Martin Luther King Flashcards
Born
1929 ATL and spent his youth at the Ebenezer Baptist Church
Name change
Born Michael, but both him and his father had their names changed to Martin at the request of kings dying Grandfather
Activism and family history
His father and grandfather were in the ATL NAACP as leaders, so activism is in his blood
Education
Morehouse college for his BA, and he studied more liberal Christian thought at Crozer Theological Seminary. He went for his Doctorate at Boston University
Religious beliefs
He believed in the personality of God, rather than an abstract conception of God. And the inextricably of social evil
Activism
He became the Pastor at Dexter Ave Baptist Church in Montgomery Alabama. After Rosa Parks was arrested, the Montgomery Improvement Association was formed- and king lead it.
The MIA lead a year long bus boycott in Montgomery.
Beliefs
Influenced by Bayard Rustin and other veteran pacifists. He became an advocate of Ghandi’s approach which he combined with christian principles . He even went to India for a month to understand the teachings more.
Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)
In 1957, he founded the SCLC which coordinated civil rights activities throughout the region.
Move back to ATL
King moved back to ATL, in 59, with his family to be closer to the SCLC headquarters and to pastor at Ebrnezer baptist
The SNCC and more radical groups
The student non violent coordinating committee (lead by John Lewis) staged many sit ins and worked closely with king. But eventually stokley Carmichael took over and he tried to get king to become more radical. King was torn
1963’s two big events
The Birmingham campaign lead by king and the SCLC had a massive civil rights protest. King allowed himself to get arrested. He had a famous letter from jail using the Bible and constitution to appeal to people, it worked.
Also this was were the televised pics of people using dogs snd fire hoses sparked an international outcry
“The March on Washington” was the second event and had 200k people show up king gave his famous I have a dream speech.
He ended up being TIME man of the year in 1963 and got a noble peace prize in 1964
FBI vendetta
J edgar Hoover hated the fame king had and started trying to damage his rep. He set up wiretaps with the Kennedy brothers approval
The northern plight
King moved to Chicago in A black ghetto in 1966 to focus on poverty and other northern urban problems. His southern peaceful tactics didn’t work. He couldn’t mobilize Chicago’s economic and ideologically diverse black community, and mayor Richard Daley presented formidable opposition. He got stoned by angry whites in a Chicago suburb during a protest. He didn’t make any changes over there and this undermined him
Popularity decline
In addition to the Chicago incident, black militancy was getting more and more popular and king was getting less popular in 1965 and later
Poor peoples campaign
In 67 this campaign was formed and it was him, Jesse Jackson, and Andrew young. They recruited poor people and anti poverty activists to come to Washington DC to prod the government to help poor folks more. The group never achieved what They wanted. King was killed in 1968
