The Life and Legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.

On the third Monday in January, our nation commemorates and remembers Martin Luther King Jr. with a day to honor and recognize his life and legacy, his message that what affects one directly impacts all indirectly being our guiding light today.

He was an unwavering champion for social change who believed people should be judged according to their character rather than by race or color.

His Life and Work

King began his pastorate career at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama in 1954 and quickly established himself as a prominent voice with powerful sermons that made an impactful impression in both Montgomery and throughout Alabama. King quickly earned national attention for his civil rights activism efforts during this time as well.

In 1957, King joined forces with Ralph Abernathy and other African American ministers from Atlanta to establish the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to coordinate more massive protests, but this organization struggled to find its niche.

King was inspired by Reinhold Niebuhr and Henry David Thoreau as well as Mahatma Gandhi to develop his views that individuals should resist harmful systems and disobey unjust laws. Additionally, he saw segregation as related to colonialism, so sought alliances with groups fighting oppression internationally – most notably in Africa.

These ideas fueled a nonviolent movement that successfully challenged racist laws and customs in the South, which in turn won support for the passage of national civil rights legislation, making King a prominent American and world figure (Time Magazine named him “Man of the Year” in 1963), though his increasing prominence led J. Edgar Hoover’s Federal Bureau of Investigation to ramp up their campaign against him through tactics such as phone taps and bugs.

The Montgomery Bus Boycott

As 15-year-old Claudette Colvin refused to yield her seat to a white man on a Montgomery city bus, civil rights leaders quickly saw it as an opportunity to challenge the segregation policies of Montgomery. NAACP leader Jo Ann Robinson and other women from the Women’s Political Council printed and distributed leaflets calling for a boycott of the Montgomery City Bus System on December 5, 1955 – black churches and residents supported this boycott in force, with over half of Montgomery’s bus riders abstaining from using public transit services during that day.

The boycott was an overwhelming success and made Martin Luther King Jr. an iconic symbol of the civil rights movement. His speeches promoting democracy, faith, and equality generated strong support for it while inspiring individuals to take steps against racial inequality.

Montgomery attempted to subvert the boycott by passing laws limiting cab drivers’ ability to charge lower fares in support of it and pressuring car insurers not to cover black car owners who drove in support of it, yet the boycott continued until June 1956 when the Supreme Court ruled bus segregation unlawful.

The Montgomery Bus Boycott marked the first successful nonviolent protest campaign using nonviolent tactics to protest a specific government policy, setting the precedent for future such campaigns as Birmingham in 1963 and March on Washington in August of that year.

The Poor People’s Campaign

King’s Civil Rights Movement attracted national attention and ultimately helped end decades of discrimination suffered by African American citizens. Cities nationwide came to be concerned with injustices committed against their African American populations due to his tireless efforts. These initiatives had an incredible effect on public opinion.

King was determined to continue his work, so he launched the Poor People’s Campaign as an effort to unite leaders of black, Puerto Rican, Mexican American, and poor white communities in an attempt to demand economic justice and racial equality from government officials. Its aim was to force government representatives into responding appropriately to poor Americans’ problems.

King proposed using mass protests, including sit-ins in public spaces, to pressure lawmakers into passing legislation and taking action to combat poverty. King was keen on emphasizing that any civil disobedience he and others engaged in would be nonviolent since violence is morally repugnant and rarely effective as an effective strategy for changing society.

Poor People’s Campaign did not achieve its full scope of reforms as intended, yet still made a considerable impactful statement about social movements at play during that period. Although often forgotten today, its history represents how King’s vision for multiracial solidarity to combat poverty changed our nation’s sociopolitical landscape forever.

The March on Washington

Though he never sought office himself, King remains one of history’s great political leaders, inspiring movements for civil rights, women’s rights, disabled rights, and other social injustices. His lasting legacy includes national holidays in his honor as well as schools and public buildings named in his memory, as well as a statue in Washington’s Mall. However, his life wasn’t without controversy: allegations of adulterous relationships to communist influences; nonviolent protests often met with brutal force from state authorities; revelations regarding secret FBI files cast further doubt upon both the moral integrity and religious beliefs of this giant of history.

The March on Washington was an enormous civil rights demonstration that attracted 250,000 people to our nation’s capital in August 1963. Its origins lie back to A. Philip Randolph – founder of both Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People–proposed large-scale marches to pressure Congress to pass anti-discrimination laws.

Randolph then recruited King to lead his movement, drawing inspiration from Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy of nonviolent resistance and peaceful protest as the means to attract sympathetic media coverage and alter public opinion. King proved right; soon enough the movement gained steam quickly until finally yielding two landmark acts: the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were implemented.