ministry

Martin Luther King, Birmingham, Nonviolent Protests v Bombs and Brutality
Civil Rights

Martin Luther King, Birmingham, Nonviolent Protests v Bombs and Brutality, Biography Chapter 7

Bruce Strom 2

In September 1963, a black church in Birmingham was dynamited, killing four young girls and injuring several dozen others. Addressing the nation on television, President Kennedy proclaimed, “This nation is committed to a course of domestic justice and tranquility.” “If these cruel and tragic events can awaken that city and state, if they can awaken this entire nation,” “then it is not too late for all concerned to unite in steps toward peaceful progress before more lives are lost.” But no whites attended the funeral services of these four young black girls. […]

Martin Luther King, Lunch Counters, Freedom Riders, and Albany, Lewis’ Biography
Civil Rights

Martin Luther King, Lunch Counters, Freedom Riders, and Albany, Lewis’ Biography Chapters 4-6

Bruce Strom 1

Martin Luther King was vigorously campaigning for voting rights. In his first national address, he proclaimed, “Give us the ballot. Give us the ballot and we will no longer have to worry the federal government about our basic rights.” “Give us the ballot and we will fill the legislature with men of goodwill. Give us the ballot and we will get the people judges who love mercy. Give us the ballot and we will quietly, lawfully, and nonviolently, without rancor or bitterness, implement” the US Supreme Court Brown decision. Ensuring that blacks have the right to vote was the key civil rights objective in the Reconstruction Era after the Civil War. […]

Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks, Montgomery Bus Boycott
Civil Rights

Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks, Montgomery Bus Boycott, Lewis’ Biography, Chapter 3

Bruce Strom 1

The biographer David Levering Lewis writes, “By here dignified bearing during her arrest and arraignment, and because of her impeccable reputation in the black community, Mrs Parks’ defiance compelled the city to charge her explicitly with the violation of the municipal ordinance governing racial accommodation on publicly owned vehicles, and not, as was usually the case, with the elastic offense of disorderly conduct.” […]

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

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

Bruce Strom 9

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. […]