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Martin Luther, Jr King Biography
<h1 class="biggreenheader"><nobr>(1929–68)</nobr></h1>
Baptist minister and civil rights leader, born in Atlanta, Georgia,
USA. The grandson and son of Baptist ministers, in 1935 his father
changed both their names to Martin to honour the German Protestant.
Young Martin graduated from Morehouse College in Georgia (1948) and
Crozer Theological Seminary (1951) and then took a PhD from Boston
University (1955), where he also met his future (1957) wife, <b>Coretta
Scott</b>, with whom he had four children. Ordained a minister (1947)
at his father's Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, he became pastor of
the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, AL (1953).
<p>Relatively untested when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat in a
bus in December 1955, he led the boycott of Montgomery's segregated
buses for over a year (eventually resulting in the Supreme Court
decision outlawing discrimination in public transportation). In 1957 he
was chosen president of the newly formed Southern Christian Leadership
Conference (SCLC) and he began to broaden his active role in the
civil-rights struggle while advocating his nonviolent approach to
achieving results. His approach was based on the ideas of Henry David
Thoreau and Mohandas Gandhi as well on Christian teachings.</p>
<p>In 1959 he moved to Atlanta to become co-pastor of his father's
church, and in the ensuing years gave much of his energies to
organizing protest demonstrations and marches in such cities as
Birmingham, AL (1963), St Augustine, FL (1964), and Selma, AL (1965).
During these years he was arrested and jailed by Southern officials on
several occasions, he was stoned and physically attacked, and his house
was bombed. He was also placed under secret surveillance by the FBI due
to the strong prejudices of its director, J Edgar Hoover, who wanted to
discredit King as both a leftist and a womanizer. King's finest hour
came on 28 August 1963 when he led the great march in Washington, DC,
that culminated with his famous ‘I have a dream’ speech at the Lincoln
Memorial. At the height of his influence, he was awarded the Nobel
Peace Prize in 1964 and he used his new-found powers to attack
discrimination in the US North. Meanwhile, as the Vietnam War began to
consume the country, he also broadened his criticisms of American
society because he saw the impact of the war on the country's resources
and energies.</p>
<p>In the spring of 1968 he went to Memphis, TN to show support for the
striking city workers, and he was shot and killed as he stood on the
balcony of his motel there. (James Earl Ray pleaded guilty to the
murder, although he later insisted that he was innocent.) With his
oratorical style that drew directly on the force of the Bible, and with
his serene confidence derived from his non-violent philosophy, he had
advocated a programme of moderation and inclusion, and although later
generations would question some of his message, few could deny that he
had been the guiding light for 15 of the most crucial years in
America's civil-rights struggle.<br>
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<h1 class="biggreenheader">Rosa (Lee McCauley) Parks Biography <nobr>(1913-2005)</nobr></h1>
<p>Civil-rights activist. Born Rosa Louise McCauley on February 4, 1913
in Tuskegee, Alabama. After briefly attending Alabama State University,
she married and settled in Montgomery, Alabama, where by 1955 she was
working as a tailor's assistant in a department store. Contrary to most
early portrayals of her as merely a poor, tired seamstress, who on the
spur of the moment refused to surrender her seat in a bus to a white
passenger, she had long been a community activist.</p>
<p>Parks served as secretary of the local chapter of the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People and had worked for
the Union of Sleeping Car Porters. She had also been involved in
previous incidents when refusing to leave a bus seat. By forcing the
police to remove, arrest, and imprison her on this occasion, and then
agreeing to become a test case of segregation ordinances, she played a
deliberate role in instigating the Montgomery bus boycott (1955–6).</p>
<p>Dismissed from her job at the department store, in 1957 she became a
youth worker in Detroit, Michigan. As she eventually earned recognition
as the ‘midwife’ or ‘mother’ of the civil rights revolution, she became
a sought-after speaker nationally. Parks died at her home in Detroit on
October 24, 2005, at age 92.<br>
</p>
<h1 class="biggreenheader">Thurgood Marshall Biography <nobr>(1908–93)</nobr></h1>
<p><font face="Arial, Helvetica">Supreme Court judge, civil rights
advocate. Born Thoroughgood Marshall on July 2, 1908 in Baltimore,
Maryland. The great-grandson of a slave, he graduated as valedictorian
from Howard University Law School (1933) and soon began to represent
civil-rights activists. Becoming a counsel for the National Association
for the Advancement of Colored People (1938), during the next 23 years
he won 29 of the 32 major cases he undertook for that organization;
several of the cases set constitutional precedents in matters such as
voting rights and breaking down segregated transportation and
education. His finest moment came with <i>Brown</i> v. <i>Board of
Education</i> (1954), which overturned <i>Plessy</i> v. <i>Ferguson</i>
(1896) and its ‘separate but equal’ ruling that perpetuated segregated
institutions and facilities.</font></p>
<p><font face="Arial, Helvetica">President John F Kennedy named him to
the US Court of Appeals, a seat he finally took despite the resistance
of Southern senators (1962–5). President Lyndon Johnson appointed him
US solicitor general (1965–7) and then to the US Supreme Court, the
first African-American to hold such an office (1967–91). Consistently
voting with the liberal block, he found himself increasingly isolated
as the court's make-up changed, and he was forced by ill health to
retire and see his seat taken by the conservative Clarence Thomas.</font></p>
<p><font face="Arial, Helvetica">Marshall died of heart failure on
January 24, 1993. He was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.<br>
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<p><font face="Arial, Helvetica">Thanks for reading<br>
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