Martin Luther King Jr.: Civil Rights Activist

Decent Essays
Another example of an activist who fought because something was unfair was civil-rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King Jr. (born January 15, 1929 in Atlanta, GA) grew up into a time period when there was segregation in the United States. White people had more rights than colored people, including African Americans. Martin Luther King Jr. saw that life was unfair for African Americans, and spoke out. On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give her bus seat to a white passenger and was arrested by police for breaking the law. Since Parks was arrested, African American citizens organized a group called the Montgomery Improvement Association (which led a bus boycott) and selected Martin Luther King Jr to be the leader

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Ruby Bridges and Rosa Parks are great civil rights leaders. They were also effective in the civil rights movements. In 2014 a statue of Ruby Bridges was planted outside of William Frantz School. Ruby Bridges was one of the greatest civil rights leaders. She was born on September 8, 1954, in Tylertown Mississippi.…

    • 464 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Malcolm Little, regularly called Malcolm “X”, was a well known Civil Rights Activist. Malcolm was born on May 19, 1925 in Omaha, Nebraska. His father, Earl Little, was a big target for the Ku Klux Klan, he was killed when Malcolm was six, by a streetcar that ran him over, and nearly cut him in half. Malcolm was a troubled child that left him to drugs and picking up prostitutes in his later teens. He eventually went to prison when he was only twenty years old.…

    • 145 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    From April in 1861 to the spring in 1865, a war was fought between the Union and Confederate states of America. It was a bloody battle resulting in a total death estimate of 620,000 men, and is believed to be responsible for the most militaristic deaths in American wars. After 10 bloody battles and the end of the Civil War, the United States was introduced to new military innovations and strategies, African American slaves being freed and entering society as citizens, and the changing of minds about the equality of all men and unalienable rights. Throughout the war, a huge shift occurred in the battle fields with the introduction of a revolutionary item, the Minié Ball.…

    • 1007 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Civil rights activist Rosa Parks resisted social injustice by not giving her seat to a white person on a segregated Montgomery, Alabama bus. That action spurred a 381-day bus boycott. (Biography) Rosa’s resisting skills started what would be one of the largest civil rights movements in this country. Her impact still stands today by overcoming social injustice and forcing the U.S. to take a look at their segregation laws.…

    • 565 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    . Malcolm X also known by his birth name Malcolm Little, was born May 19, 1925, in Omaha, Nebraska. He was the fourth child out of eight children. His mother was a homemaker, and his father was a priest.…

    • 102 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Great Essays

    The year was 1955. An African American boy lay asleep in his uncle’s house in a small town named Money, Mississippi. Around 2 a.m., two white men came knocking on the door. The men demanded to see the boy who had “done the talkin’ in Money.” The men walked the boy to their car and asked a woman sitting in the backseat, “Is this the boy?”…

    • 2098 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In 1955, 42 year old Rosa Parks was arrested for not giving up her seat on the Cleveland Avenue bus to a white man. On the night that Rosa Parks was arrested E.D. Nixon head of the local NAACP chapter met with Martin Luther King Jr, and other local civil right leaders to plan a city wide bus boycott. Martin Luther King Jr was elected to lead the boycott because he was young well trained with solid family connections, and he was also new to the committee with no enemies. The committee, including Martin Luther King Jr prepared a statement stating that everyone should boycott the bus. In the statement the message…

    • 810 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Malcolm X was born on May 19, 1995 as Malcolm Little. The son of Louise and Earl Little. X was the fourth of eight of his siblings to Louise. His mother worked as a homemaker. His father worked as a preacher and a member of the Universal Negro Improvement Association.…

    • 725 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “No” she said, “the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.”Although instrumental to the Civil Rights movement, Parks went on to live in anonymity after the protests, working as a seamstress for almost a decade and not receiving national recognition until later in life. Another person who had a big impact was Martin Luther King. One of the finest orators and civil rights leaders of the 20th century, Martin Luther King, Jr. did much to change the United States’ policy on racial discrimination. After helping to launch the Civil Rights Movement by heading the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott, King founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a black religious organization that directed nonviolent protests against segregationist authorities throughout the 1960s.…

    • 933 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Dr. Martin Luther King a civil right leader fought against segregation in any form. He was a social activist and a Baptist minister who played a key role in the American Civil Rights movement. In America, Jim Crow laws existed to disenfranchise people of in Americans. Due to these laws, people of color that lived in American were forced to use segregated schools, segregated restrooms, separated transportation, and separate hospitals. Man-woman and children of color were dying at a rate ten times higher” than their corrosion counterparts.…

    • 493 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    After months of Brown v. Board of Education case laws were passed, the actions of Rosa Parks and her refusal to give up a seat in a bus commenced protests. Martin Luther King, Jr., was one of the most effective leaders in this boycott and the Civil Rights movement in general. He was the leader that America desperately needed for peace among whites and blacks. Martin Luther King, Jr., mainly used teachings of Gandhi, an Indian nationalist, who used non-violence to free India from Britain. Martin Luther King, Jr., led innumerable boycott movements with this strategy.…

    • 1724 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Did you know that mlk started college at age 15.King being an orator made people think about him. Being a peaceful protester made people notice him. He was also a great leader which let him have followers. And his hard life made him aware of was going on in the world. His legacy helped him become an important civil rights leader.…

    • 1134 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Discrimination of colored people through segregation laws began to be intolerable and people rose up to protest. One of the more famous protesters was Rosa Parks. During the 1950s it was required by public transportation to segregate colored people from the white people on the bus. Parks went against this rule by not leaving her seat for a white man, for this she was arrested with charges of Civil Disobedience. Her arrest inspired others including the leader of the Civil Rights movement Marin Luther King which lead to the Montgomery Bus Boycott.…

    • 1940 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Great Essays

    African Americans and their influential leaders fought in many ways against racism, segregation, and discrimination following the Civil War until present time. African Americans’ struggle to achieve racial equality and full citizenship in the United States forced them to find ways to enhance their quality of life and establish strong political foundations capable of achieving meaningful social, cultural and economic changes. Their fight for equality led them to create durable movements that ultimately helped attain African Americans’ position in today’s society. The Reconstruction era, 1865-1877, was the time following the Civil War.…

    • 1851 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The GI Bill granted WWII veterans new educational opportunities and greater chances for economic stability or prosperity. “Thousands of African-American veterans took advantage of this benefit and then discovered after graduating from college that whites received better-paying jobs.” Encouraged by their new educations and optimistic for the future, many African Americans were let down when they found that even with a college education, equality was still far off. The GI Bill, which they had viewed as a “way out” of poverty and, hopefully, discrimination, had done nothing but accentuate the blatant racism still popular in America.…

    • 1116 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays