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SCMP Reporter

This week  Free at Last! The Story of Martin Luther King, Jr  by Angela Bull
Martin Luther King was the leader of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States.  He fought for equal rights for black people in  the US at a time when they faced great prejudice and discrimination.
He was a very special kind of leader because he did not believe in violence. All his protests were peaceful,  yet  powerful. He was assassinated in 1965, but his memory lives on.
Slavery in the US
King was born in Atlanta, a Southern American state, in 1929. Only  70 years earlier there had still been black slaves in the south - people seized in Africa, shipped to the US,  then sold into slavery.
Although slavery  was abolished in 1865, the memory lingered on. Many white people still considered themselves superior to blacks.  There were laws that made this a reality.
There were separate seats on buses and trains for black people. They were not allowed to attend the same schools or swim in the same pools as whites. As a boy, King had first-hand experience of  this discrimination.
Preacher King
King had a strong Christian faith, and in 1948, he began training as a Baptist pastor. He also studied the writing and actions of Indian politician Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi  struggled to gain his country's independence  from the British  through peaceful resistance. King was very much influenced by his success.
The bus boycott
By 1955 King was the pastor of a church in Alabama. He was earning a reputation as a powerful speaker and defender of black people.
He tasted his first victory  in the Rosa Parks case. She was a black woman who had refused to move from her seat  in a whites only section on a bus. The driver called the police and she was arrested.
King organised a boycott of buses by black people. As 70 per cent of the passengers were black, this would soon hit the finances of the bus companies. It was such a success that it angered many white people.  Even a bomb was thrown at King's house.
King himself was arrested on  grounds that organising boycotts was illegal. However, the US Supreme Court  decided that  segregation of black and white passengers on buses  violated the country's constitution  and it was declared illegal. King had won his first battle.
The war continues
King won his first battle, but the war against discrimination continued. Many cafes and restaurants  still served only white people. King organised sit-ins so that black people filled all the seats and refused to move until they were served. They peacefully challenged all other forms of segregation.
White groups responded with violence,  beating up many  black people. At one peaceful protest, police dogs were set on black children and  powerful water hoses were used against them.
President Kennedy
In 1963, President John F. Kennedy introduced a law into the American Congress  banning all types of segregation and giving black people equal rights.
That year, King organised a huge celebration in Washington. A quarter of a million people  gathered to hear him make one of the most famous speeches in history. 'I have a dream,' he thundered, 'that one day the sons of slaves and the sons of slave owners would sit down together as brothers. They would join hands and sing 'Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last'!'
The struggle continues
Even though laws were passed against discrimination, it took a lot longer to change public attitudes and behaviour. The laws did not tackle all the problems, and they were not always enforced.
Moreover, black people  still had the worst jobs and worst housing. King realised that poor white Americans were also badly treated and did not really have equal rights, so he continued to organise his campaigns.
Tragic ending
It was while he was engaged in one such campaign in Memphis in 1968 that he was shot by James Earl Ray, a white man who hated blacks. The great civil rights leader was dead.
He had achieved a great deal and is now honoured  in  the US with a national holiday. Do you think he won the war completely? Does everyone in the US  now have equal rights? How about Hong Kong? These are questions worth tackling in your presentation.



Fight for equality