This content explores the multifaceted legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., emphasizing his pivotal role in the Civil Rights Movement through the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and highlighting the often-oversimplified or radical aspects of his political beliefs beyond his iconic "I Have a Dream" speech.
Mind Map
Click to expand
Click to explore the full interactive mind map • Zoom, pan, and navigate
hi i'm clint smith and this is crash
course black american history
perhaps the most notable figure of the
modern civil rights movement is dr
martin luther king jr dr king has become
a symbol of peace courage
courage
sacrifice and impeccable leadership
but it's important to remember
that he didn't do this alone together
with the southern christian leadership
conference dr king played a pivotal role
in changing the tide of civil rights
legislation in the united states from
1956 to 1968. another important thing
is that we're often taught about dr king
in a two-dimensional sort of way that
often flattens and oversimplifies or
just ignores the totality of his
political beliefs but we're not going to
do that today
martin luther king jr was born in 1929
in atlanta georgia at just 15 years old
king was admitted into morehouse college
which is an hbcu in atlanta there
he pledged alpha phi alpha fraternity
incorporate the oldest black fraternity
in the united states and one that i
joined when i was in college too
at morehouse he studied law
and medicine at first he had no
intention of following in the footsteps
of his father who was a minister
that is until he met dr benjamin elijah mays
mays
mays was then the president of morehouse
college and he was also a minister
he'd established a reputation of
advocating for racial equality and his
work had an enormous influence on the
young martin so after graduating from
morehouse king received a bachelor's of
divinity in theology from crosser
theological seminary in upland
pennsylvania and then a phd in
systematic theology from boston
university in 1955 while in boston he
met the woman who would become his wife
ms corettiska
and they married and soon settled down
in montgomery alabama where king began
as pastor at dexter avenue baptist
church not even a year into settling
into their new home the city began to
bubble with tension because of the
monumental brown v board decision that
declared key tenets of plessy v ferguson
unconstitutional the desegregation of
schools sparked unrest among black
citizens in montgomery who wanted to see
jim crow segregation
undone in all areas of life and this
is how martin
met rosa parks
the black citizens of montgomery had
long waited an opportunity to launch an
attack on the horrid abuse that took
place within the segregationist system
of public transportation the 1955 arrest
of rosa parks
was the last straw while community
members and leaders were ready to take action
action
they sought out a leader who had an
impeccable reputation
and as someone new in town king
king
also had the benefit of having a clean
slate to work with so dr king got his
first taste of leadership when he was
asked to head the montgomery improvement
association and lead the montgomery bus
boycott soon after the successful
boycott king was invited to atlanta
georgia to create an effort similar to
the montgomery bus boycott that could be
executed across the south
over january 10th and 11th of 1957 60
black ministers and civil rights leaders
convened in atlanta at the renowned
ebenezer baptist church to replicate the
successful montgomery strategy
this group would soon become known as
the southern christian leadership conference
conference or
or
sclc as an organization inextricably
linked to the black church it is no
surprise that the sclc regarded churches
as pivotal organizing spaces for civil
rights activism the ministers of the sclc
sclc
soon chose reverend martin luther king
jr to be their first president and in
its later years the sclc would address
other pressing issues like war and
poverty reverend ralph abernathy senior
co-founded the sclc and served as the
organization's treasurer another
individual key to the success of dr king
was barred rustin while he did not hold
a specific leadership position he served
as king's advisor and right-hand man
since the montgomery bus boycott during
the montgomery demonstrations rustin
helped king develop the movement's
non-violent rhetoric that became the
foundation of the sclc's work from the
beginning the sclc identified
non-violence as their cornerstone
strategy they also soon decided to make
the sclc movement open to all
individuals regardless of race religion
or background king and the sclc grew
determined to bring national attention
to the plight of black americans in
birmingham a city that was regarded as
one of the most segregated places in all
of the united states the objective of
this campaign was to end discriminatory
practices and hiring desegregate stores
and accelerate the desegregation of
schools and in a direct violation of a
ruling against protests
king held a good friday demonstration on
april 12 1963 that day
he and 50 others were arrested
and later a friend smuggled a copy of
the local newspaper to dr king while he
was in his cell he opened the paper to
find that eight white clergymen had
published an essay that criticized the
march that he had led and other similar
demonstrations against racial inequality
in the piece
entitled a call for unity the clergymen
urge black locals to refrain from
letting outsiders
sway them toward
unwise and untimely behaviors that might
incite violence and told them to stick
to petitioning the local courts for
their rights deeply frustrated by what
he had just read
king in that moment began to write a response
response
doing so in the margins of the very
newspaper he had read the column
and king
didn't hold back
and this document became one of the most
central documents
of the entire civil rights movement in
his letter from a birmingham jail king
rejected the idea that what was
happening in birmingham
wasn't his business quote
i cannot sit idly by in atlanta and not
be concerned about what happens in
birmingham injustice anywhere
is a threat to justice everywhere
whatever affects one directly
affects all indirectly he pushed back
against the idea that if black people
were just patient
equality would soon come quote
we know through painful experience
that freedom is never voluntarily given
by the oppressor
it must be demanded by the oppressed for
years now i've heard the word wait
it rings in the ear of every negro with
piercing familiarity this
this weight
weight
has almost always meant never
never
and then he made his famous assertion
that the white moderate was an immense danger
danger
to the success of the civil rights movement
movement
i must confess
that over the past few years
i've been gravely disappointed with the
white moderate
i have almost reached the regrettable
conclusion that the negro's greatest
stumbling block in his tribe toward freedom
freedom
is not the white citizens counselor
or the ku klux klaner
but the white moderate
who is more devoted to order
order
than to justice who prefers a negative peace
peace
which is the absence of tension
a positive peace
which is the presence of justice
who constantly says
i agree with you in the goal you seek
but i cannot agree with your methods of
direct action
who paternalistically believes
he can set the timetable
for another man's freedom when he was finished
finished
he had written nearly 7 000 words and
with the help of his attorney
those words were smuggled out of the jail
jail
and printed in newspapers and magazines
across the country
king's letter
did not just speak directly to the clergymen
clergymen
it was also an appeal
to america's soul the sclc was not the
only organization working toward the
desegregation of public services
in search of racial equality
so too was the more radical student
non-violent coordinating committee
also known as snik
these two organizations were largely
working toward a similar set of goals
but often had different ideas of how to
get there
you see the sclc strictly applied a
model of propping up one charismatic
central leader
and in this case it was dr king
snick on the other hand
emphasized group-centered leadership but
despite their differences in approach
there are also times when the two
organizations work together
like the 1963 march on washington for
jobs and freedom in the 1965 march on
selma the combined efforts of snick the
sclc black and white citizens and
ministers from across the country
proved successful
finally applying enough pressure to get
lyndon b johnson to sign the civil
rights act of 1964
and the voting rights act of 1965. in
late 1967 the sclc opened a new chapter
with its poor people's campaign it was
launched to close the wealth gap between
whites and blacks and to combat the
growing and racialized threat of poverty
in the united states as dr king put it
what good is having the right to sit at
a lunch counter
if you can't afford to buy a hamburger
just as king was pivoting sclc's work
toward economic justice he was
assassinated in memphis tennessee on
april 4 1968. unfortunately
unfortunately
the poor people's campaign
collapsed in his absence after king's
death the sclc remained active in aiding
black voter registration
and supporting protests across the south
but the late 1960s
met the growth of a more militant sect
of protesters leaders and intellectuals
the burgeoning black power movement was
taking root
and people were becoming disillusioned
with the idea of non-violent peaceful
protests speaking of non-violence there
is another important point to make here sometimes
sometimes
people can turn dr king
into a sort of caricature of himself
that strips him of any political
complexity that was actually central to
who he was people love to cite his line
i have a dream that my four little
children will one day live in a nation
where they will not be judged by the
color of their skin
but by the content of their character
and in doing so
they basically turn him into a single
line in the eye of a dream speech
and make him out to be some sort of
non-violent kumbaya teddy bear and while
it is true
that dr king was deeply committed to non-violence
non-violence
a deeper analysis of his work
writing and speeches
revealed that king's political views
were often more radical and more
expansive than they have often been made
out to be for example king advocated for
a guaranteed universal basic income
and guaranteed employment for anyone
willing to work one of his basic principles
principles
was that
no one should be forced to live in poverty
poverty
while others live in luxury additionally
he spoke out against the war in vietnam
and american imperialism more broadly in
a 1967 speech he called the united
states government quote
the greatest purveyor of violence
in the world and while king seems to be
widely loved and respected today
it wasn't always that way in 1966
just two years before he was killed
according to gallup polls
two-thirds of americans
didn't approve of him or his work all of
this is a reminder
that advocating for social change
pushing against the status quo
and fighting against those in positions
of power doesn't mean you'll be popular
when you're doing it
in fact
you might be vilified
just like king was
but attempting to build a better society
has never been about being popular or well-liked
well-liked
it's about trying to build the sort of world
world
that we all deserve to live in
even if it means
you won't get to see that world yourself
and king
more than anyone
he knew this
he famously said
in the last speech he ever delivered
on the day before
he was assassinated quote
quote
i've been to the mountaintop
i may not get there with you but i want
you to know tonight
that we
as a people
will get to the promised land
thanks for watching
i'll see you next time
crash course is made with the help of
all these nice people and our animation
team is thought captain
crash course is made possible by all of
our viewers and supporters
thanks to those of you who bought the
2021 crash course learn a coin
Click on any text or timestamp to jump to that moment in the video
Share:
Most transcripts ready in under 5 seconds
One-Click Copy125+ LanguagesSearch ContentJump to Timestamps
Paste YouTube URL
Enter any YouTube video link to get the full transcript
Transcript Extraction Form
Most transcripts ready in under 5 seconds
Get Our Chrome Extension
Get transcripts instantly without leaving YouTube. Install our Chrome extension for one-click access to any video's transcript directly on the watch page.
