Table of Contents
ISBN: 978-1-4339-5690-4
Levels: GR: M; DRA: 28
Civil Rights Crusaders
Civil Rights Crusaders
MARTIN LUTHER
KING JR.
Civil Rights Crusaders
MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. Linde
Civil Rights Crusaders
By Barbara M. Linde
MARTIN LUTHER
KING JR.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Linde, Barbara M.
Martin Luther King Jr. / Barbara M. Linde.
p. cm. (Civil rights crusaders)
Includes index.
ISBN 978-1-4339-5692-8 (pbk.)
ISBN 978-1-4339-5693-5 (6-pack)
ISBN 978-1-4339-5690-4 (library binding)
1. King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929-1968Juvenile literature. 2. African AmericansBiographyJuvenile literature. 3. Civil rights
workersUnited StatesBiographyJuvenile literature. 4. BaptistsUnited StatesClergyBiographyJuvenile literature.
5. African AmericansCivil rightsHistory20th centuryJuvenile literature. I. Title.
E185.97.K5L53 2011
323.092dc22
[B]
2011002172
First Edition
Published in 2012 by
Gareth Stevens Publishing
111 East 14th Street, Suite 349
New York, NY 10003
Copyright 2012 Gareth Stevens Publishing
Designer: Katelyn E. Reynolds
Editor: Kristen Rajczak
Photo credits: Cover, pp. 324, back cover (background) Shutterstock.com; cover, p. 1 Ernst Haas/Getty Images; pp. 5, 19
Robert Abbott Sengstacke/Getty Images; p. 7 New York Times Co./Getty Images; p. 9 Don Cravens/Time & Life Pictures/
Getty Images; p. 11 Paul Schutzer/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images; p. 13 AFP/Getty Images; p. 15 Hulton Archive/Getty
Images; p. 17 NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images.
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Words in the glossary appear in bold type the rst time they are used in the text.
Civil Rights Crusader ....................................................................4
Early Life .........................................................................................6
The Montgomery Bus Boycott .....................................................8
Peaceful Protests .........................................................................
The March on Washington ........................................................
The Civil Rights and Voting Acts ..............................................
Changes in the Civil Rights Movement ..................................
The Assassination .......................................................................
The Fight Continues ................................................................... 20
Glossary ....................................................................................... 22
For More Information ................................................................ 23
Index ..............................................................................................
CONTENTS
G
CIVIL RIGHTS CRUSADER
Martin Luther King Jr. was an important civil rights leader.
He wanted black Americans to have the same civil rights as
white Americans. Martin fought against discrimination and
segregation . He believed that all people were equal. Martin
used peaceful actions to bring about change and told others
to do the same. He once said, There is nothing greater in all
the world than freedom. Martin was murdered on April 4, 1968.
His work and ideas live on today.
Martin speaks to a crowd in
Chicago, Illinois, in 1965.
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Martin Luther King Jr. was born on January 15, 1929, in
Atlanta, Georgia. He went to segregated public schools. When
Martin was 15 years old, he began attending Morehouse College.
He nished in 1948. Martin became a Baptist minister that year,
too. His father, grandfather, and great-grandfather were all
Baptist ministers. After college, Martin continued his studies.
He earned a doctorate in 1955.
Martin met Coretta Scott
while they were both attending
school in Boston, Massachusetts.
They married in 1953. Later, they
had four children.
Martins birth name was Michael,
like his fathers. His father later
changed both their names to
Martin Luther. This honored an
important German minister of the
1500s with that name.
EARLY LIFE
Martin was a minister at
Ebenezer Baptist Church
in Atlanta, Georgia.
G
In 1955, even buses were segregated. Blacks had to ride in
the back. On December 1, a black woman named Rosa Parks
was on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. When she refused to
give her seat to a white man, she was arrested.
Groups that worked for racial equality organized a bus
boycott in Montgomery. Martin helped lead the effort. For more
than 380 days, civil rights
supporters, both black and
white, stopped using the buses.
Finally, the US Supreme Court
said segregated buses
were illegal.
Montgomerys law allowing
segregation on buses was
ruled unconstitutional. That
means it went against the
US Constitution.
THE MONTGOMERY BUS BOYCOTT
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This picture of Martin was
taken in 1956 at the end of
the bus boycott.
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