Masuda M's List: Research Project

• Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965
• The Civil Rights Movement was at a peak from 1955-1965
• ranging from the 1955-1956 Montgomery bus boycott to the student-led sit-ins of  the 1960s to the huge March on Washington in 1963.

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• Wilkins also feared that the fact that Rustin had been imprisoned several times  for both refusing to fight in the armed forces and for acts of homosexuality,  would be used against him in the days leading up to the march. However, Martin Luther King and Philip  Randolph insisted that he was the best person for the job.
  
• I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.

• Thrust into the national spotlight in Birmingham, where he was arrested and  jailed, King helped organize a massive march on Washington, DC, on August 28,  1963.
• I Have a Dream" speech, which is credited with mobilizing supporters of  desegregation and prompted the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The next year, King was  awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
• I have a dream that one day 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."

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• Martin Luther King, Jr. catapulted to fame when he came to the assistance of Rosa Parks, the Montgomery, Alabama Black seamstress who refused to give
• Black Americans needed a Martin Luther King, but above all America  needed him
• • On December 10, 1964, Dr. King received the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway.  
     

  1965
• On April 4, 1968, Dr. King's  life was ended by an assassin's s bullet while he was on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee
• He desperately wanted to see a change

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• Martin Luther King Jr. saw a social problem, developed a dream, and eventually by taking action he changed the United States as well as the world.  He is still today among the most well known social activists in the world.
• Martin Luther King Jr. led the bus boycott in 1955 that was sparked by Rosa Parks.
• Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957 which was an organization that worked for civil rights
• fought for and achieve mandatory equal voting rights in America for blacks and whites.
• nonviolent peaceful demonstrations proved to the world that action without violence can be effective and successful.

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• segregated seating on buses unconstitutional.
• A group of about 50 black leaders and one white minister, Robert   Graetz, gathered in the basement of King's church to endorse the boycott   and begin planning a massive rally for the evening of the trial. Graetz   offered his support from the pulpit o
• (NAACP), which had been looking for a test case for   segregation, began preparing for the legal challenge.
• That   evening 7,000 blacks crowded into Holt Street Baptist Church, where King   inspired the audience with his words: "There comes a time when people   get tired of being trampled over by the iron feet of oppression."

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• Although King's home was dynamited and his family's safety threatened, he continued to lead the boycott until, one year and a few weeks later, the blacks of Montgomery achieved their goal of desegregation of the city's buses.

• · 1964 Nobel Peace Prize Winner
  
• King was chosen as president of the Montgomery Improvement Association [MIA], which directed the bus boycott – which lasted more than a year.
  
• The judge ruled in favor of MIA, ordered the city's buses to be desegregated, the City of Montgomery appealed the ruling to US Supreme Court. By 1956 the lower court's ruling was upheld the Supreme Court upheld.
  
• (SCLC), an organization comprised of black churches and ministers. SCLC's principle aim was to challenge racial segregation. SCLC's sought to complement the NAACP's legal efforts in the courts, and

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• The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was
• He began to travel the country, make speeches and inspire people to become involved in what became known as the modern civil rights movement.

• Dr. King started SCLC as a non-violent route to equal rights for people of color. Today, we want his legacy to also stand for non-violence, conflict resolution all over the world.’’
  

• originated the nonviolence strategy within the activist civil rights movement. He was one of the most important black leaders of his era.
• Elected president of the MIA, King's life was in constant danger. His home was bombed, and he and other MIA leaders were threatened, harassed, arrested, and jailed.
• King was elected president. A few months later he met Vice President Richard Nixon at the celebration of Ghanaian independence in Accra. A year later King and three other black civil righ
• King urged the young people to continue using nonviolent means. Out of this meeting the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) emerged. For a time the SNCC worked closely with the SCLC, though ultimately the two groups went their separate ways.
• The idea was to "put the sit-ins on the road" by having pairs of black and white volunteers board interstate buses traveling through the South to test compliance with a new Federal law forbidding segregated accommodations in bus stations. A great deal of violence resulted, as resisting whites overturned and burned buses, assaulted the Freedom Riders, and attacked newsmen. Many of the arrested riders went to prison rather than pay fines. However, public furor moved the Interstate Commerce Commission to enforce non-segregation laws in buses engaged in interstate transportation and in their servicing terminals.

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• January 30. King's house bombed.
• King meets with President John F. Kennedy to urge support for civil rights.
• April 4. King is assassinated in Memphis, Tenn., by James Earl Ray.

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