Martin Luther King Jr / John A. Kirk.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kirk, John A., 1970-

Series:

Profiles in power.

Profiles in power

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929-1968.

King, Martin Luther.

African American civil rights workers--Biography.

African American civil rights workers.

Civil rights movements--United States--History--20th century.

Civil rights movements.

United States.

History.

African Americans--Civil rights--History--20th century.

African Americans.

African Americans--Civil rights.

Baptists--United States--Clergy--Biography.

Baptists.

Clergy.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

xiii, 230 pages ; 20 cm.

Place of Publication:

Harlow : Pearson Education Ltd., 2005.

Summary:

Martin Luther King Jr exercised a tremendous degree of influence in a movement that between 1955 and 1965 successfully dismantled a system of legalised racial segregation and disfranchisement entrenched for over sixty years in the United States. How did King, who came from a subordinated group within American society, help effect this change? What background, characteristics, abilities and ideas enabled him to do this? Why was King so important in shaping the civil rights movement?

John A. Kirk looks at the sources of King's power in the black community and its relationship to wider American society, focusing particularly on the role of the black church, the philosophy of nonviolence and issues of leadership, whilst paying due attention to the voices of King's critics and detractors and to the limitations of his power. He locates King firmly within the context of other leaders and organisations, voices and opinions, and tactics and ideologies, which made up the movement as a whole.

Fifty years after the Montgomery bus boycott, which launched King's movement leadership, this book moves beyond the all-too-often oversimplified story of King's life and times to provide an innovative analytical framework for understanding the role played by one of the United States' most important historical figures.

Contents:

Introduction: King in Context 1

1 Becoming a Leader, 1929-56 7

Civil Rights in the Mid 1950s 7

The Origins of the Montgomery Bus Boycott 10

King's Early Years 14

The Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) 19

White Montgomery and the Failure of Compromise 23

Taking a Stand: The Road to Desegregation 29

2 Catching Up, 1956-61 37

King on the National and the International Stage 37

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) 42

The 1960 Sit-ins and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) 47

King and the Kennedys 50

The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and the 1961 Freedom Rides 56

3 Forming a Strategy, 1961-3 63

The Albany Movement 64

King's Defeat in Albany, 1961 68

King's Defeat in Albany, 1962 72

Learning from Albany, Preparing for Birmingham 77

The Birmingham Campaign 80

Birmingham and the Children's Crusade 84

4 Glory Bound, 1963-4 91

The March on Washington 92

Back to Birmingham: The Sixteenth Street Church Bombing 99

The St. Augustine Campaign 103

The 1964 Civil Rights Act, the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) and the Nobel Peace Prize 111

King and the FBI 118

5 A Movement in Transition, 1965-6 122

The Selma Campaign 123

Bloody Sunday 129

King's 'Tuesday Turnaround' 132

The Selma to Montgomery March, the 1965 Voting Rights Act and the Chicago Campaign 135

The Meredith March Against Fear and the Rise of Black Power 143

6 New Directions, 1966-8 152

The Chicago Open Housing Marches 153

King's Defeat in Chicago 158

King and the Vietnam War 162

The Poor People's Campaign (PPC) 168

The Memphis Sanitation Workers' Strike and King's Assassination 174

Conclusion: Martin and the Movement 182.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0582414318

OCLC:

56652325