Mlk Jr. Apostle of Militant Nonviolence

MLK Jr. Apostle of Militant Nonviolence

Everyone that has been through the American school system within the past 20 years knows exactly who Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is, and exactly what he did to help shape the United States to what it is today. In the beginning of the book, Martin Luther King Jr. Apostle of Militant Nonviolence, by James A. Colaiaco, he states that “this book is not a biography of King, [but] a study of King’s contribution to the black freedom struggle through an analysis and assessment of his nonviolent protest campaigns” (2). Colaiaco discusses the successful protests, rallies, and marches that King put together. . Many students generally only learn of Dr. King’s success, and rarely ever of his failures, but Colaiaco shows of the failures of Dr. King once he started moving farther North.

In the book, Colaiaco presents the successes that Dr. King achieves throughout his work for Civil Rights. The beginning of Dr. King’s nonviolent civil rights movements started in Montgomery, Alabama when Rosa Parks refused to move for a white person, violating city’s transportation rules. After Parks was convicted Dr. King, who was 26 at the time, was elected president of the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA). “For 381 days, thousands of blacks walked to work, some as many as 12 miles a day, rather than continue to submit to segregated public transportation” (18). This boycott ended up costing the bus company more than $250,000 in revenue. The bus boycott in Montgomery made King a symbol of racial justice overnight. This boycott helped organize others in Birmingham, Mobile, and Tallahassee. During the 1940s and 1950s the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) won a series of cases that helped put it ahead in the civil rights movement. One of these advancements was achieved in 1944, when the United States Supreme Court banned all-white primaries. Other achievements made were the banning of interstate bus seating segregating, the outlawing of racially restraining covenants in housing, and publicly supporting the advancement of black’s education Even though these advancements meant quite a lot to the African Americans of this time, the NAACP’s greatest accomplishment came in 1954 with the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Brown vs. Board of Education case, which overturned the Plessy vs. Ferguson ruling of “separate but equal” and made segregation in schools illegal. Other successful protests involved various sit-ins and boycotts the damaged the city and state’s revenue.

Even though it seems as if Dr. King was primarily successful with all of his works, there were many instances in which he failed and there was a lot of violence as a result of this failure. One of Dr. King’s first failures was in Albany, Georgia in 1962. On December 16, Dr. King, Ralph Abernathy and Dr. William G. Anderson, led 264 marchers up to Albany City Hall. “They were arrested for parading without a permit. By this time more than 700 protestors has been arrested and over 400 remained imprisoned” (42). On July 20, 1962 District Court Judge J. Robert Elliot banned demonstrations for 10 days, until July 30, when there would be a hearing to decide if the ban would be permanent. According to Malcolm X, “the Albany campaign [was] the “lowest point” in the civil rights struggle in America” (48). There are a number of sound reasons that help explain the failure of the Albany campaign. One of these was the fact that there was no planning of this campaign. Dr. King did not plan for the campaign at Albany; it was thrown upon him the night he spoke at the Movement rally. Another problem that arose in Albany was that of disunity. Tension between the Southern Christian Leadership Convention (SCLC) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Commission (SNCC) helped the white people maintain power. Another