World International English 1Headoffice 管理总部Martin Luther King, Jr. (January 15, 1929 April 4, 1968) was an American clergyman, activist, and 0Martin Luther King, Jr. (January 15, 1929 April 4, 1968) was an American clergyman, activist, and prominent leader in the African American civil rights movement. His main legacy was to secure progress on civil rights in the United States, and he has become a human rights icon: King is recognized as a martyr by two Christian churches.1 A Baptist minister, King became a civil rights activist early in his career. He led the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott and helped found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957, serving as its first president. Kings efforts led to the 1963 March on Washington, where King delivered his I Have a Dream speech. There, he raised public consciousness of the civil rights movement and established himself as one of the greatest orators in U.S. history.In 1964, King became the youngest person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for his work to end racial segregation and racial discrimination through civil disobedience and other non-violent means. By the time of his death in 1968, he had refocused his efforts on ending poverty and the Vietnam War, both from a religious perspective. King was assassinated on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee. He was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977 and Congressional Gold Medal in 2004; Martin Luther King, Jr. Day was established as a U.S. national holiday in 1986.Populist tradition and Black populismHarry C. Boyte, a self-proclaimed populist, field secretary of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and white civil rights activist describes an episode in his life that gives insight on some of Kings influences:My first encounter with deeper meanings of populism came when I was nineteen, working as a field secretary for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in St. Augustine, Florida in 1964. One day I was caught by five men and a woman who were members of the Ku Klux Klan. They accused me of being a communist and a Yankee. I replied, Im no Yankee my family has been in the South since before the Revolution. And Im not a communist. Im a populist. I believe that blacks and poor whites should join to do something about the big shots who keep us divided. For a few minutes we talked about what such a movement might look like. Then they let me go.When he learned of the incident, Martin Luther King, head of SCLC, told me that he identified with the populist tradition and assigned me to organize poor whites.ThurmanCivil rights leader, theologian, and educator Howard Thurman was an early influence on King. A classmate of Kings father at Morehouse College, Thurman mentored the young King and his friends. Thurmans missionary work had taken him abroad where he had met and conferred with Mahatma Gandhi. When he was a student at Boston University, King often visited Thurman, who was the dean of Marsh Chapel. Walter Fluker, who has studied Thurmans writings, has stated, I dont believe youd get a Martin Luther King, Jr. without a Howard Thurman.Gandhi and RustinInspired by Gandhis success with non-violent activism, King visited Gandhis birthplace in India in 1959, with assistance from the Quaker group the American Friends Service Committee. The trip to India affected King in a profound way, deepening his understanding of non-violent resistance and his commitment to Americas struggle for civil rights. In a radio address made during his final evening in India, King reflected, Since being in India, I am more convinced than ever before that the method of nonviolent resistance is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for justice and human dignity. In a real sense, Mahatma Gandhi World International English 2Headoffice 管理总部embodied in his life certain universal principles that are inherent in the moral structure of the universe, and these principles are as inescapable as the law of gravitation. African American civil rights activist Bayard Rustin, who had studied Gandhis teachings, counseled King to dedicate himself to the principles of non-violence, served as Kings main advisor and mentor throughout his early activism, and was the main organizer of the 1963 March on Washington.Rustins open homosexuality, support of democratic socialism, and his former ties to the Communist Party USA caused many white and African-American leaders to demand King distance himself from Rustin.Montgomery Bus Boycott, 1955In March 1955, a fifteen-year-old school girl, Claudette Colvin, refused to give up her bus seat to a white man in compliance with the Jim Crow laws. King was on the committee from the Birmingham African-American community that looked into the case; Edgar Nixon and Clifford Durr decided to wait for a better case to pursue. On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat. The Montgomery