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impact of martin luther king on civil rights
How much impact did Martin Luther King have in changing civil rights for black
Americans?
Eyes on the Prize, American’s Civil Rights years, 1954-1965, Juan Williams
Eyes on the Prize, Juan Williams On the bus boycott
“When the trial of the boycott leaders began in Alabama, the national press got its first good look at Martin Luther King Jr., the first defendant. Four days later, King was found guilty. The sentence was a $500 fine and court costs, or 386 days of hard labour. The judge explained that he had imposed this minimal penalty” because King had promoted non-violence. King was released on bond; his indictment and conviction became front-page news across the nation”
Eyes on the Prize, Juan Williams, pg 130 from an Interview with Diane Nash who led the campaign to desegregate the lunch counters of Nashville’s department stores
‘I think it’s really important that young people understand that the movement of the sixties was really a people’s movement. The media and history seem to record it as Martin Luther King’s movement, but young people just like them, their age, that formulated goals and strategies, and actually developed the movement.” pg195 “Kennedy delivered a new civil rights bill to Congress on June 19. Stronger than the bill that had died in Congress at the beginning of the year, the new bill would outlaw segregation in all interstate public accommodations, allow the attorney general to initiate suits for school integration, and give the attorney general the important power to shut off funds to any federal programs in which discrimination occurred. It also contained a provision that helped ensure the right to vote by declaring that a person who had a sixth-grade education would be presumed to be literate.
King, the SCLC, CORE the NAACP, SNCC, and other civil rights groups had no intention of allowing this bill to die in Congress. To demonstrate the strength of public demand for this legislation, they would march on Washington. pg262 “On February 4

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