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Example research essay topic: Martin Luther King Jr Montgomery Bus Boycott - 2,697 words

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Introduction Martin Luther King Jr. was an incredible leader who greatly advanced the civil rights movement. Early in his life, Martin Luther King Jr. went to very prestigious schools and won awards for his charismatic way of speaking.

The Montgomery Bus Boycott, which was led by King, tried to put an end to segregated buses and racial injustice in general. He was sent to jail after leading the march in Birmingham, and there wrote a letter fighting for the rights of black people. King presented his nonviolent views of gaining equality through his famous I have a dream speech. Even though the first attempt to march from Selma to Montgomery turned into a Bloody Sunday, King led yet a second one, which was successful. King s assassination is a topic of much controversy even today, leaving many questions unanswered. Although Martin Luther King Jr.

faced many obstacles along the way, he succeeded in becoming one of the most influential and accomplished leaders of the civil rights movement. The Early Years Martin Luther King Jr. was born in Atlanta, Georgia. King went to local segregated public schools, where he did very well. He went to college when he was fifteen and attended Cover Theological seminary, and went to Boston University. King married and had four children.

He became the Pastor of a Baptist church in Montgomery. He was very charismatic and won awards for his public-speaking skills. King became the minister of a Baptist church when he was eighteen. Since he was a minister, King was able to gain a close connection with the black people and the black church, which remains, even today, the strongest and most independent black institution. He learnt many things which related Christian theology to the struggle of oppressed peoples. King spoke using biblical expressions having to do with freedom, using the Old Testament and the New Testament as guides.

King studied the work of Mohandas Gandhi and that of other nonviolent people opposed to segregation. Many people were opposed to King s ideas that fighting should only be done in a nonviolent way. People who felt this way, believed in the slogan Black Power, which meant that blacks should be able to obtain the rights that would have been theirs in the first place by any means necessary even if they had to resort to violence. Montgomery Bus Boycott In Montgomery and in many other cities, blacks faced blatant discrimination. There were no black bus drivers and many of the white bus drivers treated the black passengers rudely. They would often refer to black passengers as niggers, black cows, and black apes.

Often, black people were forced to pay their fare at the front of the bus and then get off and record the bus from the back doors. Black people were forced to sit at the back of public buses and give up their seats to white people. When Rosa Parks, a black woman, refused to give up her seat, she was sent to jail, leading the black community to take action and start a boycott. The boycott not only represented this isolated event, but many inequalities the blacks had to deal with everyday as well. There were state laws which made it mandatory to have separate schools, parks, playgrounds, restaurants, hotels, theatres, and restrooms.

Even water fountains were labeled white or coloured. The boycott symbolized the beginning of the blacks struggle for equality. It was the first time that outward nonviolence measures against segregation actually worked. Almost one hundred percent of the black residents of Montgomery participated in the boycott, lasting for almost a year. Many white people did not expect such a strong, united, awareness to take place after this incident. King said, White people in the South may never fully know the extent to which Negroes defended themselves and protected their jobs and in many cases, their lives by perfecting an air of ignorance and agreement.

People opposed to the boycott came to King s house with knives and guns, attempting to bomb his house. King came out and told the people that he refused to respond violently to them. During the beginning of the boycott, he received a threatening telephone call. He later said, I could hear an inner voice saying to me, Martin Luther, stand up for righteousness. Stand up for justice. Stand up for the truth.

And lo I will be with you, even until the end of the world. He was later appointed president of the Montgomery Improvement Association. In November of 1956, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of ending segregated buses. Birmingham King became the president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). The SCLC participated in a march in Birmingham, Alabama, in which over a thousand children participated.

Children as young as six participated. Many children were arrested. After that, things started to get more serious. Thousands of adults joined in and protested on the streets.

The Birmingham police sent police officers with attack dogs and fire fighters with hoses to violently stop the protest. Because of the brutality of the police, many black spectators became upset. People threw rocks and bottles at the police. During the march, King was sent to jail, where he wrote a letter saying that people had the right to ignore racist laws. He wrote in his letter that there are more Negroes in jail with me than there are on the voting rolls. This became an important televised event.

Burke Marshall of the Justice Department even got involved. He had almost convinced King that the protesters would have to stop if they wanted to continue negotiating. However, some people were horrified at the thought that that they might be giving in and decided to take a stronger stand. They demanded four things: 1.

The desegregation of lunch counters, restrooms, fitting rooms, and drinking fountains in variety and department stores. 2. The upgrading and hiring of black people in a nondiscriminatory basis in business and industry. 3. The dropping of all charges against jailed demonstrators. 4. The creation of a biracial committee to work out a timetable for desegregation in other Birmingham life.

Many of the protestors were released from jail and an agreement was signed on May tenth. As could be expected, many people reacted violently to the news. They bombed King s brothers house and later bombed a black hotel where they held the headquarters of the movement. Many black people began to start riots in their own neighbourhoods, which marked the beginning of the black opposition to nonviolence. Famous Speech Martin Luther King Jr. organized a march in Washington.

Over 200, 000 people were present, protesting for jobs and civil rights. Before the march, King made his famous I have a dream speech in which he discussed his hopes that one day everyone would be treated equally, regardless of colour and race. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character. In 1964, King received the Nobel Peace Prize. King, at age thirty-five, was the youngest receiver of this prestigious award. Although his speech touched the hearts of most who heard it, some, like Malcolm X, criticized the speech, saying, Who ever heard of angry revolutionists swinging their bare feet together with their oppressor in lily-pad park pools, with gospels and guitars and I have a Dream speeches?

The black masses in America were and still are having a nightmare. Martin Luther King Jr. believed that everything could be solved in a nonviolent manner. Nonviolence involves the willingness to love others, to attack forces of evil rather than individuals, and to forgive merging Christian and Gandhian. His nonviolent beliefs were one of the reasons why he opposed so strongly and outwardly to American involvement in the Vietnam War. The war especially took its toll on black Americans.

Although blacks made up only ten percent of the American population, they were twenty percent of the fighting forces in Vietnam. They made up an even higher proportion of soldiers who actually fought and were injured. Most were conscripted to the war, because they, unlike white boys, were unable to attend university. There were people who were opposed to King and his nonviolent approach.

For weeks before the Selma campaign, the FBI would not leave King alone. They wanted to discredit him and destroy his movement. They threatened him by bugging his house, wiretapping, and covert surveillance. The director of the FBI thought of King as the most notorious liar in America and one of the lowest characters in the country.

They threatened to let the public know about a supposed immoral sexual encounter so that he would back down. They told him that it would be better off for him to just commit suicide. Solely Carmichael, who was elected head of SNCC in 1966, was opposed to nonviolence and believed full heartily in the idea of black power. As he said, I m not going to beg the white man for anything I deserve.

I m going to take it. People like him felt that the blacks should develop political and economic power, control schools, businesses, and other institutions in the black community. Some people felt that this meant they would remain separate form whites. Others felt that this was a way to build up their sense of pride and nationality.

While King did believe in some aspects of black power, he felt that by isolating themselves, they would not only be causing a separation among the different black equality groups, but would also lose the support of many white people. He asked Carmichael, Why choose a slogan that would confuse our allies, isolate the Negro community, and give many prejudiced whites, who might otherwise be ashamed of their anti-Negro feeling, a ready excuse for self-justification? As could be expected, once Black power gained more support, fewer and fewer white people wanted to help. Bloody Sunday In many Southern regions of the United States, black people composed a majority of eligible voters. While this fact should have pleased the black people, it made many white people afraid that their dominant political power was soon to be diminished. Up until now, it was made more difficult for black people to vote.

The voting offices would often only be opened for them at odd times of the day for only short periods of time, often at times when it was hard for the blacks living in the South to take the time off work. The times were also rarely announced beforehand. Blacks were even told they were not allowed to vote if they did not cross the T s or dot the I s on the registration form. While white people simply had to read a line of the American constitution to be eligible to vote, the few black people who made it to the voting office, were forced to take a literacy test, which consisted of about twenty questions on the US constitution, American Law, and history.

They also had to pay a tax for a year of a large sum of money. King planned a march from Selma to Montgomery to try to gain equal voting rights for blacks, which they felt was long over due, since it was promised in the American constitution. On July 2, 1964, American President Lyndon Johnson, had signed the Civil Rights Act. This law made segregation in public facilities, in the work force, and in schools prohibited. Now their goal was to gain equal voting rights as well. The two main civil rights groups at the time, SNCC and SNCL, both worked together to make this goal happen.

Blacks realized that this would be a first step in gaining total equality. King and about 770 people, mainly children, participated in a demonstration outside the courthouse on February first. Although they were all arrested, the following day, another 550 children joined in the march and were also arrested. 500 more were arrested three days later. About three thousand black protesters in total were in Dallas County jails. Civil Rights leaders were being hurt and shot.

By the end of the summer of 1964, they had been arrested in Mississippi over a thousand times, shot at thirty-five times, and beaten eighty times. They bombed thirty churches, buildings, and homes. Three of the civil rights leaders were killed. On March seventh, six hundred protesters marched from Selma across the Edmund Pets Bridge, but stopped when they saw a group of state troopers blocking the way to Montgomery ahead of them.

The police chief gave them two minutes to turn around and return to their church before they physically would put an end to the march. The Black people refused to move, and stood still in prayer. Since they refused to turn around, the police troopers and many people protested violently, which is why the day is referred to as Bloody Sunday. Many people were injured that day, and seventy-eight of them had to go to the hospital. Despite all that they had been through, they refused to give up.

Two thousand people took part in the second attempt for the march on March ninth. When they came close to the police, they knelt down and prayed, causing the police to clear the way for them. Blacks received the right to vote in March 15, 1965 as a result. Assassination King had been working on the Poor Peoples campaign in Washington which was to take place in 1968. His plan was for poor people all over to camp out on public property to gain attention. He was planing this event when he was called to go to Memphis, Tennessee.

There he supported a sanitation workers strike in the city. Many people opposed what he was doing, namely the FBI and official Washington. They complained that they were trying to change the economic system instead of trying to become integrated into it. King knew before his death that his life was in danger. King was shot on April fourth, 1968.

James Earl Ray admitted to killing him and was sent to jail without a trial, forced to serve ninety-nine years. King was shot while standing on the balcony of a motel in Memphis. There were many riots and fires protesting Martin Luther s death, in one hundred and twenty five cities in twenty-eight states. Forty-five people were killed, forty of them were black. Six days later, congress passed a civil rights bill that made discrimination in housing and riots illegal. There have been many investigations over the years about the assassination.

Some believe that it was a white conspiracy, who opposed strongly to his concern to help the poor, particularly the sanitation workers. According to his family, King was murdered because over the past few years he had become more radical. He was now not only interested in the rights of blacks, but also in the rights of poor people and in ending the Vietnam war, which he spoke out about. They believed that the government and the FBI feared his new ideas and arranged to have him killed. Conclusion Martin Luther King Jr. was an incredible civil rights leader who changed the world forever.

His excellent speaking skills and education were of great benefit to the work he accomplished. The Montgomery Bus Boycott, which King led, was the first major step in improving life for the black people. After the march in Birmingham, King was arrested for standing up for what he believed in. King s I have a dream speech became very famous because of his obvious love and belief of what he preached.

Though Bloody Sunday has gone down in history books for its gruesomeness, it resulted in voting rights for black people. Martin Luther s assassination still remains a mystery and is still a topic of much debate. Although Martin Luther King Jr. has advanced the civil rights movement greatly, there is still much to be done.

As the saying goes, Even the journey of a thousand miles starts with just the first step.


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Research essay sample on Martin Luther King Jr Montgomery Bus Boycott

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