Martin Luther King urges peaceful sit-ins. He meets Gandhi. King leads a "nonviolent army" protesting discrimination in Georgia and is jailed in Birmingham Alabama.
Southern Christian Leadership Conference
The Montgomery transportation boycott was seen as a definite victory for nonviolent protest. Martin Luther King, Jr. emerged from the boycott as a highly respected Black leader.
In 1958 King became president of a group later known as the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. This conference was formed to carry on civil-rights activities in the South. King inspired Blacks throughout the South to hold peaceful sit-ins and freedom rides to protest segregation.
Then in 1959, King visited India and experienced the long-awaited opportunity to study Gandhi's techniques of nonviolent protest. In India, King was able to "work out more clearly his understanding of Satyagraha, Gandhi's principle of nonviolent persuasion."
King the Pastor Protests
In 1960 King became co-pastor of his father's church in Atlanta, Georgia. This move allowed him to more effectively participate in the national leadership of the emerging civil rights movement. The following year he led a "nonviolent army" to protest discrimination in Albany, Georgia.
In 1963, despite being once more placed behind bars, King led a successful campaign to achieve the desegregation of many public facilities in Birmingham, Alabama. In a moving appeal, known as the "Letter from Birmingham Jail" he replied to several white clergymen who felt that his efforts were ill timed. King argued that Asian and African nations were fast achieving political independence while "we still creep at a horse-and-buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter."
The Nobel King
In 1964 King became the youngest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. He regarded it not only as a personal honor but also as an international tribute to the nonviolent civil-rights movement.
King Sees Violent Resistance
In 1965, King led a drive to register black voters in Selma, Alabama. The drive met with violent resistance. In protest of this treatment, thousands of demonstrators conducted a five-day march from Selma to the capitol in Montgomery.
King the Peaceful: From Gandhi to the Birmingham Jail continues with
King Moves North: Vietnam and War on Poverty.
Previous: King For Civil Rights: From Boston to Boycotting.
