Martin Luther King, Jr. was a pastor who organized nonviolent protests. He also sparked the civil rights movement. He wasn’t a violent man, he wanted peace for blacks and whites. Martin Luther King jr. was born on January 15, 1929 in Atlanta GA. He attended David T. Howard Elementary School. Then he attended Washington High school. At the age of 15, he went to Morehouse College in Atlanta Georgia. Martin’s dad was a preacher which inspired Martin to be a preacher. He had a younger brother (Alfred Daniel Williams King) and an older sister (Willie Christine KIng Farris). He has inspired many people like me and he did some amazing things in a little amount of time.
His father and grandfather were Baptist preachers. His parents were college-educated, and King’s father had succeeded his father-in-law as pastor. They lived on Auburn Avenue. It was home to some of the country’s largest and most prosperous black businesses and black churches in years before the civil rights movement.
He never forgot the time when he was six years old, his white friend said that his parents would no longer let him play with Martin, because his parents didn’t want him to play with any Africian-Americans. After that, Martin never seen him again. When he was around 12 years old, he went to a parade even though his parents told him not to, while he was there, his grandmother had a fatal heart attack and passed away. When he figured out what happened, he got so upset with himself that he attempted sucide. Luckily, his attempt failed
When he was 15 years old, he went to Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia. He studied medicine and law while in college. When he was a senior, he made a decision to enter the ministry because his father wanted him to. His mentor at Morehouse was the college president, Benjamin Mays. At age 19 he graduated from college. He met Coretta Scott while working for his doctorate in Boston, Machetes in 1953. Martin Luther King jr Received Doctorate of Philosophy in Systematic Theology from Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts on June 5, 1955. After that, he started to spark the civil rights movement.
Before Martin Luther King, there was a man who wanted black people to play baseball with the whites. Since we were still segregated at that time, they wouldn’t let blacks and whites play together at all. On Feb 13, 1920, Andrew Foster and his team owners filled that void when they came together to create the Negro National League. the continued development of the sport led to attempts to exclude blacks from its highest ranks. In 1867, the National Association of Baseball Players elected to reject applications from African American clubs. In 1876, the professional National League was formed by owners desire on keeping it a white man’s game.
The Negro National League was one of the several Negro leagues which were founded during the time in the United States in which organized baseball was segregated. in 1876, owners of the professional National League adopted a “gentleman’s agreement” to keep blacks out. Subsequent African American players found their greatest opportunities with traveling teams until 1920, when Rube Foster launched the Negro National League. Reformulated several times with new leagues and owners, Negro League baseball enjoyed periods of success in the early1920s and again after the Great Depression. However, Jackie Robinson’s integration of baseball in 1947 prompted a slow but irreversible influx of talent to the majors, and the remaining Negro League teams generally folded by the 1960s.
The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a civil-rights protest where African Americans refused to ride city buses in Montgomery, Alabama, to protest against segregated seating. It took place from December 5, 1955, to December 20, 1956, and is the first demonstration against segregation.
On December 1, 1955, African-American seamstress Rosa Parks was coming home on Montgomery’s Cleveland Avenue bus from her job at a department store. She was in the front row of the “colored section.” When the white seats filled, the driver, J. Fred Blake, asked Rosa and three others to give up their seats. The other African-Americans did what he asked, but Rosa Parks didn’t.
She was arrested and fined $10, plus $4 in court fees. This was not her first encounter with Blake. In 1943, she had paid her fare at the front of a bus he was driving, then exited so she could re-enter through the back door, as required. Blake pulled away before she could get on the bus.
The sit-ins started on 1 February 1960, when four black students from North Carolina A & T College sat down at a Woolworth’s lunch counter in downtown Greensboro, North Carolina.
The students purchased several items in the store before sitting at the counter reserved for white customers. A waitress asked them to leave, they politely refused to the blacks side surprisingly, they didn’t get arrested. T
he students stayed seated for almost an hour until the store closed. The next morning about two dozen students arrived at Woolworth’s and sat at the lunch counter.
Although no fighting or arguments occurred, the second sit-in brought in the local media.
By day three of the campaign, the students formed the Student Executive Committee for Justice to coordinate protests. Participating in the sit-in spread quickly among the students of North Carolina A&T. Local students increased the effectiveness of the protest as demonstrators were arrested by local law enforcement and removed from the counter, others would take their place.
In the beginning of the school year (September 25, 1957), there was a mob of angry white people at Little Rock Central High, waiting for the nine black students to arrive. When eight of the students started walking towards them, one part of the mob started chanting “TWO, FOUR, SIX, EIGHT, WE AIN’T GONNA INTEGRATE!”. At the time, Elizabeth Eckford didn’t have a phone, so, she had no idea that the other eight students had met up somewhere to walk in as a group. Elizabeth had to walk inside Little Rock Central High by herself. While Elizabeth was walking towards Little Rock Central High, the mob had gotten more aggressive and they started yelling at her. An old lady even spit on her, but that’s just their first day, let’s go on to the rest of the year.
During the school year, President Eisenhower had troops escorted them inside the school. Even though they had a personal guard, that still didn’t stop them from getting bullied. In the hallways, people would yell insults at them. The boys would get beaten up, and their lockers were destroyed by some students. In the bathroom, the caucasion students would throw flaming paper wads at the black students. Melba had lit sticks of dynamite thrown at her, she was stabbed, and she had acid sprayed in her eyes. On three different occasions, they tried to stand up for themselves.
On December 17, 1957, Minnijean was suspended for six days because she stood up for herself. When she came back in January, she was warned not to stand up for herself, she was told to wait for an administrator to solve the issue. Sometime in February, she was expelled from Little Rock High because she called a girl “white trash”, because the white girl strucked Minnijean with her purse.
In September 1958, they closed down all the high schools in Little Rock. It was closed because they did not want to desegregate the high schools. In May 1958, was when Ernest Green graduated from high school. A month later, someone offered anyone $10,000 to kill the other eight students.
On November 9,1999, the Little Rock Nine was honored by receiving the Congressional Gold Medal in honor of sparking desegregation of public schools. They help fight for our education, in which we are still fighting for it today.
Speaking about education, Dwight d Esienhower helped end segregation in public schools. President Dwight D. Eisenhower decided to take action when nine African-American students are prevented from entering Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. They had a broadcast to the nation on September 24, 1957, the president explains his decision to order Federal troops to Little Rock to ensure that the students are allowed access to the school, as mandated by the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education.
Marbury v. Madison legal case in which, on February 24, 1803, the U.S. Supreme Court first declared an act of Congress unconstitutional, that was establishing the doctrine of judicial review. The court’s opinion, written by Chief Justice John Marshall, is considered one of the foundations of U.S. constitutional law.The chief justice recognized the situation that the case posed to the court. If the court issued a writ of mandamus, Jefferson could simply ignore it, because the court had no power to enforce it. On the other hand, the court refused to issue the writ, it would appear that the judicial branch of government had backed down before the executive, and Marshall would not allow that .
Marbury v. Madison set a precedent for the court’s power in that area, it did not end debate over the court’s purview, it has continued for more than two centuries. It is likely that the issue will never be fully resolved. But the fact remains that the court has claimed and exercised the power of judicial review through most of U.S. history—and, as Judge Learned Hand noted more than a century later, the country is used to it by now. Moreover, the principle fits well with the government’s commitment to checks and balances.
Marshall’s verdict has been widely hailed. In the face of attacks on the judiciary launched by Jefferson and his followers, Marshall needed to make a strong statement to maintain the status of the Supreme Court as the head of a coequal branch of government. By asserting the power to declare acts of Congress unconstitutional (which the court would not exercise again for more than half a century), Marshall claimed for the court a paramount position as interpreter of the Constitution.
“ I was in the choir and I took workshop. Carl B Huterson was my teacher when I was there. I didn’t do any sports except for when I was in the gym. We played mostly basketball. When the whites came, the blacks would take their money, they would just be plain out bullies. The first year of desegregation, there was 90 percent of blacks and 10 percent of whites. I wasn’t to do autoshop my first year because they said I had to join my second year so, I joined the next year. In each class, I had about 3 to 4 white people.I didn’t like it, we had to watch the way we talk, we had to act goody two shoes, basically change our personalities. In my opinion, we had better education with all black students.” -George Woodson
“ It was exciting to attend Dunbar High School! They had some amazing teachers, but they were really strict. Some people who graduated from Dunbar High School are doing some great things! There are two twins named Frank and Harry, they graduated from Dunbar High, and they became medical doctors! They practice in Richmond. James Giarles became a federal judge in pennsylvania. Mary Hatwood Furtell was the president of the national association of education. M.W. Thornhill was the 1st black mayor . I became the second black mayor. You know what we all have in common? We all graduated from Dunbar High! In my opinion, I wanted it to remain a high school, it had a tremendous history, but they made their decision. Every other year or so, we have a dunbar reunion for people who graduated from dunbar high, the oldest we have now in 1930. Overall, Dunbar was a great school.”-Carl B. Huterson
“My childhood was very exciting. We played a lot outside. We played hide and seek, 123 red light. I went to Armstrong Elementary School, then I was transferred to R.S. Payne, then I went to Robert E. Lee in my 7th grade year. In the 8th grade, I went to Dunbar Jr. high! In the 9th gate that’s when they desegregated schools. They closed Robert E. Lee High school. In the year of 1970, I was the first class to desegregate Dunbare Jr. High School. I went there in the 9th and the 10th then I transferred to E.C Glass and I graduated in the year of 1974 and I was in the first class to graduate in 74 when they desegregated schools. I had my 45th class reunion this past September and now they are trying to do a big article in the paper pertaining to the class of 1970 when they desegregated schools and the class of 74 cause we were the first students to graduate highschools once they desegregated it. I was kinda use to their treatment because I had some white friends. When they desegregated them I was kinda okay with it because I had experience with them. Also because I had white friends that was went with me to Dunbar. In my neighborhood, I grew up with white and blacks kinda mixed together. Also that where most of the teachers that teaches at Dunbar thats where they lived at.” -Mrs. Paula Edward
All of this plays into my theme because Martin Luther King help spark everything that happened. His famous “I Have a Dream” speech started many events. He was leading the March to Washington D.C. In 1957 became the first president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference . With that, he led an unsuccessful 1962 struggle against segregation in Albany, Georgia, and helped organize the nonviolent 1963 protests in Birmingham, Alabama. All of this inspired different people to help Africans stand up for our rights, for us to be treated fairly. Even though they say we have the same rights as others, we still aren’t treated the same way the caucation people are. Martin Luther King Jr. led the bus boycott in 1955 that was sparked by Rosa Parks. He helped form the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957 which was an organization that worked for civil rights. He led the March on Washington. He started the sit-ins. That played a major part of what we have today
We are now able to go to the same schools with brlack and white students. We’re able to vote now in the same room as everybody else. Barak Obama alowed same-sex marriage. We are allowed to play any sports. We are able to have the same rights as them. They say that we are equal, but that’s not the whole story. Some people treat us unfairly because we don’t look like them, we don’t act like them. Schools have gotten much worse. It’s getting so bad that people are killing themselves because of bullying. To this day we are still fighting for equality. We are still fighting for respect. We are fighting not just for us but for the future generations and our past generations. We will continue the fight. We were struggling and we still are today!
