Brandon

Martin Luther King Jr. When Mrs. Kenkel told us we were doing a speech on someone who had touched many lives, I was in a frenzy. I couldn't think of anyone who fit that description. By the time I got home I still hadn't thought of anything. While I was at home my dad was watching a documentary on Martin Luther King, Jr. And then it hit me. //I should do my speech on Martin Luther King Jr.// And that's what I did.

To start this off I will tell you about his childhood. Martin lived with two siblings. Martin and his siblings took piano lessons from their mother. They loved playing sports. Martin was a paperboy and wanted to be a firemen when he grew up. Reverand Martin Luther King Sr. was a baptist minister and he taught his children a religious education.
 * Family life**

Now I will tell you about how he became a civil rights leader. Martin knew when he was born that blacks were treated differently in different parts of the U.S. There were laws that kept blacks and whites apart while he was growing up. These laws were called Jim Crow Laws. Martin went through school(including college)and eventually became a minister. On December 5,1955, after civil rights activist Rosa Parks was sent to prison for not giving up her seat to a white person, Martin was elected to run a bus boycott. The boycott lasted 382 days until the Supreme Court decided it was unconstitutional to force blacks to sit in the back of the buses. From that point on, blacks could sit in the fronts of buses with the whites.
 * How he became a civil rights leader**

After that, Martin helped found the newly formed Southern Christian Leadership Conference.In 1960,black college students initiated a wave of sit-in protests that led to the formation of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Commitee.King supported the movement and expressed an interest in creating a youth of the SCLC.Student activists admired King,but they were critical of his top-down leadership style and were determained to maintain their autonomy. As an advisor of SNCC,Ella Baker,who had previously served as associate director of SCLC,made clear to representatives from other civil rights organizations that SNCC was to remain a student-led organization.In the spring of 1963,King and SCLC led mass demonstrations in Birmingham,Alabama,where local white police officials were known for thier violent opposition to integration.President Kennedy responded to the Birmingham protests by submitting broad civil rights legislation to Congress which led to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
 * SCLC and other civil rights organizations**

In the year of 1963 the March on Washington took place.In this,on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial,Martin gave his famous"I Have A Dream" speech. When Martin was just 35 he was awarded the nobel peace prize (which is the youngest age anyone had ever gotten it.He gave the award money to help the SCLC.In the year of 1969 Martin was assinated by a man named James Earl Ray.To this day,King is remembered by many for his couragious acts to get equal rights and because he died for a cause.
 * What he did with the rest of his life...**

Martin Luther King Jr. touched many lives by helping to get equal rights in a nonviolent way.He was an incredible man and I wish more people were like him.