How far has the importance of Martin Luther King’s role in the Civil Rights movement been exaggerated?

How far has the importance of Martin Luther King’s role in the Civil Rights movement been exaggerated? In the 1950s and 60s, black Americans were victim to severe and brutal racist discrimination, particularly in the southern states, where segregation was “de Jure” ( by law), the ‘Jim-Crow’ laws made sure that everyday facilities such as buses, parks and schools were segregated, with different services for black and white people and where black people were violently threatened to prevent them from voting (for example in Mississippi, any black people who tried to vote faced intimidation and even lynching , this resulted in only five per cent of the black population there registering to vote.). In the north, things were a little better, in the sense that there were laws in place to prevent the amount of legal discrimination of that in the south, however, the discrimination in the North was De Facto, these laws could not control people’s racist attitudes and racism was still an everyday experience for black people; for example in the ghettos, discrimination in employment opportunities resulted in the formation of ‘Ghettos’ where, in some parts, black Americans lived in poverty stricken communities together, in the only housing that they could afford, shabby houses in dire conditions. Throughout the country, black Americans were not given the same educational and employment opportunities as white people and they lived in fear, not only of the daily racist abusers, but also from the police officers who were supposed to protect them, in fact the police often took part in racist killings and white juries almost always acquitted whites of killing blacks. However, amongst all this racism, brave Americans emerged who struggled in the fight for black civil rights and an end to this racism, one of these people being the Baptist minister, Martin Luther King. King’s role in the Civil Rights movement was pivotal and his legacy still lives on today. However, many people believe that his role in this movement has been exaggerated, for the reason that there are other people who have also greatly contributed to this movement, some may argue people like Malcolm X and President Kennedy contributed almost as much to this movement as King himself. However, I believe he was undisputedly the key major figure in the movement for Civil Rights and the importance of his role in the movement has not been exaggerated.
King’s first major role in the Civil Rights movement was the Montgomery bus boycott. This began in Montgomery, Alabama, when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus to a white man and was arrested for breaking bus laws. This small act of protest sparked the formation of the MIA (Montgomery Improvement Association), of which King was president. The MIA then decided that the best way to generate publicity and to protest these laws would be to boycott the buses. On the first day of the boycott, the MIA accomplished their mission as the buses were empty and ten to fifteen thousand people turned out to hear King’s speech. However, despite this initial success, the partakers in the boycott were victimized hugely: members of the MIA faced huge threat, King himself was arrested twice and many churches and homes were set on fire. Nevertheless, the boycott eventually ended in success because, in December 1956, the Supreme Court declared Montgomery’s bus laws to be illegal, this meant that all other such bus services, and by implication, all segregation of public services was illegal. This was obviously one of King’s major achievements in the Civil Rights movement because it changed the laws on segregation permanently, something that other figures, like Malcolm X, failed to do. Here King shows his outstanding ability to be a leader, one of which has not been exaggerated and without great leaders like King, one could say that the conclusion of campaigns like this would not be as successful, therefore proving King to be one of the, if not the most important figures in this movement.
We can see the extent of King’s influence during the 1960s, through the different groups that were formed after the success in Montgomery when other civil rights activists were so inspired by King’s actions they formed of different organisations to contribute to this cause. For instance, black and white American students formed the SNCC (the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee) and James Farmer formed the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). King himself even formed another group, called the SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference), who trained activists in techniques of non-violent protest and how to handle the police and the media. Together, these groups achieved a great deal towards the civil rights movement.
An example of the protests that these groups organised is the sit-ins in Greensboro, North Carolina in 1960. The SNCC students here organised a sit-in at a local restaurant lunch counter, where black people were forced to stand and eat, while the white people were allowed to sit and eat, so one day, four black students sat in these prohibited seats and when they were refused service, they refused to leave. This same protest was repeated everyday after that, with more and more people taking part to support their protest and within a week, 400 SNCC members had organised sit-ins at lunch counters around the town. The word spread about these protests and inspired other students begin organising similar sit-ins in their own cities. The students involved in these protests were badly abused by those around them however, their perseverance and bravery paid off, when, by the end of 1960, these campaigners managed to desegregate lunch counters in 126 cities.
Another major protest during the civil rights movement by these groups were the ‘freedom rides’. These were organised by CORE activists in May 1961 to protest the fact that many states still had not desegregated their public transport despite the order to after the Montgomery bus boycott. CORE activists deliberately rode on buses in Birmingham, Alabama to protest this segregation. When the SNCC had heard about this, they also adopted this protest. However, both of these groups faced some of the worst violence during the civil rights movement as a result of their actions and two hundred of these freedom riders spent 40 days in jail. Despite the fact that the people involved in these boycotts faced horrific violent abuse, the brave activists showed the racists in their country that they were no longer prepared to be intimidated anymore.
The fact that these civil rights campaigners used non-violent protests highlights just how influential King was. The effects of these kinds of protests, so typical of the kind King himself would organise, spread throughout America and resulted in massive media attention, actual desegregation of public services and a tougher, more resilient reputation of the activists involved in the civil rights movement. This proves that Martin Luther King’s role was not exaggerated because he influenced countless other people to follow his example by contributing to the civil rights movement using non-violent tactics and actually making a difference. This is again something that other figureheads in the movement, who are often compared with King, people like JFK or Malcolm X did not do.
We can again, see King’s great leadership ability after his success in Montgomery, when although the desegregation law was ordered, 6 years later the city of Birmingham, Alabama still had not been desegregated, as well as this, its police force was notoriously racist and had links to the Ku Klux Klan. King organised a civil rights march, his aim being to bring national attention on Birmingham to expose its policies to the nation. In April 1963, the march went ahead with great devastation, as police and fire officers faced the peaceful protesters with dogs and fire hoses strong enough to knock bricks out of walls, they arrested over one thousand protesters, including King himself and put many in jail. The brutality of these officers is shown by a picture source of the racist officers aiming water hoses at the protesters who were already knocked down by the force of it. Photographic sources can be reliable because they let people actually see the real events that took place, however, we do not know who took the picture, this could mean that a supporter of the protesters could have taken the picture to show their bravery, which suggests that this source may be biased and seen as less reliable. Nevertheless, media attention and pictures like this source helped King to get what he wanted – to demonstrate to the nation the racism in the Birmingham. He described the racist’s attack on the peaceful protesters like “condemning a robbed man because his possession of money caused the robbery”. A month after the protest, President Kennedy intervened by putting pressure on the Governor of Birmingham, George Wallace to order the police to release all the protesters and to give more jobs to black Americans and allow them to be promoted. However, this was met with bitter resistance in the city and sadly a Ku Klux Klan bomb killed four black children in a Birmingham church.
Kennedy became more involved in the civil rights movement when he (and his brother) focused on the issue of voting rights in Birmingham. They introduced the idea that because there were more black than white people in Birmingham, if all the black people registered to vote, then they could out vote the white racists, which means that they would have greater power over the decisions made by their politicians in their state. They worked with the civil rights campaigners to organise courses where people could learn about the voting procedures. We can see from a graph of the percentage of black Americans who registered to vote in the southern states that this was a success, from 1940-1966, the percentage rapidly increases, going from under 10% to almost 60%. Graph sources are usually reliable because they show the actual facts, and therefore cannot really be biased, so we can conclude that this is a reliable source.
This was Kennedy’s main success in the civil rights movement and it was obviously a big progression, which may make it seem as if Kennedy was a passionate contributor to this movement, however throughout Kennedy’s presidency, civil rights was not a main priority for him, it was the actions of the civil rights activists, such as the “freedom riders” that forced him to face the issue, rather than him choosing to address this out of his own moral and presidential obligation. In spite of this, during his presidential role, he did lay out the foundations of what was to be the Civil Rights Act, and while in office, he accomplished various things that helped show his support towards the movement: he appointed black people to high level posts (for example, Thurgood Marshall became the first black US circuit judge); as previously stated, he forced the governors of southern states to defend the freedom riders; he sent government troops to Mississippi to ensure that one black student, James Meredith, could study at the university there; he also made a nationwide televised speech, committing himself to the movement. Despite these achievements though, many people believed that Kennedy was never completely committed to the movement; he felt sympathetic for the activists, but he was not passionate about this cause and many people believed he moved too slowly during his time in office. It was the massive media attention that the cause was getting that forced him to play a part in the movement as well as the influence of others, like Martin Luther King that led him onto achieving the things that he did. This again highlights just how influential King was, that even Presidents followed in his example. We can see now, that compared to JFK, the role of Martin Luther King definitely was not exaggerated, King obviously felt more passionately about this cause than Kennedy and, even though he had no power in the government, King still managed to achieve more towards this movement than Kennedy did, without having to be influenced or pressured by other people.
Kennedy’s lack of empathy for the civil rights campaigners was highlighted when he focused on what he thought was best for them, rather than what they actually wanted, a civil rights bill. This bill would protect civil rights for black people in the law and prevent the awful racism that was occurring, this would ensure that even though racist prejudice might still continue, actual discrimination against black people would be illegal. Instead of concentrating on this idea, Kennedy directed his interest towards the voting rights and although this was a success, it was not what the civil rights activists thought was most important; so to pressure Kennedy into introducing a civil rights bill, Martin Luther-King staged his most high profile event, the march on Washington. In August 1963, over 250,000 black and white people turned up to march on Washington and to hear King’s famous ‘I have a dream’ speech. There are many pictures of this event which show just how many people turned up to this march, this proves King’s immense popularity and impeccable leadership skills. Nothing as high profile as this event was ever organised by Malcolm X or anyone else that people may consider to have had a more important role than King in this movement, which again shows that his role was not exaggerated at all.
This event was remarkably impacting on views of civil rights in America, by 1963 civil rights was undoubtedly a national issue. However, the initial aim of the march, to pressure Kennedy was unsuccessful as in November 1963, sadly, Kennedy was assassinated. Lyndon Johnson then became President in 1963, and his time in office was much more successful than Kennedy’s. Just a few months after he became president, he signed the Civil Rights Act. This act made discrimination in areas such as housing and employment illegal. When Johnson was introducing this act on the radio, he made a speech stating how clearly he supported the Civil Rights Movement. In fact, a source of B Joseph Smitherman, the Mayor of Selma and a notorious racist, states that when Johnson made this speech, it was like Johnson had “stuck a knife in your heart”; this shows that Johnson was not afraid of the racists and was determined to make America an equal country. This source is good to see how people actually felt during this time, but we do not know who he said this to, or what the context of this quote was from, which makes me question its reliability. As well as this, Johnson was more forceful than Kennedy in Congress, he pressured the members to sign the Voting Rights Act, in 1965, which meant that instead of voting being organised and controlled by local government, the federal government was now in control and literacy tests were banned. This led to thousands of African Americans who previously had been bullied and essentially denied the right to vote, the chance to finally make some changes in their local government. Additionally, Johnson also appointed the first ever black American to the White House cabinet and the Supreme Court, as well as passing the Immigration act in 1965, which ended the system of racial quotas for immigrants into the USA. This proves Johnson to have been a large contributor in the movement for civil rights, however, his main achievement, the Voting Rights act was influenced by King, after he organised a march on Selma, Alabama.
This march was organised in early 1965, in Selma, Alabama, where just 2.4% of the black population there voted. The march was originally organised on 7th March, but was banned by the authorities, nevertheless the activists went ahead with it anyway (without King). Tensions rose and the activists were brutally attacked; the media called it ‘Bloody Sunday’. King tried to keep the pressure on and reorganised the march for 11th March, however it turned back over a short distance. Although this annoyed some of the more radical activists, King’s restraint helped Johnson to pass the Voting Rights Bill.
The fact that King compromised this march to avoid more violence shows his exceptional leadership skills and his ability to understand the situation and to see the bigger picture rather than getting caught up in the moment. Moreover, it suggests that without him Johnson would have had a much more difficult time signing the Voting Rights Bill and shows that his non-violent methods were more successful than being forceful and violent.
However, there were some who disagreed with King’s non-violent methods, the more radical activists, called black nationalists. These felt that force was necessary in order to achieve equality, some did not want equality so much as separation. A famous black nationalist was in fact Malcolm X. Born Malcolm Little, while imprisoned, changed his name to X after he joined the Nation of Islam, an anti-Semitic, sexist group. They believed that blacks were superior to whites and used violence to get their rights. Although Malcolm X obviously had some downsides, he did a lot for African Americans who were disillusioned with their treatment by American society. He played a key role in the development of the Black Nationalism, and the Black Power Movement, the Black Arts Movement and the idea that being black is something that you can be proud of.
A radical group that was formed on the basis of these ideas were the Black Panthers, they had around 2000 members and were a political party, but also had a small private army who clashed many times with the police. These were mainly in the north of America
Malcolm X also influenced other black nationalists; people like Stokely Carmichael, who was elected as the chairman of the SNCC in 1966, he changed the organisation to be much more radical and often publicly criticized Martin Luther King, saying that “This nation [USA] is racist from top to bottom, and does not function by morality, love and non-violence, but by power.” Another criticism of King is that he only worked in the South, he did not do anything in the north. However, this is because the south of America was the worst in terms of racism; discrimination in the south was legal, King set out to change this. There was no legal discrimination in the north, where X worked, so he did not
Martin Luther King today had around 125 schools and over 750 streets named after him; he has a public holiday in America dedicated to him, one of four in the US that are dedicated to an individual. This proves that King was not only an influential, well known man when he was alive, but his legacy also lives on. A picture source of Barack Obama, the first non-white president of America at the Martin Luther-King memorial proves this, that some of the most powerful people in the world today still take inspiration from his bravery and dedication to his cause.
Although Malcolm X, Lyndon Johnson and John F Kennedy were all hugely influential people in the movement for civil rights, none of them contributed more to this cause than Martin Luther King; despite having no political background, he managed to influence some of the most powerful people in the world to change the laws concerning black people’s civil rights