How Did Martin Luther King Influence The Civil Rights Movement

100 years after the Emancipation Proclamation (a document that freed all slaves), African Americans in the southern states continued to face segregation, oppression, and race-inspired violence. Jim Crow laws barred them from classrooms, bathrooms, juries, and legislatures. Vigalante groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan, used violence and intimidation in order to avert blacks from associating with whites socially, from voting, and even progressing financially. Civil rights activists, such as Maritn Luther King Jr., sought to put an end to such discrimination. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a leader of manifold nonviolent protests during the Civil Rights Era, was said to be the "single most important figure in the African American community's struggle
He began to realize what a serious issue it had become in the deep south. Seperate bathrooms, waterfountains, buses, and trains made King feel a sense of shame. King felt inferior. Leaders like King himself, Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, Andrew Goodman, and many more rose to prominence during the Civil Rights Era. Throughout the years, King became very interested in civil disobedience and nonviolent protesting. Soon after World War I and World War II, freedom movements arised all over the world. Many of these movements transpired with the use of violence. King believed in an alternative. He hsppened to be influenced greatly by Mohandas K. Ghandi, a leader that used passive resistance to establish independence for India. In 1944, King graduated early from Booker T. Washington Highschool, a segregated school in Atlanta. Soon after, he was accepted by Morehouse State College where he followed in his father's footsteps and became an ordained minister of the National Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. Later, he would marry his wife, Coretta Scott, in June of 1959 and father four
became head of the MIA (Montgomery Improvement Assocciation), and played a key role in the boycott. The boycott lasted 381 days, eventually coming to an end on December 21, 1956 with the desegration of the Montgomery bus system. Black Americans had successfully taken a great first stride towards freedom. Soon after the boycott on busses ended, the NAACP chose King to be their leader. King was well known for his talent to arouse black southerners and motivating them to participatein marches. He helped gain publicity and sympathy of mainstream Americans. Together, King and the NAACP worked quietly but focrefully to reveal the mistreatment of the African American