In 1957 he was elected president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization formed to provide new leadership for the now burgeoning civil rights movement. The ideals for this organization he took from Christianity; its operational techniques from Gandhi. In the eleven-year period between 1957 and 1968, King traveled over six million miles and spoke over twenty-five hundred times, appearing wherever there was injustice, protest, and action; and meanwhile he wrote five books as well as numerous articles. In these years, he led a massive protest in Birmingham, Alabama, that caught the attention of the entire world, providing what he called a coalition of conscience. and inspiring his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”, a manifesto of the Negro revolution; he planned the drives in Alabama for the registration of Negroes as voters; he directed the peaceful march on Washington, D.C., of 250,000 people to whom he delivered his address, “l Have a Dream”, he conferred with President John F. Kennedy and campaigned for President Lyndon B. Johnson; he was arrested upwards of twenty times and assaulted at least four times; he was awarded five honorary degrees; was named Man of the Year by Time magazine in 1963; and became not only the symbolic leader of American blacks but also a world figure. source.
I think MLK was a great man, with great vision. We are all better today because of his work. However, MLK’s message and efforts are lost with men like Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Malcom X, Farrakhan.
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Related Reading:
I See Black People: The Rise and Fall of African American-Owned Television and RadioWhy are so few radio and television stations currently owned by African Americans? The airwaves are public resources; they belong to the people. And yet minorities, who form 33 percent of the population, control only 3 percent of the broadcast media. African Americans own less than 1 percent of all television station in the country. How did we reach this point?
In I See Black People, journalist Kristal Brent Zook talks with the people who have struggled to retain an independent voice within the media despite the consolidations that have swept through the industry. Zook tells the story of Dorothy Brunson, one of the first African American women to own a radio station in America, and Catherine Liggins Hughes who faced overwhelming challenges establishing Radio One but ultimately became the first black woman in the country to own a publicly traded company. Set against these rare examples of success are people like Robert Short, who lost his Syracuse station in 2000 and describes the negative impact that this had on his local community. And Chauncey Bailey, who made it his life’s work to bring local African American programming to Oakland, California, but was tragically murdered earlier this year while working on a story.
I See Black People makes a powerful case that ownership does matter. When the media fails to reflect the diversity of its audience, it is inevitably the voices of the least powerful that vanish first from the airwaves.
African-American Odyssey, The, Combined Volume (5th Edition)The African-American Odyssey is a compelling story of agency, survival, struggle and triumph over adversity. The authors highlight what it has meant to be black in America and how African-American history is inseparably woven into the greater context of American history. The text provides accounts of the lives of ordinary men and women alongside those of key African-Americans and the impact they have had on the struggle for equality to illuminate the central place of African-Americans in U.S. history more than any other text.
Martin's Big Words: The Life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.This picture-book biography is an excellent and accessible introduction for young readers to learn about one of the world’s most influential leaders, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Doreen Rappaport weaves the immortal words of Dr. King into a captivating narrative to tell the story of his life. With stunning art by acclaimed illustrator Bryan Collier, Martin’s Big Words is an unforgettable portrait of a man whose dream changed America—and the world—forever.
Body and Soul: The Black Panther Party and the Fight against Medical DiscriminationBetween its founding in 1966 and its formal end in 1980, the Black Panther Party blazed a distinctive trail in American political culture. The Black Panthers are most often remembered for their revolutionary rhetoric and militant action. Here Alondra Nelson deftly recovers an indispensable but lesser-known aspect of the organization’s broader struggle for social justice: health care. The Black Panther Party’s health activism—its network of free health clinics, its campaign to raise awareness about genetic disease, and its challenges to medical discrimination—was an expression of its founding political philosophy and also a recognition that poor blacks were both underserved by mainstream medicine and overexposed to its harms.
Drawing on extensive historical research as well as interviews with former members of the Black Panther Party, Nelson argues that the Party’s focus on health care was both practical and ideological. Building on a long tradition of medical self-sufficiency among African Americans, the Panthers’ People’s Free Medical Clinics administered basic preventive care, tested for lead poisoning and hypertension, and helped with housing, employment, and social services. In 1971, the party launched a campaign to address sickle-cell anemia. In addition to establishing screening programs and educational outreach efforts, it exposed the racial biases of the medical system that had largely ignored sickle-cell anemia, a disease that predominantly affected people of African descent.
The Black Panther Party’s understanding of health as a basic human right and its engagement with the social implications of genetics anticipated current debates about the politics of health and race. That legacy—and that struggle—continues today in the commitment of health activists and the fight for universal health care.
The Norton Anthology of African American LiteratureWelcomed on publication as "brilliant, definitive, and a joy to teach from," The Norton Anthology of African American Literature was adopted at more than 1,275 colleges and universities worldwide. Now, the new Second Edition offers these highlights.
