In 1955, Rosa Parks was coming home from a long day at work as a seamstress. She was tired and j

The SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference) with MLK as their leader was moving through the country and decided to focus on Birmingham, Alabama in 1963. The leader of the protest believed police would use violence on them. King and the SCLC asked teens and children to join their cause. When hundreds of singing children filled the Birmingham streets, the police commissioner decided to send policemen with attack dogs and high-pressure water hoses out to “control the mob.” These violent acts upon the African American children were televised across the world. Clergymen soon began to criticize Dr. King's movement, which caused so much disorder in the city. King responded with the "Letter from Birmingham Jail". This letter, dated April 16, 1963, was aimed primarily at an educated white middle class audience, talked about the difference between just and unjust laws.

King ended his speech in a powerful manner by saying, “let freedom ring…Free at last! free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!” Sources say that the crowd was so awed by his speech that it took a minute or so before they realized the magnitude of his speech and erupted in clapping. (Haskins, p.83)

ust wanted to rest her feet. It was customary in those days to have the African American people ride in the back of the bus and when the bus filled up the African American people had to relinquish their seats on the bus to a white person just because of their color. Well, this day was a little different. Rosa Parks was told by the bus driver her that she had to get our of her seat so a the white man that just boarded the bus could sit down. The law stated that she had to give up her spot but she did not want to give up her seat to a man. Why should she have to? So, she refused to move from her seat, thus creating a scene when the bus driver called the police to arrest her. The first man to learn of her arrest was the president of the NAACP, E.D. Nixon, and he posted her bail. Once word spread about her story, they suggested that blacks should boycott the busing system. MLK!

Soon thereafter on August 28, 1963, Martin Luther King delivered one of the most remembered and powerfully invigorating speeches ever delivered. More than 200,000 people assembled for a march to the Lincoln Memorial. Despite the much-anticipated violence from police it turned out to be one of the happiest and peaceful demonstrations the capital has ever seen. King’s speech, I have a dream, depicts the fact that the Negro person is still not free and is still subjected to much segregation. He spoke eloquently about how the Negro population will not be content and they will not rest until they are granted citizenship, they will not turn back and be satisfied with what they have. He told the masses about his dream. His dream to have equality. His dream to have former slaves and slave-owners sitting down to dinner together. His dream to have black and white children playing together and holding hands. And the most famous line of his speech is his dream “that my four 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.” (Haskins, p. 82)

Dr. King went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 and in 1966 he moved his civil rights movement to the North and continued his marches and non-violent protests and speeches. Tragedy struck when James Earl Ray assassinated MLK at his hotel on April 4, 1968. The African American community held a memorial march for MLK where his widow, Coretta Scott King, said a few words about how people needed to carry on his legacy and continue what he worked so hard to promote.

The Title III of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited discrimination in public facilities because of a person’s race, color, religion, or national origin. At the same time as the sit-ins, Freedom Ride protesters and numerous non-violent marches were continuing

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