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The Principles Of Nonviolerance: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

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The Principles Of Nonviolerance: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
For Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday, I've been reflecting on the principles of nonviolence that he learned during the historic yearlong bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama. After Rosa Parks refused to sit in the back of the bus, broke the segregation law, and was arrested on Dec. 1, 1955, the African-American leadership in Montgomery famously chose young Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to lead their campaign. He was an unknown quantity. Certainly, no one expected him to emerge as a Moses-like tower of strength. No one imagined he would invoke Gandhi's method of nonviolent resistance in Christian language as the basis for the boycott. But from day one, he was a force to be reckoned with. With the help of Bayard Rustin and Glenn Smiley of
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