Martin Luther King, Jr. Posters & Prints, pg 4/4

America in the 20th Century -
The Troubled Decade, 1963-1974, Wall Poster
JFK, Man on the Moon, MLK Jr., LBJ, Richard Nixon/Watergate

2). .... it came as the civil rights movement in the South and elsewhere was cresting. the age of non-violent protest, as typlified by the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. achieved temendous victories. The most notable of those victories were the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965, which ended segregatin of public facilities and protected the voting rights of minorities. But the deeper problems of black urban ghettos remained, exploding in many bloody riots in the mid-1960s.

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Martin Luther King, Jr. was a man who symbolized peace, nonviolence, and love for all human beings. Yet during his short life, he was often a victim of hatred and violence. And it was an act of terrible violence that finally ended his life in 1968. Today, Martin Luther King is one of only three Americans whose birthdays are celebrated as national holidays. And the other two were U.S. Presidents.

Martin Luther King was born in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1929. His father was a minister at a local Baptist church, and Martin grew up surrounded by religion and listening to his father's powerful voice. Later in life, he imitated this speaking style in his emotional speeches. Martin was such a good student that he was able to skip the 9th and 12th grades. He entered Morehouse College in Atlanta at the age of 15 and began studying to be a minister. After his schooling, King got a job as pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. In 1958, a black woman in Montgomery named Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white passenger. Martin Luther King helped organize and lead a boycott of the Montgomery buses. This marked the beginning of Reverend King's long fight against prejudice and discrimination.

Martin Luther King believed that the nonviolent tactics of leaders like India's Mohandas Gandhi were the best way to work for change. He lead many protest marches and demostrations calling for equal rights for blacks. In 1963, he lead a huge march on Washington, D.C. that drew more than 200,000 people. There, he delivered his now-famous "I Have A Dream" speech. In 1964, Rev. King was awared the Nobel Peace Prize for his work to gain equality for black and his efforts to help the poor. In 1968, while in Memphis to help striking workers, Martin Luther King was assassinated by a white man named James Earl Ray. On his grave are words he spoke at the 1963 March on Washington: "Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, I'm free at last."

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