clayborne carson the autobiography of martin luther king

He engaged in a speech competition for area public schools at the age of fourteen, enthusiastically supporting the abolition of segregation. He organized groups for church and Bible research. And the suffering he was seeing in the Black community persuaded him that racist racism and economic inequality had a structural connection.Īs a consequence, King started to promote social justice early on. He witnessed police abuse and beatings by the Ku Klux Klan. The racist systems around him only became more visible to him as King grew older. The boy’s father no longer wanted his son to be identified with black people.

But when his best friend, a white boy living in his community, was abruptly no longer permitted to play with him, one of his most vivid early impressions of bigotry happened. And when a new film was released, he had to wait several months for it to hit the Black Theaters. Even if it was empty, he had to sit on the back of the bus. In most city parks, he wasn’t permitted to play. South.Īs a boy, the arbitrary injustices that segregation created also baffled King. segregation and tried her best to justify the continued culture of segregation in the U.S. It was she who told King the history of U.S. But when it came to establishing a sense of self-respect in her girls, considering the bigotry they encountered, she was similarly committed.

The King’s mother, Alberta, by comparison, was sweet and gentle. Strong-willed and dynamic, he was respected in Atlanta’s Black culture and became a prominent figure in the civil rights struggle that his son would eventually lead. Martin Luther King’s dad was a pastor by birth. Furthermore, a pillar of devotion and power was their religion. They weren’t rich, but they enjoyed a pleasant if modest lifestyle as a Christian minister on Martin Luther King Sr.’s paycheck. The Kings, however, found themselves to be one of the more fortunate Black families of the period. It was also heavily divided in the American South, and the Great Depression was just falling on the nation.

Martin Luther King Jr., born in Atlanta on January 15, 1929, came into a fractured nation that was in profound economic distress. witnessed social and economic discrimination firsthand while he was growing up.

Clayborne carson the autobiography of martin luther king