Biography of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Leading the Nation's Civil Rights Movement

In 1957, Dr. King rose from local to national leadership. On January 11, he became chairman of the Southern Negro Leaders Conference on Transportation and Nonviolent Integration, a group that was later renamed Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). On February 18, his picture appeared on the cover of Time magazine. On May 17, he was honored in Washington, D. C., and delivered "Give Us the Ballot," his first speech to the nation. On August 8, he launched a voter registration drive across the entire South.

In September 1958, Dr. King came out with his first book, Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story, which told the story of the bus boycott and explained nonviolent protest. At a book signing in New York City, a woman named Izola Curry stabbed Dr. King, and he was rushed to Harlem Hospital. While in the hospital, Dr. King issued a statement forgiving his attacker and reaffirming his faith in "the spirit of non-violence."

By early 1959, Dr. King had recovered enough to visit India for several weeks. There he met with Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and other followers of Gandhi, his guiding light along a nonviolent path to civil rights. On returning to the United States, the reverend compared race problems in his country with the caste system in India.

In January 1960, Dr. King left his church in Montgomery to assist his father at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. His new position gave him more time for civil rights work. Meanwhile, African American students in other parts of the South were also carrying on nonviolent protests. On February 1, four college freshmen in Greensboro, North Carolina, sat down at a "whites-only" lunch counter and refused to move. Soon African American students across the South were conducting "sit-ins" at lunch counters. On April 15, African Americans attending Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina, formed the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to organize nonviolent protests at lunch counters and other segregated locations. Later that month, about 50 African Americans staged a "wade-in" at an all-white beach in Biloxi, Mississippi, setting off riots in the city. Then, in May, civil rights protestors got welcome news: President Dwight D. Eisenhower had signed the 1960 Civil Rights Act.