Look into the Life and Legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr.
The Poor People's Campaign
By 1967, in addition to becoming outspoken about the Vietnam War, King also began an anti-poverty campaign. He broadened his activism to include all poor Americans, seeing the achievement of economic justice as a way to overcome the sort of segregation that existed in cities like Chicago but also as a basic human right. It was the Poor People's Campaign, a movement to unite all impovershed Americans regardless of race or religion.
King envisioned the movement as culminating in a march on Washington in the spring of 1968.
But events in Memphis interfered. In February of 1968, Memphis sanitation workers went on strike, protesting the mayor's refusal to recognize their union. An old friend, James Lawson, pastor of a Memphis church, called King and asked him to come. King could not refuse Lawson or their workers who needed his help and went to Memphis at the end of March, leading a march that turned into a riot.
King returned to Memphis on April 3, determined to help the sanitation workers in spite of his dismay at the violence that had erupted. He spoke at a mass meeting that night, encouraging his listeners that "we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land!"
He was staying at the Lorraine Motel, and on the afternoon of April 4, as King and other SCLC members were readying themselves for dinner, King stepped onto the balcony, waiting on Ralph Abernathy to out on some aftershave. As he stood waiting, King was shot.
The hospital pronounced his death at 7:05 pm.
Legacy
King was not perfect-he would have been the first to admit this. His wife, Coretta, desperately wanted to join the Civil Rights marches, but he insisted that she stay at home with their children, unable to break out of the rigid gender patterns of the era. He committed adultery, a fact that the FBI threatened to use against him and that King feared would make its way into the papers. But King was able to overcome his all-too-human weaknesses and lead African Americans, and all Americans, to a better future.
The Civil Rights Movement never recovered from the blow of his death. Abernathy tried to continue the Poor People's Campaign without King, but he could not marshal the same support. King, however, has continued to inspire the world. By 1986, a federal holiday commemorating his birthday had been established. Schoolchildren study his "I have a dream" speech. No other American before or since has so clearly articulated and so determinedly fought for social justice.
Sources
By 1967, in addition to becoming outspoken about the Vietnam War, King also began an anti-poverty campaign. He broadened his activism to include all poor Americans, seeing the achievement of economic justice as a way to overcome the sort of segregation that existed in cities like Chicago but also as a basic human right. It was the Poor People's Campaign, a movement to unite all impovershed Americans regardless of race or religion.
King envisioned the movement as culminating in a march on Washington in the spring of 1968.
But events in Memphis interfered. In February of 1968, Memphis sanitation workers went on strike, protesting the mayor's refusal to recognize their union. An old friend, James Lawson, pastor of a Memphis church, called King and asked him to come. King could not refuse Lawson or their workers who needed his help and went to Memphis at the end of March, leading a march that turned into a riot.
King returned to Memphis on April 3, determined to help the sanitation workers in spite of his dismay at the violence that had erupted. He spoke at a mass meeting that night, encouraging his listeners that "we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land!"
He was staying at the Lorraine Motel, and on the afternoon of April 4, as King and other SCLC members were readying themselves for dinner, King stepped onto the balcony, waiting on Ralph Abernathy to out on some aftershave. As he stood waiting, King was shot.
The hospital pronounced his death at 7:05 pm.
Legacy
King was not perfect-he would have been the first to admit this. His wife, Coretta, desperately wanted to join the Civil Rights marches, but he insisted that she stay at home with their children, unable to break out of the rigid gender patterns of the era. He committed adultery, a fact that the FBI threatened to use against him and that King feared would make its way into the papers. But King was able to overcome his all-too-human weaknesses and lead African Americans, and all Americans, to a better future.
The Civil Rights Movement never recovered from the blow of his death. Abernathy tried to continue the Poor People's Campaign without King, but he could not marshal the same support. King, however, has continued to inspire the world. By 1986, a federal holiday commemorating his birthday had been established. Schoolchildren study his "I have a dream" speech. No other American before or since has so clearly articulated and so determinedly fought for social justice.
Sources
- Branch, Taylor. Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-1964. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988.
- Frady, Marshall. Martin Luther King. New York: Viking Penguin, 2002.
- Garrow, David J. Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.. New York: Vintage Books, 1988.
- Kotz, Nick. Lyndon Baines Johnson, Martin Luther King Jr., and the Laws that Changed America.Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2005.
