King entered Morehouse College at 15 after skipping two years of High School. He spent the summer before college on a tobacco farm in Connecticut that revealed race relations outside the segregated South. Witnessing how peacefully the races mixed in the North intensely deepened his hatred of racial segregation. I admire his courage for switching to ministry after studying in medicine and law. King’s mentor at college was president Benjamin Mays, a social gospel activist who encouraged King to join alongside him in the confrontation of racial inequality. Mays alleged the African American community of complacency in the face of oppression. In addition he criticized the black church’s emphasis on not being in the present day, which nudged them into social action. Once he graduated, he spent 3 years in Pennsylvania, where he became infatuated with Mohandas Gandhi’s philosophy of nonviolence. He earned a bachelor of divinity degree in 1951, elected president of Crozer’s student body, composed almost entirely of white students. Lastly, he received a doctorate in the study of man’s relationship to God.
The Montgomery Bus Boycott effectively launched King's career as a leader of the Civil Rights Movement to end racial segregation and discrimination in America. Being new to town, and thus not yet implicated in local political rivalries Martin was elected president of the Association. I learned that both his charisma as a speaker, and his authority and intelligence assisted him in success. The speed with which people responded to King probably reflected how hungry the Civil Rights Movement was for a leader, a symbol, a figurehead–someone to articulate the hopes and dreams behind actions, and hence give chaos to order.
So much of my knowledge