Martin Luther King
It was 1 December 1955. Montgamery, Alabama, in the south of the United States of America. Rosa Parks was on her way home. She was tired after work and she took the bus. While she was sitting in a seat at the front of a bus, a white passenger came on the bus. The bus driver told her to take the seat at the back. The seats at the front in those days were reserved for "whites only." She was tired of being treated this way because of the colour of her skin so she said no!
Rosa Parks was arrested. This was a time when racism and segregation in the American South were very strong. On public pools and restaurants there were signs »No dogs, no blacks«.
Martin Luther King was an African American pastor who had just come to town. He was only 26, had just got married and had a child. When he heard about Rosa Park's story, he decided to do something about it. He started a campaign to boycott Montgomery buses. Around 17,000 black people who lived in Montgomery stepped together and boycotted the buses! It wasn't easy because they had to walk for miles to get to work and home from work. A woman said, “My soul has been tired for a long time. Now my feet are tired but my soul is resting.” The boycott of the buses lasted for more than a year.
On 13th November 1956, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that segregation on the buses was against the law. Black people could sit on the bus wherever they wanted!
This was an important victory but racism was still very much alive. Martin Luther King was teaching the blacks how to fight against it. They used different non-violent methods. They boycotted buying goods or services from people who did not treat the blacks the same as the whites. Hundreds of thousands protested in the streets of American cities for their rights. Another method was a so called sit-in: a black person sat in a restaurant seat reserved for white people. He asked politely for some food and did not want to leave until he was served.
Martin Luther King was trying to make people understand that black and white people should be treated equally. He became the leader of the civil rights movement. They arrested him several times, beat him, threatened him, bombed his house but they could not stop him. He fought for what he believed in till the day he died. On the evening on 4 April 1968, at 6 pm, while he was standing on the balcony of his motel room in Memphis, Tennessee, somebody shot him. They took him to hospital but couldn't save him.
In just a few years after the death of Martin Luther King, African Americans became equal to the whites under the law, thanks to the persistence and courage of African Americans and their leader.
"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character," he said in his most famous speech. His words still inspire people to fight for justice today.
