10 Martyrs That Furthered The Civil Rights Cause

There are few speeches in the history of mankind that any randomer could quote to you. Churchill’s ‘We Shall Never Surrender’ comes to mind, or Kennedy’s ‘Ich Bin Ein Berliner’. Still, none of these come close to the level of fame attached to Dr King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech.

A Southern Christian, King launched his fame as the leader of the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott, following Rosa Park’s arrest for refusing to give up her seat to a white man. The boycott lasted a year, culminating in Browder vs Gayle, a Supreme Court ruling that declared the segregated buses were unconstitutional. Throughout the 1960s, King led similar large-scale peaceful protests of civil disobedience, that in 1964 led him to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

But unlike many martyrs, his legacy is not solely of symbolic progress. The biggest victory for his movement came in 1968 with the signing of the Civil Rights Act, the most ground-breaking and long-lasting piece of racial integration legislation to date. But what should have been a moment for national rejoice became one of bitter sweetness, for it came just days after King was assassinated by a white supremacist.

In a life that spanned 39 years and a career of just 13, he had achieved what a 200-year-old democratic country had insofar failed to do. His cause wasn’t complicated, and, on that note, the simple words uttered at Robert Kennedy’s funeral by his brother, Ted, seem adequate: He saw wrong and tried to right it.