Biography of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Gaining—and Losing—Ground

Despite the passage of the 1960 Civil Rights Act, Dr. King was uncertain that
Eisenhower and the Republican Party would champion desegregation. Dr. King met with John F. Kennedy, the Democratic candidate for president. It was the first of several meetings between the freedom fighter and the future president. In 1961, King urged President Kennedy to issue an executive order, similar to Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, to eliminate segregation. Instead, the government's Interstate Commerce Commission finally started to enforce equal treatment of passengers on buses nationwide.

In 1962, Dr. King and the SCLC began "People-to-People" campaigns to encourage African Americans to register to vote. He promoted his message of nonviolent change from Clarksdale, Mississippi, to Petersburg, Virginia, to Montgomery, Alabama. Meanwhile, many whites and even some African Americans tried to undermine his work. White officials in Albany, Georgia, put Dr. King in jail. Around the same time, Malcolm X, a leader in the African American Nation of Islam, was arguing that African Americans should stay separate from whites rather than integrate with them. Malcolm X also questioned the value of nonviolent protest when whites responded by bombing, beating, and killing protesters.

Despite persecution and criticism, Dr. King forged ahead with a protest campaign in Birmingham, Alabama, in April 1963. Dr. King was soon arrested and sent to jail. Some clergy called his protest "unwise and untimely" and urged African Americans to wait patiently for justice. Dr. King reminded them in his "Letter from Birmingham Jail" that "We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights." After Dr. King's release from jail, the protests resumed. On May 7, Birmingham police used dogs, clubs, and cattle prods to scatter 4,000 protesters, and on May 8, Dr. King was jailed again. Three days later, whites bombed the motel where Dr. King had been staying and the home of his brother, Reverend A. D. King. A month later, civil rights leader Medgar W. Evers was murdered outside his home in Jackson, Mississippi.

African Americans and their supporters reacted to these hate crimes by rallying for civil rights. In late June 1963, more than 100,000 protesters turned out at Detroit, Michigan, to listen to Dr. King. On August 28, more than 250,000 demonstrators joined the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. At the Lincoln Memorial, Dr. King told the demonstrators of his dream that "this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.'" "I Have a Dream" remains one of the most moving speeches in American history. After the march, Dr. King and the other organizers attended a reception at the White House, where President Kennedy congratulated them on their tremendous success.

However, even the president could not stop the killing. About three weeks after the march on Washington, D.C., a bomb exploded at Birmingham's Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, killing four young girls. Dr. King urged President Kennedy to have federal agents investigate the bombing. Instead, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) tapped Dr. King's home phone. In May 2002–nearly 40 years after the bombing—ex-clansmen Thomas Blanton, Jr., and Bobby Frank Cherry were convicted on four counts of arson and murder for the crime. Both men received four consecutive life sentences.