this coalition of southern Dixiecrats and right-wing reactionary northern Republicans defeats every bill and every move towards liberal legislation in the area of civil rights.[382]
Although King never publicly supported a political party or candidate for president, in a letter to a civil rights supporter in October 1956 he said that he had not decided whether he would vote for Democrat Adlai Stevenson II or Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower at the 1956 presidential election, but that "In the past, I always voted the Democratic ticket."[383] In his autobiography, King says that in 1960 he privately voted for Democratic candidate John F. Kennedy: "I felt that Kennedy would make the best president. I never came out with an endorsement. My father did, but I never made one." King adds that he likely would have made an exception to his non-endorsement policy for a second Kennedy term, saying "Had President Kennedy lived, I would probably have endorsed him in 1964."[384]
In 1964, King urged his supporters "and all people of goodwill" to vote against Republican Senator Barry Goldwater for president, saying that his election "would be a tragedy, and certainly suicidal almost, for the nation and the world."[385] King believed Robert F. Kennedy would make for a good president, but also believed that he wouldn't beat Johnson in the 1968 Democratic Party presidential primaries. He also expressed support for the possible presidential candidacies of Republicans Nelson Rockefeller, George Romney and Charles Percy. [386]
King rejected both
In a 1952 letter to Coretta Scott, he said: "I imagine you already know that I am much more socialistic in my economic theory than capitalistic ..."[389][390] In one speech, he stated that "something is wrong with capitalism" and said, "There must be a better distribution of wealth, and maybe America must move toward a democratic socialism."[391] King further said that "capitalism has outlived its usefulness" and "failed to meet the needs of the masses".[392]
Compensation
King stated that black Americans, as well as other disadvantaged Americans, should be compensated for historical wrongs. In an interview conducted for Playboy in 1965, he said that granting black Americans only equality could not realistically close the economic gap between them and whites. King said that he did not seek a full restitution of wages lost to slavery, which he believed impossible, but proposed a government compensatory program of $50 billion over ten years to all disadvantaged groups.[393]
He posited that "the money spent would be more than amply justified by the benefits that would accrue to the nation through a spectacular decline in school dropouts, family breakups, crime rates, illegitimacy, swollen relief rolls, rioting and other social evils."[394] He presented this idea as an application of the common law regarding settlement of unpaid labor but clarified that he felt that the money should not be spent exclusively on blacks. He stated, "It should benefit the disadvantaged of all races."[395]
Television
Actress
Star Trek was one of the only shows that [King] and his wife Coretta would allow their little children to watch. And I thanked him and I told him I was leaving the show. All the smile came off his face. And he said, 'Don't you understand for the first time we're seen as we should be seen. You don't have a black role. You have an equal role.'[396]
The series' creator, Gene Roddenberry, was deeply moved upon learning of King's support.[400]
State surveillance and coercion
FBI surveillance and wiretapping
FBI director
In the fall of 1963, the FBI received authorization from Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy to proceed with wiretapping of King's phone lines, purportedly due to his association with Stanley Levison.[404] The Bureau informed President John F. Kennedy. He and his brother unsuccessfully tried to persuade King to dissociate himself from Levison, a New York lawyer who had been involved with Communist Party USA.[405][406] Although Robert Kennedy only gave written approval for limited wiretapping of King's telephone lines "on a trial basis, for a month or so",[407] Hoover extended the clearance so his men were "unshackled" to look for evidence in any areas of King's life they deemed worthy.[114]
The Bureau placed wiretaps on the home and office phone lines of both Levison and King, and bugged King's rooms in hotels as he traveled across the country.[405][408] In 1967, Hoover listed the SCLC as a black nationalist hate group, with the instructions: "No opportunity should be missed to exploit through counterintelligence techniques the organizational and personal conflicts of the leaderships of the groups ... to insure [sic] the targeted group is disrupted, ridiculed, or discredited."[402][409]
NSA monitoring of King's communications
In a secret operation code-named "
Allegations of communism
For years, Hoover had been suspicious of potential influence of communists in social movements such as labor unions and civil rights.[411] Hoover directed the FBI to track King in 1957, and the SCLC when it was established.[3]
Due to the relationship between King and Stanley Levison, the FBI feared Levison was working as an "agent of influence" over King, in spite of its own reports in 1963 that Levison had left the Party and was no longer associated in business dealings with them.[412] Another King lieutenant, Jack O'Dell, was also linked to the Communist Party by sworn testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC).[413]
Despite the extensive surveillance, by 1976 the FBI had acknowledged that it had not obtained any evidence that King himself or the SCLC were actually involved with any communist organizations.[403]
For his part, King adamantly denied having any connections to communism. In a 1965 Playboy interview, he stated that "there are as many Communists in this freedom movement as there are Eskimos in Florida."[414] He argued that Hoover was "following the path of appeasement of political powers in the South" and that his concern for communist infiltration of the civil rights movement was meant to "aid and abet the salacious claims of southern racists and the extreme right-wing elements."[403] Hoover replied by saying that King was "the most notorious liar in the country".[415] After his "I Have A Dream" speech, the FBI described King as "the most dangerous and effective Negro leader in the country".[408] It alleged that he was "knowingly, willingly and regularly cooperating with and taking guidance from communists."[416]
The attempts to prove that King was a communist was related to the feeling of many segregationists that blacks in the South were content with the status quo but had been stirred up by "communists" and "outside agitators".[417] King said that "the Negro revolution is a genuine revolution, born from the same womb that produces all massive social upheavals—the womb of intolerable conditions and unendurable situations."[418]
CIA surveillance
CIA files declassified in 2017 revealed that the agency was investigating possible links between King and Communism after a Washington Post article dated November 4, 1964, claimed he was invited to the Soviet Union and that Ralph Abernathy, as spokesman for King, refused to comment on the source of the invitation.[419] Mail belonging to King and other civil rights activists was intercepted by the CIA program HTLINGUAL.[420]
Allegations of adultery
The FBI attempted to discredit King through revelations regarding his private life. FBI surveillance of King, some of it since made public, attempted to demonstrate that he had numerous extramarital affairs.[408] The FBI distributed reports regarding such affairs to the executive branch, friendly reporters, potential coalition partners and funding sources of the SCLC, and King's family.[422] The bureau also sent anonymous letters to King threatening to reveal information if he did not cease his civil rights work.[423] The FBI–King suicide letter sent to King just before he received the Nobel Peace Prize read, in part:
The American public, the church organizations that have been helping—Protestants, Catholics and Jews will know you for what you are—an evil beast. So will others who have backed you. You are done. King, there is only one thing left for you to do. You know what it is. You have just 34 days in which to do (this exact number has been selected for a specific reason, it has definite practical significant [sic]). You are done. There is but one way out for you. You better take it before your filthy fraudulent self is bared to the nation.[425]
The letter was accompanied by a tape recording—excerpted from FBI wiretaps—of several of King's extramarital liaisons.[426] King interpreted this package as an attempt to drive him to suicide,[427] although William Sullivan, head of the Domestic Intelligence Division at the time, argued that it may have only been intended to "convince Dr. King to resign from the SCLC."[403] King refused to succumb to the FBI's threats.[408]
In 1977,
In May 2019, an FBI file emerged on which a handwritten note alleged that King "looked on, laughed and offered advice" as one of his friends raped a woman. Historians of the period who have examined this notional evidence have dismissed it as highly unreliable. None of this is new. Garrow is talking about a recently added summary of a transcript of a 1964 recording from the Willard Hotel that others, including Mrs. King, have said they did not hear Martin's voice on it. The added summary was four layers removed from the actual recording. This supposedly new information comes from an anonymous source in a single paragraph in an FBI report. You have to ask how could anyone conclude King looked at a rape from an audio recording in a room where he was not present.[433] The tapes that could confirm or refute the allegation are scheduled to be declassified in 2027.[434]
In his 1989 autobiography And the Walls Came Tumbling Down, Ralph Abernathy stated that King had a "weakness for women", although they "all understood and believed in the biblical prohibition against sex outside of marriage. It was just that he had a particularly difficult time with that temptation."[435] In a later interview, Abernathy said that he only wrote the term "womanizing", that he did not specifically say King had extramarital sex and that the infidelities King had were emotional rather than sexual.[436] Abernathy criticized the media for sensationalizing the statements he wrote about King's affairs,[436] such as the allegation that he admitted in his book that King had a sexual affair the night before he was assassinated.[436] In his 1986 book Bearing the Cross, David Garrow wrote about a number of extramarital affairs, including one woman King saw almost daily. According to Garrow, "that relationship ... increasingly became the emotional centerpiece of King's life, but it did not eliminate the incidental couplings ... of King's travels." He alleged that King explained his extramarital affairs as "a form of anxiety reduction". Garrow asserted that King's supposed promiscuity caused him "painful and at times overwhelming guilt".[437] King's wife Coretta appeared to have accepted his affairs with equanimity, saying once that "all that other business just doesn't have a place in the very high-level relationship we enjoyed."[438] Shortly after Bearing the Cross was released, civil rights author Howell Raines gave the book a positive review but opined that Garrow's allegations about King's sex life were "sensational" and stated that Garrow was "amassing facts rather than analyzing them".[439]
Police observation during the assassination
A fire station was located across from the Lorraine Motel, next to the boarding house in which James Earl Ray was staying. Police officers were stationed in the fire station to keep King under surveillance.
Awards and recognition
King was awarded at least fifty honorary degrees from colleges and universities.[444] On October 14, 1964, King became the youngest winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, which was awarded to him for leading nonviolent resistance to racial prejudice in the U.S.[445][446] In 1965, he was awarded the American Liberties Medallion by the American Jewish Committee for his "exceptional advancement of the principles of human liberty."[444][447] In his acceptance remarks, King said, "Freedom is one thing. You have it all or you are not free."[448]
In 1957, he was awarded the Spingarn Medal from the NAACP.[449] Two years later, he won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story.[450] In 1966, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America awarded King the Margaret Sanger Award for "his courageous resistance to bigotry and his lifelong dedication to the advancement of social justice and human dignity."[451] Also in 1966, King was elected as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.[452] In November 1967, he made a 24-hour trip to the UK to receive an honorary Doctorate in Civil Law from Newcastle University, becoming the first African American the institution had recognized in this way.[309] In an impromptu acceptance speech,[308] he said:
There are three urgent and indeed great problems that we face not only in the United States of America but all over the world today. That is the problem of racism, the problem of poverty and the problem of war.
In addition to his nominations for three Grammy Awards, King posthumously won for
In 1977, President Jimmy Carter posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to King. The citation read:
Martin Luther King Jr. was the conscience of his generation. He gazed upon the great wall of segregation and saw that the power of love could bring it down. From the pain and exhaustion of his fight to fulfill the promises of our founding fathers for our humblest citizens, he wrung his eloquent statement of his dream for America. He made our nation stronger because he made it better. His dream sustains us yet.[454]
King and his wife were also awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in 2004.[455]
King was second in Gallup's List of Most Widely Admired People of the 20th Century.[456] In 1963, he was named Time Person of the Year, and, in 2000, he was voted sixth in an online "Person of the Century" poll by the same magazine.[457] King placed third in The Greatest American conducted by the Discovery Channel and AOL.[458]
Five-dollar bill
On April 20, 2016, Treasury Secretary
Memorials
Many memorial sites, buildings and sculptures have been created to honor Martin Luther King Jr, including the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library in Washington, D.C.,[460] the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library in San Jose, California, and the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in West Potomac Park next to the National Mall in Washington, D.C.
Honorary doctorates
King has received several
- 1957:
- 1958: Central State College
- 1959: Doctor of Divinity, Boston University
- 1961: Doctor of Laws, University of Bridgeport
- 1962: Doctor of Civil Laws, Bard College
- 1963: Doctor of Letters, Keuka College
- 1964:
- 1965: Amsterdam Free University; Doctor of Divinity, St. Peter's College
- 1967: Doctor of Laws, Grinnell College
Works
- ISBN 978-0-06-250490-6
- The Measure of a Man (1959) ISBN 978-0-8006-0877-4
- ISBN 978-0-8006-9740-2
- ISBN 978-0-8070-0112-7
- ISBN 978-0-8070-0571-2
- ISBN 978-0-8070-0170-7
- A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King Jr. (1986) ISBN 978-0-06-250931-4
- The Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr. (1998), ed. ISBN 978-0-446-67650-2
- "All Labor Has Dignity" (2011) ed. ISBN 978-0-8070-8600-1
- "Thou, Dear God": Prayers That Open Hearts and Spirits. Collection of King's prayers. (2011), ed. ISBN 978-0-8070-8603-2
- MLK: A Celebration in Word and Image (2011). Photographed by ISBN 978-0-8070-0316-9
Discography
Albums
Title | Year | Peak |
---|---|---|
US [462] | ||
The Great March to Freedom | 1963 | 141 |
The March on Washington | 102 | |
Freedom March on Washington | 119 | |
I Have a Dream | 1968 | 69 |
The American Dream | 173 | |
In Search of Freedom | 150 | |
In the Struggle for Freedom and Human Dignity | 154 |
Singles
Title | Year | Peak | Album |
---|---|---|---|
US [462] | |||
"I Have a Dream"
( |
1968 | 88 | I Have a Dream (1968) |
See also
- African American founding fathers of the United States
- Civil rights movement in popular culture
- Equality before the law
- List of civil rights leaders
- List of peace activists
- List of streets named after Martin Luther King Jr.
- Memorials to Martin Luther King Jr.
- Post–civil rights era in African-American history
- Sermons and speeches of Martin Luther King Jr.
- Violence begets violence
References
Notes
- ^ King Jr's birth certificate was later altered to read "Martin Luther King Jr." on July 23, 1957, when he was 28 years old.[21][22][24]
- ^ There is some disagreement in sources regarding precisely when King took and passed the entrance exam in 1944. Oates (1993) and Schuman (2014) state that King passed the exam in the spring of 1944 before graduating from the eleventh grade and then being enrolled in Morehouse that fall. Manheimer (2005) states that King graduated from the eleventh grade, then applied and took the entrance exam before going to Connecticut, but did not find out he had passed until August 1944 when he was admitted. White (1974) states he took and passed the exam upon his return from Connecticut in 1944.
- ^ Though commonly attributed to King, this expression originated with 19th-century abolitionist Theodore Parker.[189]
Citations
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Kittles informed King that his Y-chromosome DNA analysis traced to Ireland and his mtDNA analysis associated him with the Mende.
- ^ Frady 2002, p. 11.
- ^ a b c Manheimer 2004, p. 10.
- ^ a b Fleming 2008, p. 2.
- ^ a b c Frady 2002, p. 12.
- ^ a b c d e f Oates 1983, p. 7.
- ^ Oates 1983, p. 4.
- ^ a b c d e f g Oates 1983, p. 13.
- ^ Eig 2023, p. 43.
- ^ a b c d Brown, DeNeen L. (January 15, 2019). "The story of how Michael King Jr. became Martin Luther King Jr". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on December 31, 2019. Retrieved January 20, 2019.
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- ^ a b Oates 1983, p. 5.
- ^ a b c d Oates 1983, p. 8.
- ^ a b Frady 2002, p. 14.
- ^ a b c d e f Manheimer 2004, p. 15.
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Now, Gene Roddenberry was a 6-foot-3 guy with muscles. ... And he sat there with tears in his eyes. He said, 'Thank God that someone knows what I'm trying to do. Thank God for Dr. Martin Luther King.'
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Sources
- ISBN 0-06-016192-2.
- Boyd, Herb (1996). Martin Luther King, Jr. Baronet Books. ISBN 0-86611-917-5.
- ISBN 0-684-85712-X.
- Cohen, Adam Seth; Taylor, Elizabeth (2000). Pharaoh: Mayor Richard J. Daley: His Battle for Chicago and the Nation. Back Bay. ISBN 0-316-83489-0.
- Davis, Kenneth C. (2005). Don't Know Much About Martin Luther King Jr. Harper Collins. ISBN 978-0-06-442129-4. Retrieved September 17, 2020.
- ISBN 978-0-374-27929-5.
- Fleming, Alice (2008). Martin Luther King Jr.: A Dream of Hope. Sterling. ISBN 978-1-4027-4439-6.
- ISBN 978-0-14-303648-7.
- ISBN 0-14-006486-9.
- Garrow, David. ISBN 978-0-06-056692-0
- "James L. Bevel, The Strategist of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement", a 1984 paper by Randall Kryn, published with a 1988 addendum by Kryn in Prof. David Garrow's We Shall Overcome, Volume II (Carlson Publishing Company, 1989).
- Glisson, Susan M. (2006). The Human Tradition in the Civil Rights Movement. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 0-7425-4409-5.
- Herst, Burton (2007). Bobby and J. Edgar: The Historic Face-off Between the Kennedys and J. Edgar Hoover that Transformed America. Carroll & Graf. ISBN 978-0-7867-1982-2.
- Jackson, Thomas F. (2006). From Civil Rights to Human Rights: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Struggle for Economic Justice. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 978-0-8122-3969-0.
- King, Martin Luther Jr. (1998). Carson, Clayborne (ed.). Autobiography. Warner Books. ISBN 0-446-52412-3.
- Carson, Clayborne; Luker, Ralph E.; Russell, Penny A.; Harlan, Louis R., eds. (1992). The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Volume I: Called to Serve, January 1929 – June 1951. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-07950-7.
- Kotz, Nick (2005). Judgment Days: Lyndon Baines Johnson, Martin Luther King Jr., and the Laws that Changed America. Houghton Mifflin Books. ISBN 0-618-08825-3.
- Lawson, Steven F.; Payne, Charles M.; Patterson, James T. (2006). Debating the Civil Rights Movement, 1945–1968. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 0-7425-5109-1.
- Manheimer, Ann S. (2004). Martin Luther King Jr.: Dreaming of Equality. Twenty-First Century Books. ISBN 1-57505-627-5.
- Muse, Clyde (1978). The Educational Philosophy of Martin Luther King, Jr. University of Oklahoma. Retrieved September 17, 2020.
- Patterson, Lillie (1969). Martin Luther King, Jr.: man of peace. Garrard Publishing Company. ISBN 978-0811645553. Retrieved September 17, 2020.
- Oates, Stephen B. (1983). Let the Trumpet Sound: A Life of Martin Luther King, Jr. HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-452-25627-9.
- Robbins, Mary Susannah (2007). Against the Vietnam War: Writings by Activists. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-0-7425-5914-1.
- Rowland, Della (1990). Martin Luther King, Jr: The Dream of Peaceful Revolution. Silver Burdett Press. ISBN 978-0-382-24062-1. Retrieved September 17, 2020.
- Schuman, Michael A. (2014). The Life of Martin Luther King, Jr.: Leader for Civil Rights. Enslow Publishers, Inc. ISBN 978-0-7660-6149-1. Retrieved October 18, 2020.
- Washington, James M. (1991). A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr. HarperCollins. ISBN 0-06-064691-8.
- White, Clarence (1974). Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Contributions to Education as a Black Leader (1929–1968). Loyola University of Chicago. Retrieved October 18, 2020.
Further reading
- Ayton, Mel (2005). A Racial Crime: James Earl Ray and the Murder of Martin Luther King Jr. Archebooks Publishing. ISBN 1-59507-075-3.
- ISBN 0-671-46097-8.
- Branch, Taylor (1998). Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years, 1963–1965. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-684-80819-6.
- ISBN 0-8050-2445-X.
- King, Martin Luther Jr. (2015). ISBN 978-0-8070-1282-6.
- King, Martin Luther Jr. (1986), Testament of Hope. The essential writings and speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr. (Harper & Row), edited by J. M. Washington; reissued by Harper in 1992 as I Have a Dream: Writings and Speeches That Changed the World.
- Kirk, John A., ed. (2007). Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement: Controversies and Debates.
- Schulke, Flip; McPhee, Penelope (1986). King Remembered, Foreword by Jesse Jackson. ISBN 978-1-4039-9654-1.
- Waldschmidt-Nelson, Britta (2012). Dreams and Nightmares: Martin Luther King Jr. Malcolm X, and the Struggle for Black Equality. University Press of Florida. ISBN 0-8130-3723-9.
External links
- The King Center
- Martin Luther King Jr. Collection at Morehouse College
- The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, Stanford University
- Martin Luther King, Jr. Collected Papers held by the Swarthmore College Peace Collection
- Works by or about Martin Luther King Jr. at Internet Archive
- Martin Luther King Jr. on Nobelprize.org including the Nobel Lecture, December 11, 1964 The quest for peace and justice
- Martin Luther King Jr.'s Nobel Peace Prize, Civil Rights Digital Library
- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at Buffalo, digital collection of King's visit and speech in Buffalo, New York on November 9, 1967, from the University at Buffalo Libraries
- BBC Face to Face interview with Martin Luther King and John Freeman, broadcast October 29, 1961.
- Martin Luther King Jr. at Curlie
- FBI file on Martin Luther King Jr.: Part 1 and Part 2