Martin Luther King Jr. | A Crusader For Liberation | Biography — Transcript

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1. 0:00[Music]
2. 0:03Martin Luther King jr. was a minister
3. 0:05and leading activists during the 20th
4. 0:07century civil rights movement he was
5. 0:10born Michael Luther King jr. on january
6. 0:1215 1929 in Atlanta and later changed his
7. 0:15name to Martin King grew up steeped in
8. 0:18religion and activism his father was
9. 0:20Reverend at Ebenezer Baptist Church and
10. 0:22a local n-double-a-cp leader a talented
11. 0:27student King skipped two grades in high
12. 0:28school and entered Morehouse College at
13. 0:30age 15 King was skeptical about
14. 0:33Christianity as a board but later
15. 0:35embraced his faith and entered the
16. 0:37seminary while earning a doctorate at
17. 0:39Boston University King met aspiring
18. 0:41singer Coretta Scott they married in
19. 0:451953 and had four children Yolanda
20. 0:48Martin Luther the third Dexter Scott and
21. 0:51Bernice King established himself as a
22. 0:56rising star in the civil rights movement
23. 0:58after Rosa Parks arrest in Alabama in
24. 1:01December 1955 for refusing to give up
25. 1:03her seat to a white passenger the
26. 1:05n-double-a-cp chose King to lead the
27. 1:08Montgomery bus boycotts the protests
28. 1:11ultimately led to a US Supreme Court
29. 1:12decision which outlawed segregation on
30. 1:15public buses in Alabama with civil
31. 1:17rights demonstrations emerging all over
32. 1:19the country King helped organize the
33. 1:22Southern Christian Leadership Conference
34. 1:23to unite them inspired by Mahatma Ghandi
35. 1:26King advocated nonviolent protest
36. 1:29like boycotts sit-ins Kings experience
37. 1:33passion for the cause and position in
38. 1:35the community gave him the credentials
39. 1:37to become a leader in the 380 one-day
40. 1:40boycott of the city buses on December
41. 1:4320th 1956 the Supreme Court ruled
42. 1:46segregated buses to be unconstitutional
43. 1:49this was a major victory for the civil
44. 1:51rights cause and proved King's
45. 1:53nonviolent methods of protest could
46. 1:56yield results King was now the national
47. 2:02face of the Civil Rights cause he was
48. 2:04jailed over 20 times was once stabbed in
49. 2:07the chest his house was bombed and he
50. 2:10suffered relentless personal attacks on
51. 2:13himself and his family one day I was
52. 2:17crying profusely and mom picked us up
53. 2:20from school and asked me well what
54. 2:22what's wrong and I said well the kid
55. 2:24said daddy's a jailbird and she
56. 2:27explained to me why he was going to jail
57. 2:29that he was really going to jail to make
58. 2:31this world a better place for all of
59. 2:32God's children well the next day I came
60. 2:34back to school with almost a new
61. 2:37attitude being proud of what my father
62. 2:39was doing but was the spirit of love
63. 2:42that he exhibited that transformed a lot
64. 2:45of lives we feel have the attitude of
65. 2:48love used to say I love everybody I'm
66. 2:50every man's brother you may not love me
67. 2:52but that's your issue not mine dr. King
68. 2:55inspired thousands of people through his
69. 2:59eloquence and through his fearlessness
70. 3:01especially after his home was fire left
71. 3:05with his wife his children they showed
72. 3:09through their courage that they were
73. 3:13prepared
74. 3:14to give their lives to the cause of
75. 3:18freedom
76. 3:19[Music]
77. 3:25this was the home of Martin Luther King
78. 3:28jr. and his young family from 1954 until
79. 3:321960 my new king pretty much said you
80. 3:35had to do two things in order to be free
81. 3:36you have to forgive everybody for
82. 3:40everything they've ever done to you and
83. 3:42number two you have to lose your fear of
84. 3:44death
85. 3:45[Music]
86. 3:48he was over gravida at this church who
87. 3:51taken up a collection the night the
88. 3:53house was bombed September 30th in 1956
89. 3:57mayor Lucy Williams and mrs. King were
90. 4:00in the living room the baby Yolanda was
91. 4:03in the master bedroom sleeping and all
92. 4:06of a sudden mrs. King hears a noise out
93. 4:08front so they've read all way that blast
94. 4:12went off the seconds later and dr. King
95. 4:15said he didn't take a full breath from
96. 4:17his hive he left that church and got
97. 4:19here and found out that his family was
98. 4:22not hurt but in the meantime three to
99. 4:25five hundred angry black people in here
100. 4:28they have guns and knives and sticks and
101. 4:31holes and shovels and pitchforks amid
102. 4:34that angry crowd that could have
103. 4:36exploded in a minute this young preacher
104. 4:38who was a very very special human being
105. 4:40came home and it didn't take him any
106. 4:43words to calm those people down all he
107. 4:46did was raise his hand and it was kind
108. 4:48of like he's be still told his people to
109. 4:52go home he who lives by the sword will
110. 4:54die by the sword and we have to love our
111. 4:57white brothers and sisters even though
112. 4:59out loving us back go home he said God
113. 5:01will take care of us
114. 5:04what the people did
115. 5:07Martin asked us to be calm in the midst
116. 5:11of all of the turmoil that was going on
117. 5:14that was one of the greatest
118. 5:16opportunities that he took advantage of
119. 5:20tell your people not to flare up don't
120. 5:25fight we all right my family's not hurt
121. 5:29[Music]
122. 5:33again King worked tirelessly to promote
123. 5:39the cause he so strongly believed in and
124. 5:42from 1957 through 1968 he traveled over
125. 5:466 million miles delivered 2,500 speeches
126. 5:50wrote five books and dozens of articles
127. 5:53his hard work and ability to communicate
128. 5:55earned him such respect that he earned
129. 5:58the ear of President John F Kennedy who
130. 6:01personally met with King of all the
131. 6:07speeches King delivered none has stood
132. 6:09the test of time like his famous I have
133. 6:11a dream speech symbolically delivered
134. 6:14from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial
135. 6:15in 1963 in front of 250,000 people both
136. 6:21black and white King had become such a
137. 6:25force in America that he was named Time
138. 6:27Magazine's Man of the Year in 1963 the
139. 6:30nice achievement indeed but it paled in
140. 6:33comparison when in 1964 he became the
141. 6:36youngest man ever to win the Nobel Peace
142. 6:39Prize Martin Luther King jr. was an
143. 6:43American he was deeply American and
144. 6:47what's striking to me is that he had
145. 6:50more confidence in faith in American
146. 6:53democracy in the Constitution and in the
147. 6:58principles of fairness and opportunity
148. 7:01then nearly all of his critics King put
149. 7:05his life on the line for many of his
150. 7:07protests a 1965 March for voting rights
151. 7:10in Selma Alabama turned violent when
152. 7:13police viciously attacked the protesters
153. 7:14in a conflict dubbed Bloody Sunday ever
154. 7:18determined King led another Selma
155. 7:21demonstration two days later when the
156. 7:24marchers reached a bridge blocked by
157. 7:26state troopers
158. 7:27they simply knelt down in prayer King
159. 7:30and other leaders persisted launching a
160. 7:33third March days later under the
161. 7:34protection of the Alabama National Guard
162. 7:36and other marshals ordered by president
163. 7:39lyndon b johnson the power of Kings
164. 7:42activism compelled Johnson to sign the
165. 7:44Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting
166. 7:47Rights Act of 1965 as the Vietnam War
167. 7:51intensified King focused his movement on
168. 7:55what he saw as the three major evils of
169. 7:57racism poverty and militarism by 1968
170. 8:02King had made many enemies and
171. 8:04recognized he might not live to see the
172. 8:06fruits of his labor while in Memphis to
173. 8:11lead a protest march defending the
174. 8:12rights of striking garbage workers in
175. 8:14April of 1968 King delivered a rousing
176. 8:18speech titled I've been to the
177. 8:20mountaintop it would be his last
178. 8:22standing on the balcony of his
179. 8:24second-floor room at the Lorraine Motel
180. 8:26in Memphis King was shot and killed by
181. 8:30James Earl Ray King's assassination
182. 8:32however could not erase his progress or
183. 8:35his legacy we were watching all of us
184. 8:38the evening news when it flashed across
185. 8:40the screen and on April 4th 1968 that he
186. 8:44had been shot
187. 8:47as we went through the procession there
188. 8:49are so many thoughts that were going
189. 8:51through my mind with all the emotions
190. 8:53gosh what are we going to do now it was
191. 8:57hard but one of the things that I
192. 8:59remember most prominently were the
193. 9:03number of people that came into Atlanta
194. 9:05the thousands that came to pay respect
195. 9:08you know when you see all of these
196. 9:10people you begin to start evaluating Wow
197. 9:14well maybe what our Father was doing is
198. 9:17really very very significant in 1983
199. 9:24Ronald Reagan signed a proclamation
200. 9:25declaring the third Monday of every
201. 9:28January Martin Luther King jr. Day a
202. 9:31public holiday to celebrate the man and
203. 9:34what he stood for
204. 9:36[Music]
205. 9:40the modern civil rights era of Martin
206. 9:43Luther King is a vital importance not
207. 9:45just in history but for today because it
208. 9:48shows America tackling a problem that
209. 9:50nobody really thought it could handle
210. 9:52and it did it did that by an
211. 9:56extraordinary collection of new heroes
212. 9:59coming to the fore to move America
213. 10:01forward in freedom here we are
214. 10:03threatened again in America and we
215. 10:04always will be with very difficult
216. 10:06political problems ahead for our economy
217. 10:09and the world ahead of us and here's an
218. 10:11example from the 1950s and 1960s of how
219. 10:14America rose to just such a challenge
220. 10:17even though most people thought we
221. 10:19couldn't do it the hardest thing to
222. 10:21include when you're trying to do six ink
223. 10:23stories are this are the small stories
224. 10:27of people who are not well-known
225. 10:30historical figures but who made a
226. 10:32critical difference the crippled lady
227. 10:35with polio who was a cook in st.
228. 10:37Augustine Florida who came forward when
229. 10:41everyone else was too scared to March
230. 10:43for freedom because they'd been getting
231. 10:45getting beaten so badly on the streets
232. 10:47of st. Augustine Florida our oldest city
233. 10:51in America founded 1565 but it was very
234. 10:54violently segregated and dr. King's
235. 10:57people could not find marchers well this
236. 11:00lady Georgia Reed stood up in the
237. 11:04kitchen and said I will I will lead the
238. 11:07march on my crutches but you have to
239. 11:10take me home to change out of this
240. 11:12cooking uniform because if I'm going to
241. 11:15jail I'm going in my Sunday best there
242. 11:19are lots of people like that and and
243. 11:21stories that add up to the cumulative
244. 11:23Birmingham March or freedom summer or
245. 11:26the Selma March or things that some
246. 11:29people are familiar with it's great
247. 11:31historical turning points the moments
248. 11:33wouldn't have happened without the
249. 11:34smaller foot soldiers
250. 11:43you