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A New Look At King

Spanish Translation

By David Bjerklie

Each year, we celebrate the life and work of Martin Luther King Jr., a civil rights giant who changed our nation. In a new book, historian Taylor Branch tells the story of the difficult final months of this important American's life.

King had a dream of equality for all and hope for the poor. And even though prejudice and poverty still exist, the important lesson that King taught, Branch told TIME, was that "first, we have to believe we can do something about this."

Education of a Leader
King was born in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1929. He studied to be a minister and moved to Montgomery, Alabama, to preach at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. It was 1954, the year the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed racial segregation in public schools. In 1955, King led a boycott of the city's buses after an African-American woman, Rosa Parks, was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white man. The boycott lasted more than a year, but led to a 1956 U.S. Supreme Court decision that banned seating separated by race on buses.

In 1963, King led 250,000 people in a march on Washington, D.C., to support civil rights legislation. The event's highlight was King's famous speech, "I Have a Dream." The next year, King won the Nobel Peace Prize. "I accept this prize on behalf of all men who love peace and brotherhood," he said at the ceremony.

New Struggles
In the years after those great victories, however, the civil rights movement began to show strain. There were some black leaders who were growing impatient with King's philosophy of nonviolence. Many white supporters were devoting more of their time and energy to protesting the U.S. war in Vietnam. There was also a growing effort by some law-enforcement officials to discredit King, because they considered him a threat.

In the spring of 1968, King hoped to bounce back by leading a multiracial crusade against poverty. He called it the Poor People's Campaign. Although his staff had doubts about the idea, King spent months planning a new march on Washington that would include poor people of all backgrounds and races, including Native Americans.

At the same time, King was involved in protests in support of black sanitation workers who were on strike in Memphis, Tennessee. One protest turned violent, with looters breaking store windows and destroying parked cars--tactics that King opposed.

It was a tense time. Even trusted members of King's staff argued about the future of their group and its work. In speeches, King sometimes talked about dying for his cause.

King returned to Memphis for another protest in April. He was shot on the balcony of his motel by an escaped convict. Just before he was shot, writes Branch in his new book, King spoke to a musician who was to play that night. "Make sure you play 'Precious Lord, Take My Hand' in the meeting tonight," he said. "Play it real pretty."

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If He Were Alive Today
Martin Luther King Jr. would be 77 years old now. Here are ideas from civil rights colleagues on what he might be doing had he lived.

"We wouldn't have so many people still left behind. There wouldn't be so much poverty and hunger. . . .I think he would have been much more committed to the struggle for peace throughout the world."
--John Lewis, Democratic congressman for Georgia

It would have been a different world if he had lived. I think we would have moved a lot more quickly on some of the global problems in Latin America and Africa. He would have been (able to help) mediate the situation in the Middle East."
--Andrew Young, former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. and former mayor of Atlanta

"His last mission was to build a working poor people's campaign. . . . I'm convinced that today he would be focusing on this issue of building multiracial, multicultural coalitions and fighting to end the war in Iraq. . . ."
--Jesse Jackson, president of the Rainbow/PUSH coalition

His words are still the framework. Where is the voice today? We're it. We've got to make the leaders hear it. He did his part. Now we need to do ours.
--Marian Wright Edelman, president of the Children's Defense Fund

Next: Israel's Leader Fights for His Life