ABSTRACT
The leading advocate of nonviolent civil disobedience to combat racial injustice, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the protest movement he led ended overt segregation in the American South and expanded civil rights for African Americans in the United States. In 1957 King and others organized the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to help expand the new protest movement throughout the country. As leader of the SCLC, King struggled to maintain unity among African Americans, who began to divide over the aims and methods of the civil rights movement. Martin Luther King, Jr., led the effort to end segregation, to pass federal civil rights legislation, and to extend voting rights in the American South. King's vision of a just and racially integrated society inspired many Americans and bolstered the ideals of American democracy. His birthday is a national holiday, celebrated on the third Monday in January.
