Peace Essay about Martin Luther King, Junior

Essay by szmydeyHigh School, 11th grade May 2006

download word file, 3 pages 4.0

Through his protests, marches, and speeches, Martin Luther King Jr. showed the world how powerful and effective nonviolence is. During the late fifties and sixties, Martin Luther King Jr., charismatic and motivating, was an important leader in the African American Civil Rights movement. He knew that racism could not be ended with violent protest; on the contrary, he advocated love and peaceful means of protest. Because of his background as a minister, King inspired the African American community to join together in peaceful demonstrations. The successful protesting strategy of Martin Luther King Jr. and his fellow African Americans showed that nonviolent resistance is the best way to promote change in local, state, and federal government.

After the successful Montgomery Bus Boycott, the civil rights group Montgomery Improvement Association expanded into the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), led by Martin Luther King Jr. An African American church-based organization committed to attaining equality, the SCLC only used nonviolent methods of protest.

King and the SCLC believed that peace for African Americans could only be acquired by peaceful means. King once said, "Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into friend." The SCLC chose to use nonviolence because it was ethical and would gain them respect from the people of the nation.

During Martin Luther King Jr.'s time as a leader of the Montgomery Improvement Association, King's house was bombed and he was convicted, with other bus boycott leaders, on charges of conspiring to interfere with bus operations. King believed that his suffering and other civil rights activists' suffering was unavoidable, and must be endured because of their stance of nonviolence. King declared, "We will match your capacity to inflict suffering with our capacity to endure suffering. We will meet your physical force with soul...