How Did Martin Luther King Influence The Civil Rights Movement

From late 1965 through 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. expanded his Civil Rights Movement into larger cities, focusing on economic justice and international peace. He led several campaigns in Chicago, Illinois towards economic help in the large city. He was met with much criticism from younger black power leaders such as Stokely Carmichael. In the eyes of many of the young urban African Americans, King was passive and noneffective. To address the criticism, King made a link between poverty and discrimination. He spread the civil rights efforts towards the Vietnam War. He saw no political purpose in the war and believed that it was biased towards the poor. King’s opposition to the war did not please President Johnson, leading to him being scrutinized by the FBI. He sought to form a multiracial coalition addressing economic and unemployment issues of all
As a result, in 1967, King and the SCLC formed the Poor People’s Campaign. By 1968, the years of civil rights work was beginning to wear on Martin Luther King Jr.. He was tired of marching, doing jail time, and living in a constant threat of death. The pace at which civil rights for African Americans was being achieved was extremely slow and began to discourage him, along with the constant criticism from other African American leaders. Plans were being made for another march on Washington under the Poor People’s Campaign, but in the spring of 1968, a labor strike by sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee drew the attention of Dr. King. On the night of April 3, 1968, he gave a speech at Mason Temple Church in Memphis. Many speculations about King foreshadowing his death in his last speech have been made; the