Martin Luther King, Jr: Crash Course Black American History #36

Today we’re going to learn about perhaps the best-known leader in the Civil Rights Era, Martin Luther King, Jr. From his rise to notoriety during the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955, his leadership of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the March on Washington in 1963, his work toward the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts of the mid-1960s, and his assassination in 1968, Dr. King is very broadly known. But maybe he isn’t that well understood. Like many extremely famous people, Martin Luther King can sometimes be drawn as a bit of a flat character, and his ideas can be reduced to platitudes. Today we’ll try to give you a fuller picture of the man and leader he was.

Clint’s book, How the Word is Passed is available now!

SOURCES:
Rustin, “Montgomery Diary,” Liberation (April 1956): 7–10.
D’Emilio, Lost Prophet, 2003.
King to Edward P. Gotlieb, 18 March 1960, in Papers 5:390–391.

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