MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR

Yep, that's where he gave his biggest speech. The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was the most important leader of the American Civil Rights Movement. The Civil Rights Movement was about having universal rights for all people, regardless of gender, income, or skin color. It's hard to believe, but America in the first half of the 20th century was a very different place. In many parts of the country, black people weren't allowed to eat at the same lunch tables, go to the same schools, or even use the same bathrooms as white people. This practice of separating blacks and whites was called segregation. Well, no, and that's the astonishing thing. It was all legal under the Jim Crow laws, a set of rules governing how blacks and whites were allowed to mix. Martin Luther King Jr. grew up in the midst of all that inequality. He was born in 1929 to a middle-class family in Atlanta, Georgia. Both his grandfather and his father were pastors at a local church. King attended religious colleges in Philadelphia and Boston. He was inspired by Northern society's more liberal views of race. Well, black people and white people mixed a little more freely there than in the South. Dr. King returned to the South and moved to Montgomery, Alabama with his wife Coretta in 1953. He became a pastor and a community leader. When a local woman, Rosa Parks, was arrested for refusing to give her bus seat to a white man, King helped organize a boycott of the Montgomery bus system. Most black citizens of Montgomery refused to ride the buses for over a year. The boycott helped bring about change, and in 1956, a Supreme Court decision banned segregated buses. After that victory, King helped organize a group of churches dedicated to nonviolent protests for civil rights. Dr. King was inspired by the life of Mahatma Gandhi, whose nonviolent leadership helped free India from British rule. Over the next decade, King led protests and marches to support African American rights all over the country. The most famous was the March on Washington in 1963. Over 250,000 people gathered in the nation's capital in support of civil rights. It was there that Reverend Dr. King delivered his famous, I Have a Dream speech. King's gift for eloquent public speaking was a big help to his cause. His protests and marches throughout Alabama turned the world's attention to the issues of civil rights. The rest of the country watched in shock as local police turned fire hoses and attack dogs on peaceful protests. I guess you could say that people back then were threatened by change. King was arrested numerous times during these marches, but it paid off. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 overturned segregation laws around the country. In 1964, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. As the recognized leader of the civil rights movement, he went on to fight against poverty and the Vietnam War. Then, in 1968, Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. His killer, James Earl Ray, was captured months later. Even though he was only 39 when he died, King changed the face of this country. Without his influence, who knows how long it would have been before equal rights were granted to everyone. Yeah, you're right. We still struggle with racial equality to this day, but thanks to Dr. King, it's a conversation that everyone's involved in, regardless of the color of their skin. Visit us at BrainPop.com for more on this topic and hundreds of others. You'll find movies, games, quizzes, and activities. Learn more about the difference BrainPop can make.