ABSTRACT
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. dedicated his life to seeking equality and civil rights for African Americans and the poor of all races. King learned about racial discrimination early in life. With his religious training in Christian doctrine and his attraction to Henry David Thoreau's theory of civil disobedience and the teachings of India's Mahatma Mohandas K. Gandhi, King forged a powerful strategy to fight against discrimination-nonviolent direct action. Following the success of the Montgomery bus boycott, Dr. King founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1957. It was Dr. King's vision that the struggle for civil rights could be effectively waged by peaceful demonstrations. The SCLC brought this strategy of nonviolent civil disobedience to the civil rights movement. Dr. King was pivotal to the civil rights movement. His work contributed to the dismantling of unfair laws and practices enabling black equality to become a greater reality.
