USA

Martin Luther King, Jr., is considered as the leader of the American civil rights movement after organizing the famous 1955 bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama. Throughout his career he pressed for equal treatment and improved circumstances for the blacks, organizing nonviolent protests and delivering powerful speeches on the necessity of eradicating institutional racial inequalities. In 1963 King led a peaceful march between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial, where he delivered his most famous speech, “I Have a Dream.”

King, Martin Luther, Jr. (1929-1968), a black American, was the main leader of the civil rights movement in the United States during the 1950's and 1960's. He had a wonderful ability of speaking, which enabled him to express African Americans’ dream for social justice. King's fluency gave him the support of millions of people--blacks and whites--and made him internationally famous. He won the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in leading nonviolent civil rights movement. In spite of King's hatred for nonviolence, he was the target of violence. White racists threw rocks at him in Chicago and bombed his home in Montgomery, Alabama. Finally, violence ended King's life at the age of 39, when an assassin shot and killed him. King became the second American whose birthday is considered as a national holiday. The first was George Washington, the nation's first president. He wrote five books: Stride toward Freedom (1958), Strength to Love (1963), Why We Can't Wait (1964), Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? (1967), and the Trumpet of Conscience (1968).

King was born on Jan. 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia.His father was pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. Martin was a very good student in his school, and at the age of 15 he entered Morehouse College in Atlanta. King admired Benjamin E. Mays very much, Morehouse's president and a famous scholar of African-American religion. Because of Mays's, King decided to become a minister. He studied for a degree in religion at Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania, and he got a doctorate in theology from Boston University in 1955.In 1954, King became pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama.

King's civil rights activities began in 1955 when he organized a protest against Montgomery's segregated bus system in 1955. That year, a black passenger “Rosa Parks” was arrested for breaking a city law which requires that blacks give up their seats on buses when white people wanted to sit in their seats or in the same row. Black leaders in Montgomery asked African Americans to boycott

(refuse to use)the city's buses.The leaders formed an organization to run the boycott, and asked King to be the president. In his first speech as leader of the boycott, King told his black colleagues:

Terrorists bombed King's home, but King didn’t change his mind about nonviolent protests. Thousands of blacks boycotted the buses for over a year. In 1956, Montgomery was ordered to provide equal seating on public buses. The boycott's success made King very famous and identified him as a symbol of Southern blacks' in their fight against racial injustice. With other black ministers, King formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1957 to support the nonviolent struggle against racism and discrimination.During this time segregation expanded throughout the South in schools, and in transport and such public places as hotels and restaurants.Southern states also used many ways to stop blacks from their voting rights. In 1960, King moved from Montgomery to Atlanta to pay more effort to SCLC's work. He became co-pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church with his father.

In the 1960's, civil rights protests increased more and more, as African-American college students began entering many fast-food and other places where blacks were refused service. There were huge demonstrations in such places as Albany, Georgia. Early in 1963, King and his SCLC assistants organized huge protests to protest against racial discrimination in Birmingham, Alabama, one of the South's most segregated cities. Police used dogs and fire hoses to stop the peaceful protesters, including children. The news of the violence made everybody against segregation. After that, President Kennedy announced the civil rights bill which had a strong effect to the US congress. King and other civil rights leaders then organized a huge march in Washington, D.C. The event, called the March on Washington, was organized to highlight African-American unemployment and to encourage Congress to accept Kennedy's bill. On Aug. 28, 1963, over 200,000 Americans, including many whites, gathered at the Lincoln Memorial in the capital. The most important event was King's speech "I Have a Dream", which defined the basis of the civil rights movement.In 1963 Martin Luther King, Jr., was jailed in Birmingham, Alabama, with many other black Americans, because he led a march to desegregate Birmingham's segregated downtown shops and restaurants. While in jail, King wrote his “Letter from Birmingham Jail,”. The letter is one of the most powerful documents of the American civil rights movement. It explains King's philosophy of nonviolent civil disobedience.

“I am in Birmingham because injustice is here; he added that “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

I submit that an individual who breaks an unjust law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.

And because of the Local Birmingham authorities attempt to stop the civil rights protests not only through arrests and imprisonment, but by using powerful water hoses and attack dogs against the protesters. All The nation knew that they have to face the racial injustice that existed in parts of the American South. Also, President John F. Kennedy moved civil rights to the top of his work because of the Birmingham protests after that. The movement won a great victory in 1964, when the U.S. Congress passed the civil rights bill that Kennedy and his successor, President Lyndon B. Johnson, had recommended. The Civil Rights bill of 1964 prohibited racial discrimination in public places and called for equal opportunity in employment and education. After that King received the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize.

While organizing the Poor People's Campaign, King went to Memphis, Tennessee, to support a strike of black refuse collectors. There, on April 4, 1968, King was shot and killed. People all over the world were shocked because of King's death. King was buried in South View Cemetery in Atlanta. His body was later moved near to Ebenezer Baptist Church. On King's tombstone are the words: "Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, I'm free at last..." A few months later, the U.S. Congress accepted the Civil Rights bill of 1968, which prohibited racial discrimination in the sale and rental of most housing in the United States.

In 1980, an area including King's birthplace, church, and burial place became the Martin Luther King, Jr., National Historic Site. In 1983, the U.S. Congress declared a federal holiday honoring King. The day is

celebrated in the United States on the third Monday in January. In 1991, the National Civil Rights Museum opened at the site of King's assassination in Memphis.

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 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.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.

With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

And this will be the day. This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning, "My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrims' pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring."

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado! Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California! But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia! Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee! Let freedom ring from every hill and every molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.