Martin Luther King Jr Influence

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's work and life were influenced by the fact that many African-Americans in the south suffered from violence and from being treated as second-class citizens. There was the landmark case, Brown v. Board of Education, claimed that “separate but equal” was unconstitutional. Schools were to be desegregated, such as the high school in Little Rock, Arkansas. The sit-in demonstrations in Birmingham and the Montgomery Bus Boycott. There was also the clergy letter to Dr. King along with his reply in a letter also from the Birmingham city jail. Jim Crow laws also further exasperated the work of Dr. King.

The Brown v. Board of Education case, in 1954, demonstrated that the court ruling of Plessy v. Ferguson "separate but equal" …show more content…
Martin Luther King Jr wrote a letter from the Birmingham city jail to respond the clergy's request to stop demonstrating. He states in the beginning of his letter that he feels that “… that you are men of genuine good will and that your criticisms are sincerely set forth…” (King and Jackson 85-86). He goes on into how the clergymen feel he is an outsider coming in. He states he has “the honor of serving of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference…have some eighty-five affiliated organizations

across the South and one of them is the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights.” The organization asked them “to be on call to engage in a nonviolent direct-action program if such were deemed necessary.” He respond that they will be there and they did. Another reason was because Birmingham had injustice. He compares himself and his work to "prophets of the eighth century B.C. left their villages and carried "thus [saith] the Lord"…the Apostle Paul left his village of [Tarus]…to the far corner of the Greco-Roman world…" …show more content…
King states, "Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds". He says it's unfortunate that the demonstrations are happening, but it's even more unfortunate that they have no other alternative because of Birmingham's white power structure" (87). He explains that the group talked with the economic leaders of Birmingham, but the leaders didn't kept their promise (88). He goes on saying that when a Negro hear the word “Wait!” that it soon reached the point that it means “Never” (90). He has many other reasons as to why that direct-action in Birmingham is their final of showing they are tired of waiting. He soon ends of his letter that, “in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty” (112).

Jim Crow laws further exasperated Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's work. Jim Crow laws were a series of laws in the southern US that kept whites and blacks apart (Lapsansky-Werner et al. 264). Then a lot has started to happened by the time of the Gilded Age (264). Along with the Jim Crow laws, their were black codes that restricted a African-American’s rights to vote by implementing poll taxes, literacy tests, and grandfather clauses. They even resorted to violence as stated by South Carolina senator Ben Tillman: “ We have done are level best. We

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