Bonjour,
Martin Luther King junior, born in Atlanta, is from a family of pastors and enjoys a rather supportive social environment. In 1954 he became a Baptist pastor and practiced in Montgomery, Alabama. In 1955, he took the lead in support for Rosa Parks stopped by the police for refusing to give way to a white man on a bus, and launched a call for a boycott of the bus company of the city. Despite the intimidation, the boycott will last a year until the Supreme Court wrong the bus company.
The media impact of this victory led Martin Luther King to found the SCLC (Southern Christian Leaders' Conference) with other black personalities and to become its president. As a supporter of non-violence, he decided to extend the civil rights struggle of blacks to the whole of the United States.
Inspired by Henri-David Thoreau (1817-1862), author of "Civic Disobedience," and admirer of Gandhi (1869-1948), Martin Luther King traveled to India in 1959 to deepen his knowledge of Satyagraha, Gandhi.
In 1963 he headed large campaigns for civil rights, black voting rights, the end of segregation, better education. He is arrested several times. In his speech of 28 August 1963, "I have a dream", in front of 250,000 people, he calls for a country where all men share the same rights in justice and peace. The violence of the security forces and the harassment of segregationists in the face of peaceful struggles engender a wave of sympathy among public opinion for the civil rights movement.
In 1964, Martin Luther King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for which he was the youngest winner. Most of the rights for which he militates are voted as laws with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
After his success in the south of the United States, Martin Luther King settled in Chicago in 1966 and sought to expand the movement in the north of the country. The protests he organized in Chicago provoked an even more violent reaction than in the south.
In 1967, he declares himself against the war in Vietnam, believing that the United States "occupy the country like an American colony". It is committed to the fight against poverty and organizes the "Campaign of the Poor" to tackle the problems of economic justice.
Martin Luther King dies assassinated by a white segregationist on April 4, 1968 in Memphis while supporting a garbage strike.
Voila !
