Martin Luther King

Modern History - Part One
Martin Luther King Jr, was born January 15th 1929. He was an American clergyman, activist, and an outstanding leader in the African American Civil Rights movement.   During the 1950’s King became active in the civil rights movement and the movement for racial equality. His main legacy was to secure progress on civil rights in the United States.
The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a political and social protest campaign which was created in 1955, in Montgomery, USA.   It was projected to oppose the city’s policy of racial segregation on it public transit system.   Martin Luther King joined the Bus Boycott in 1955, and in December he was elected president of the Montgomery Improvement Association, making him the official spokesman for the Boycott.   King made many national appearances, fame was brought to him from the Bus Boycott and he was featured on the cover of Time magazine, and his reputation also granted him and invitation to celebrations of the independence of the African Nation of Ghana from British colonial rule.
In January 1957, Martin Luther King invited 60 black ministers and leaders to a church in Atlanta. Their objective was to form an organisation to manage and support non-violent direct action as a method of desegregating bus systems across the south. In February follow up meetings were held, and the outcome of these meetings was a new organisation was formed with Martin Luther King as its president. The organisation was called ‘Negro Leaders Conference on National Integration’, then ‘Southern Negro Leaders Conference’, the group ultimately chose ‘Southern Christian Leadership Conference’ (SCLC) as its name, and they also extended their focus not only on buses but to ending all forms of segregation. During its earliest years, SCLC struggled to gain footholds in black churches and communities across the South. Only a few churches had the bravery to defy the white-dominated status-quo by connecting with the SCLC, and those who...