Martin Luther King

His role and importance in the Civil Rights
Movement 1955-1968
In the context of the period 1865 to
1968, to what extent did Martin Luther
King advance black civil rights in the
Was King a leader or a mere figurehead of the
movement who was led by the grassroots?
What were King’s qualities as a leader? What made
him special? Why did he standout from his
contemporaries and previous black leaders?
Did King reach the pinnacle of his success in the
1964-1965 period?
Did King become more radical after 1965?
Central leadership – personally and on an
organisational scale through the creation of the SCLC
in 1957
Personal courage and self sacrifice. He was a martyr
to the cause
His ability to convey the mood of the black population
through his rousing oratory and writings e.g. I have a
dream (1963), Letter from a Birmingham Jail (1963)
His fusion of Christian scripture and Ghandian nonviolent direct action won the support of a wide-cross
section of US society, particularly the white middle
classes. This in turn garnered the support of the
Federal government to the Civil Rights cause.
The de jure achievements of the 1964 Civil
Rights Act, 1965 Voting Rights Act and the
1968 Civil Rights Act are often cited as King’s
victories for black equality.
In the first studies that appeared about the Civil
Rights Movement which appeared in the late 1960s
and 1970s there was undeniably a ‘King-centric’
approach to the subject (Ling, Martin Luther King Jr,
, King occupied the central stage and appeared to
‘dominate the individuals and events around him
through his determination and vision like a historical
colossus’ (Verney, The Debate on Black Civil Rights in
America, 2006).
The ‘King-centric’ approach was first put forward by
Meir in 1965. Meir argued that King was indeed
essential to the success of the movement, as he
possessed strong leadership abilities that ultimately
allowed the movement to gain a broad audience
By the late 1970s and early 1980s historians were
opening up new areas of socio-economic areas of
enquiry into the Civil Rights Movement, looking at the
‘grassroots’ rather than a ‘top down approach’
Biographies of King in the 1980s became more
objective of King, highlighting his weaknesses as well
as his strengths.
Garrow (1986) concludes that King was ‘a saint with
feet of clay’, prone to agonising self-doubt and serial
extra-marital infidelities.
By the late 1980s King’s personal fallibilities (such as
his numerous affairs and the discovery of his
plagiarism) called into question the nature of his
Clayborne Carson (1987) argued that ‘If King had
never lived, the black freedom struggle would have
followed a course of development similar to the one it
In 2002 Peter Ling challenged the conventional
‘Montgomery to Memphis’ argument and concluded
that King’s greatest achievements came not in the
period 1955 to 1965, but in his turbulent later years.
It was the King of these later struggles who emerged
as ‘the more heroic figure, as a leader striving to
develop his ability to address injustice and as
someone prepared to face the price of unpopularity
and isolation.’ (Ling, Martin Luther King Jr, 2002, p5)