0:02 hi i'm clint smith and this is crash
0:04 course black american history
0:06 perhaps the most notable figure of the
0:08 modern civil rights movement is dr
0:11 martin luther king jr dr king has become
0:13 a symbol of peace courage
0:14 courage
0:17 sacrifice and impeccable leadership
0:19 but it's important to remember
0:21 that he didn't do this alone together
0:22 with the southern christian leadership
0:25 conference dr king played a pivotal role
0:26 in changing the tide of civil rights
0:28 legislation in the united states from
0:32 1956 to 1968. another important thing
0:34 is that we're often taught about dr king
0:37 in a two-dimensional sort of way that
0:40 often flattens and oversimplifies or
0:42 just ignores the totality of his
0:44 political beliefs but we're not going to
0:45 do that today
0:59 martin luther king jr was born in 1929
1:02 in atlanta georgia at just 15 years old
1:04 king was admitted into morehouse college
1:07 which is an hbcu in atlanta there
1:09 he pledged alpha phi alpha fraternity
1:11 incorporate the oldest black fraternity
1:13 in the united states and one that i
1:15 joined when i was in college too
1:17 at morehouse he studied law
1:20 and medicine at first he had no
1:22 intention of following in the footsteps
1:24 of his father who was a minister
1:27 that is until he met dr benjamin elijah mays
1:28 mays
1:30 mays was then the president of morehouse
1:33 college and he was also a minister
1:35 he'd established a reputation of
1:37 advocating for racial equality and his
1:39 work had an enormous influence on the
1:41 young martin so after graduating from
1:43 morehouse king received a bachelor's of
1:45 divinity in theology from crosser
1:47 theological seminary in upland
1:49 pennsylvania and then a phd in
1:51 systematic theology from boston
1:55 university in 1955 while in boston he
1:57 met the woman who would become his wife
1:58 ms corettiska
2:00 and they married and soon settled down
2:03 in montgomery alabama where king began
2:05 as pastor at dexter avenue baptist
2:07 church not even a year into settling
2:09 into their new home the city began to
2:11 bubble with tension because of the
2:14 monumental brown v board decision that
2:16 declared key tenets of plessy v ferguson
2:18 unconstitutional the desegregation of
2:20 schools sparked unrest among black
2:23 citizens in montgomery who wanted to see
2:24 jim crow segregation
2:28 undone in all areas of life and this
2:29 is how martin
2:30 met rosa parks
2:32 the black citizens of montgomery had
2:35 long waited an opportunity to launch an
2:37 attack on the horrid abuse that took
2:39 place within the segregationist system
2:42 of public transportation the 1955 arrest
2:43 of rosa parks
2:45 was the last straw while community
2:47 members and leaders were ready to take action
2:48 action
2:50 they sought out a leader who had an
2:51 impeccable reputation
2:53 and as someone new in town king
2:54 king
2:56 also had the benefit of having a clean
2:58 slate to work with so dr king got his
3:00 first taste of leadership when he was
3:02 asked to head the montgomery improvement
3:04 association and lead the montgomery bus
3:06 boycott soon after the successful
3:08 boycott king was invited to atlanta
3:10 georgia to create an effort similar to
3:12 the montgomery bus boycott that could be
3:14 executed across the south
3:18 over january 10th and 11th of 1957 60
3:20 black ministers and civil rights leaders
3:22 convened in atlanta at the renowned
3:25 ebenezer baptist church to replicate the
3:27 successful montgomery strategy
3:30 this group would soon become known as
3:31 the southern christian leadership conference
3:32 conference or
3:33 or
3:36 sclc as an organization inextricably
3:38 linked to the black church it is no
3:41 surprise that the sclc regarded churches
3:43 as pivotal organizing spaces for civil
3:45 rights activism the ministers of the sclc
3:46 sclc
3:48 soon chose reverend martin luther king
3:50 jr to be their first president and in
3:53 its later years the sclc would address
3:56 other pressing issues like war and
3:59 poverty reverend ralph abernathy senior
4:01 co-founded the sclc and served as the
4:03 organization's treasurer another
4:06 individual key to the success of dr king
4:08 was barred rustin while he did not hold
4:11 a specific leadership position he served
4:13 as king's advisor and right-hand man
4:15 since the montgomery bus boycott during
4:17 the montgomery demonstrations rustin
4:19 helped king develop the movement's
4:21 non-violent rhetoric that became the
4:24 foundation of the sclc's work from the
4:26 beginning the sclc identified
4:28 non-violence as their cornerstone
4:30 strategy they also soon decided to make
4:32 the sclc movement open to all
4:36 individuals regardless of race religion
4:39 or background king and the sclc grew
4:41 determined to bring national attention
4:42 to the plight of black americans in
4:45 birmingham a city that was regarded as
4:47 one of the most segregated places in all
4:49 of the united states the objective of
4:52 this campaign was to end discriminatory
4:55 practices and hiring desegregate stores
4:57 and accelerate the desegregation of
4:59 schools and in a direct violation of a
5:01 ruling against protests
5:03 king held a good friday demonstration on
5:07 april 12 1963 that day
5:09 he and 50 others were arrested
5:12 and later a friend smuggled a copy of
5:14 the local newspaper to dr king while he
5:16 was in his cell he opened the paper to
5:18 find that eight white clergymen had
5:20 published an essay that criticized the
5:22 march that he had led and other similar
5:25 demonstrations against racial inequality
5:26 in the piece
5:29 entitled a call for unity the clergymen
5:31 urge black locals to refrain from
5:33 letting outsiders
5:35 sway them toward
5:38 unwise and untimely behaviors that might
5:41 incite violence and told them to stick
5:43 to petitioning the local courts for
5:45 their rights deeply frustrated by what
5:47 he had just read
5:49 king in that moment began to write a response
5:50 response
5:52 doing so in the margins of the very
5:55 newspaper he had read the column
5:57 and king
5:58 didn't hold back
6:00 and this document became one of the most
6:02 central documents
6:04 of the entire civil rights movement in
6:06 his letter from a birmingham jail king
6:08 rejected the idea that what was
6:10 happening in birmingham
6:12 wasn't his business quote
6:15 i cannot sit idly by in atlanta and not
6:16 be concerned about what happens in
6:18 birmingham injustice anywhere
6:21 is a threat to justice everywhere
6:23 whatever affects one directly
6:25 affects all indirectly he pushed back
6:28 against the idea that if black people
6:29 were just patient
6:32 equality would soon come quote
6:34 we know through painful experience
6:36 that freedom is never voluntarily given
6:38 by the oppressor
6:40 it must be demanded by the oppressed for
6:44 years now i've heard the word wait
6:46 it rings in the ear of every negro with
6:49 piercing familiarity this
6:49 this weight
6:50 weight
6:52 has almost always meant never
6:53 never
6:56 and then he made his famous assertion
6:58 that the white moderate was an immense danger
6:59 danger
7:00 to the success of the civil rights movement
7:02 movement
7:03 i must confess
7:05 that over the past few years
7:07 i've been gravely disappointed with the
7:09 white moderate
7:10 i have almost reached the regrettable
7:12 conclusion that the negro's greatest
7:14 stumbling block in his tribe toward freedom
7:15 freedom
7:17 is not the white citizens counselor
7:19 or the ku klux klaner
7:21 but the white moderate
7:22 who is more devoted to order
7:24 order
7:26 than to justice who prefers a negative peace
7:27 peace
7:29 which is the absence of tension
7:31 a positive peace
7:33 which is the presence of justice
7:34 who constantly says
7:37 i agree with you in the goal you seek
7:39 but i cannot agree with your methods of
7:40 direct action
7:42 who paternalistically believes
7:44 he can set the timetable
7:47 for another man's freedom when he was finished
7:48 finished
7:50 he had written nearly 7 000 words and
7:52 with the help of his attorney
7:54 those words were smuggled out of the jail
7:55 jail
7:58 and printed in newspapers and magazines
7:59 across the country
8:00 king's letter
8:02 did not just speak directly to the clergymen
8:03 clergymen
8:06 it was also an appeal
8:09 to america's soul the sclc was not the
8:10 only organization working toward the
8:12 desegregation of public services
8:14 in search of racial equality
8:17 so too was the more radical student
8:19 non-violent coordinating committee
8:21 also known as snik
8:23 these two organizations were largely
8:26 working toward a similar set of goals
8:28 but often had different ideas of how to
8:29 get there
8:32 you see the sclc strictly applied a
8:34 model of propping up one charismatic
8:36 central leader
8:38 and in this case it was dr king
8:40 snick on the other hand
8:42 emphasized group-centered leadership but
8:44 despite their differences in approach
8:46 there are also times when the two
8:48 organizations work together
8:51 like the 1963 march on washington for
8:54 jobs and freedom in the 1965 march on
8:56 selma the combined efforts of snick the
8:59 sclc black and white citizens and
9:01 ministers from across the country
9:03 proved successful
9:05 finally applying enough pressure to get
9:07 lyndon b johnson to sign the civil
9:09 rights act of 1964
9:11 and the voting rights act of 1965. in
9:15 late 1967 the sclc opened a new chapter
9:17 with its poor people's campaign it was
9:19 launched to close the wealth gap between
9:21 whites and blacks and to combat the
9:24 growing and racialized threat of poverty
9:27 in the united states as dr king put it
9:28 what good is having the right to sit at
9:30 a lunch counter
9:32 if you can't afford to buy a hamburger
9:34 just as king was pivoting sclc's work
9:36 toward economic justice he was
9:38 assassinated in memphis tennessee on
9:41 april 4 1968. unfortunately
9:42 unfortunately
9:44 the poor people's campaign
9:46 collapsed in his absence after king's
9:49 death the sclc remained active in aiding
9:51 black voter registration
9:53 and supporting protests across the south
9:55 but the late 1960s
9:57 met the growth of a more militant sect
10:01 of protesters leaders and intellectuals
10:03 the burgeoning black power movement was
10:04 taking root
10:06 and people were becoming disillusioned
10:08 with the idea of non-violent peaceful
10:11 protests speaking of non-violence there
10:14 is another important point to make here sometimes
10:15 sometimes
10:17 people can turn dr king
10:19 into a sort of caricature of himself
10:21 that strips him of any political
10:23 complexity that was actually central to
10:26 who he was people love to cite his line
10:28 i have a dream that my four little
10:31 children will one day live in a nation
10:32 where they will not be judged by the
10:34 color of their skin
10:36 but by the content of their character
10:37 and in doing so
10:39 they basically turn him into a single
10:41 line in the eye of a dream speech
10:43 and make him out to be some sort of
10:46 non-violent kumbaya teddy bear and while
10:47 it is true
10:49 that dr king was deeply committed to non-violence
10:50 non-violence
10:53 a deeper analysis of his work
10:55 writing and speeches
10:57 revealed that king's political views
10:59 were often more radical and more
11:01 expansive than they have often been made
11:04 out to be for example king advocated for
11:07 a guaranteed universal basic income
11:09 and guaranteed employment for anyone
11:11 willing to work one of his basic principles
11:12 principles
11:13 was that
11:14 no one should be forced to live in poverty
11:15 poverty
11:18 while others live in luxury additionally
11:21 he spoke out against the war in vietnam
11:23 and american imperialism more broadly in
11:26 a 1967 speech he called the united
11:28 states government quote
11:30 the greatest purveyor of violence
11:32 in the world and while king seems to be
11:35 widely loved and respected today
11:38 it wasn't always that way in 1966
11:40 just two years before he was killed
11:42 according to gallup polls
11:44 two-thirds of americans
11:47 didn't approve of him or his work all of
11:48 this is a reminder
11:50 that advocating for social change
11:52 pushing against the status quo
11:54 and fighting against those in positions
11:58 of power doesn't mean you'll be popular
11:59 when you're doing it
12:00 in fact
12:02 you might be vilified
12:04 just like king was
12:06 but attempting to build a better society
12:09 has never been about being popular or well-liked
12:10 well-liked
12:12 it's about trying to build the sort of world
12:13 world
12:15 that we all deserve to live in
12:17 even if it means
12:19 you won't get to see that world yourself
12:20 and king
12:22 more than anyone
12:23 he knew this
12:25 he famously said
12:27 in the last speech he ever delivered
12:29 on the day before
12:31 he was assassinated quote
12:33 quote
12:35 i've been to the mountaintop
12:38 i may not get there with you but i want
12:40 you to know tonight
12:41 that we
12:43 as a people
12:45 will get to the promised land
12:46 thanks for watching
12:48 i'll see you next time
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