Important Ideas and Religious Education
Martin Luther King Jr. organized non-vio=
lent
protests against the unequal treatment of African-Americans. Although
demonstrators were often threatened and attacked, he continued to preach
his philosophy of non-violence which he embraced from Gandhi. In an eleven-year period between 1957 and 1968, he
traveled over six million miles and spoke over twenty-five hundred time=
s,
appearing wherever there was injustice, protest, and action. On August 28, 1963 he led the "March on
Washington”, where a crowd of more than 250,000 people gathered in
Washington, D.C. and marched to the Capitol Building to support passing=
of
laws that guaranteed every American equal civil rights. On the steps of=
the
Lincoln Memorial that day, King delivered a speech that later became kn=
own
as "I Have a Dream". One year later, the Civil Rights Act of =
1964
was passed. It was not the first law of civil rights for Americans, but=
it
was the most thorough and effective. The act guaranteed equal rights in
housing, public facilities, voting and public schools. It was because of
his actions in the past that many see him as a human rights icon today.
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