Georgia

Martin Luther King, Youth and Schooling, Lewis’ Biography
Civil Rights

Martin Luther King, Youth and Schooling, Lewis’ Biography Chapters, 1 and 2

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The biographer David Levering Lewis observes that “the King family belonged to what is known as the school hard preaching, of which cult of personality, and occasional pinch of exploitation, and sulfurous evangelism are indispensable ingredients.” Martin’s maternal grandfather founded the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, and his father, Martin Luther King Sr, grew it into one of the largest and most prestigious black Baptist Churches in Atlanta.

His family was known for their involvement with civil rights. After the disastrous 1906 Atlanta race riots, his maternal grandfather was one of the charter members of the local NAACP chapter. He helped defeat a local bond issue that did not fund any new black schools and was instrumental in advocating the building of Booker T Washington High School, the first school in Atlanta for secondary education. […]

Slavery Was Cause of Civil War SMALL
Civil War and Reconstruction

We Fought the Civil War to Preserve Slavery, Confederate Leaders Proclaimed

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The Confederate VP Stephens proclaimed:
“Our new government’s foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.”

Stephens continues, “Our confederacy is founded upon principles in strict conformity with these laws” establishing slavery. “This stone which was rejected by the first builders ‘is become the chief of the corner,’ the real ‘corner-stone,’ in our new edifice.” This is religious imagery, as Christ was proclaimed as the corner-stone of Christianity.

Furthermore, the Confederate VP Stephens proclaimed that the new Confederate “Constitution has put at rest forever all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution, African slavery as it exists among us, and the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization.” […]