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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"The power of Islam (is) best seen when compared to the failure of Christianity: First, Christianity has failed you because it was the religion which first placed you in slavery. Secondly, Christianity has failed you because through its doctrine of turning the other cheek it has rendered you incapable of defending yourself in the hour of peril. Thirdly, Christianity had failed you because it has caused you to forsake the pursuit of justice in this world in the pursuit of an illusory and nonexistent justice beyond the grave." (Pg. 12)
"The Indians, the first people who were sent---who migrated to America---the Indians were also the enemies of Allah." (Pg. 22)
"You cannot blame the white man for what he is, you cannot blame him for being merciless, for the white people were made the people that they are." (Pg. 41)
"Rev. Martin Luther King taught you to submit to the white man and to become one of them. All of your life you have known that this is destruction---after so-called freedom. It is the same as the dog returning to his vomit. The Black man was vomited out of the white man and now goes back to the white man..." (Pg. 95)
"I have warned you for nearly forty (40) years that Allah (God) in the Person of Master Fard Muhammad ... came to me and gave me the knowledge of the truth; and I have been preaching it to you continually." (Pg. 161)
"We, the Muslims, have tried to live in peace here in America. There is not a single incident in our thirty-six years of history where we have ever made an aggressive move against you, but you have attacked us several times." (Pg. 166-167)
"Moses and Jesus are the most outstanding prophets in the history of the Caucasian race for the past four thousand years." (Pg. 174)
