Christian Morality Report
Morality of the 20th Century Civil Rights Movement
Introduction
Pastor, spouse, father, civil rights leader, and nonviolent resistor to the status quo of his time. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy reveals to us all the responsibilities Dr. King had toward his family, friends, and a nation in the firm grasp of the struggle for civil rights and equality. Addressing the Democratic Convention in Mississippi on August 22, 1964, Dr. King stated that “For what seems to be expedient today will certainly prove disastrous tomorrow, unless it is based on a sound moral foundation.” This quote condemns the attitudes of many individuals during the 1960s.
Many politicians, clergy, and factory workers and the like believed in the opposite of what Dr. King’s mission stood for. Dr. King’s opposition to the segregation found in the south became his passion. Not settling for anything less than full equality for all humans regardless of color, Dr. King and his associates lead a nonviolent raid on the unequal south. Much of the resistance that was manifested in the South became violent. It was Dr. King that resisted the temptation to fight violence with violence. Instead his movement was modeled after the nonviolent movement of Gahndi.
The violence that they were met with was varied in form and degree. Racial slurs were often shouted as the peaceful demonstrators would walk down the street. At times items such as glass bottles, boards, tear gas, gasoline, and molotov cocktails would be thrown at the peaceful demonstrators. In the most sever of occasions members of Dr. King’s peaceful movement were even killed.
That most violent of occasions followed Dr. King where ever he went. It even followed him north to Chicago where Dr. King himself described the violence and hatred that they were greeted with by saying that “I’ve been in many demonstrations all across the South, but I can say that I have never seen, even in Mississippi,...