Martin Luther King, Jr. on Leadership

Birth of a Leader

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s leadership continues to inspire the United States’ civil rights movement, which is still building on his legacy. The movement developed as a reaction to centuries of slavery. After prolonged argument, the U.S. Founding Fathers chose not to address slavery when they signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776. By 1820, “the peculiar institution” was largely confined to the South. The federal government officially abolished slavery after the Civil War, but racial discrimination continued. Segregationists developed separate schools and other facilities for whites and blacks, and discouraged blacks from voting. Vigilante groups such as the Ku Klux Klan terrorized and killed blacks who attempted to show any leadership.

Two key events in the 1950s triggered the civil rights movement in the United States, and spurred King’s involvement. In 1954, the Supreme Court issued the Brown v. Board of Education decision, affirming that “separate but equal” had no place in education. And in 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Alabama, bus, setting off the famous Montgomery bus boycott...