He also chose the ministry as his career and graduated from the Morehouse College in Atlanta. (King and the Civil Rights Movement) King was very interested in and influenced by the philosophy of the Indian political leader, Mahatma Gandhi.

He was particularly in favor of the nonviolent form of protest that Gandhi had so successfully used in colonial India to fight racial discrimination and prejudice. Martin Luther King, Jr. was also against many of the tendencies of materialist capitalist society, although he rejected the tenets of Marxism. In 1953 he earned his Ph.D. In theology from Boston University. (King and the Civil Rights Movement)

King accepted a pastorate in Montgomery, Alabama and became involved in the growing movement for inequality and freedom from discrimination.

He was an avowed critic of all forms of social injustice.

He became active in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and in the integrated Alabama Council on Human Relations. (King and the Civil Rights Movement)

An example of his involvement in fighting various incidents of racial injustice was in 1955 when, "... A fifteen-year-old girl had been arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger on the bus. King was on the committee that protested this..." (King and the Civil Rights Movement)

On the day that Rosa Parks as arrested, Dr. King was elected president of the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA). (King and the Civil Rights Movement) This was to lead to a protest demonstration outside the Holt Street Baptist Church, which was attended by thousands of people. (King and the Civil Rights Movement)

At this meeting King echoed the sentiment of many Americans who were tired of unjust discrimination and who supported the stand that Rosa Parks had taken. In his view the...

was to protest for freedom and justice. "(King and the Civil Rights Movement) The method that he promulgated to achieve these aims was through nonviolent marches and protests. He was adamant however that, " No one must be intimidated to keep them from riding the buses."
The speech he made on this occasion echoes the sentiments and feeling of many thousands of Black Americans like Rosa Parks.

If you will protest courageously, and yet with dignity and Christian love, when the history books are written in future generations, the historians will have to pause and say," There lived a great people -- a black people-who injected new meaning and dignity into the veins of civilization." This is our challenge and our overwhelming responsibility.

(Martin Luther King, Jr., Quotations)

These words possibly encapsulate the tenor and the central trajectory of the Civil Rights Movement, which was to prove to be successful in changing attitudes and laws in the country. Ordinary people like Rosa Parks also showed the way forward through their determination and actions in persuading those in authority that their cause was a just and legitimate one.

Works Cited

Rosa Parks Biography: Pioneer of Civil Rights. 5 Nov. 2006. http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/par0bio-1

The Civil Rights Movement 1955-1965: Introduction. 5 Nov. 2006. http://www.watson.org/~lisa/blackhistory/civilrights-55-65/index.html

King and the Civil Rights Movement. 5 Nov. 2006. http://san.beck.org/GPJ25-KingCivilRights.html

Martin Luther King, Jr., Quotations. 5 Nov. 2006. http://www.infoplease.com/spot/mlkquotes1.html

The Montgomery Bus Boycott. 4 Nov. 2006. http://www.watson.org/~lisa/blackhistory/civilrights-55-65/montbus.html