Who Ended Segregation

Who do you think ended segregation? Well you maybe thinking of Abraham Lincoln or the amendments, but Martin Luther King Jr. played a big role in ending also. Even though Martin Luther King Jr. didn’t use governmental power to end segregation between whites and blacks, you should stand up in what you believe because if the “I have a Dream” speech really affected the blacks and whites then the efforts of Martin Luther King Jr. led to the end of segregation.

In 1953, a landmark case was heard by the Supreme Court of the United States . Brown v. The Board of Education led to the outlawing of separate but equal schools. One of the principle foundations of a segregated South began to not work. Two years later, the struggle to bring Jim Crow segregation to an end took another step when the Montgomery Bus boycotts were began by the actions on a woman which was Rosa Parks. The boycott lasted for 385 days, and it brought attention to every race, especially Martin Luther King, Jr…

During the Civil Rights Movement, Martin Luther King Jr. captured the attention of the nation with his philosophy and commitment to the method of nonviolent resistance. According to Dr. King, this was the only way that could end segregation. In 1948, Dr. King began to concentrate on discovering a solution to end social ills. He came to the conclusion that the while the power of love was a powerful force when applied to individual conflicts, it was not an effective solution that could resolve social problems. He believed the philosophy of "turn the other cheek" and "love your enemies" applied only to conflicts between individuals and not racial groups or nations but later changed his mind. Dr. King didn’t give up to find a perfect solution.

King’s strategy of civil disobedience and his philosophy of non-violence were shaped by four major influences. First, King was deeply influenced by Ghandi’s concept of true force. He was introduced to this concept while at Crozier. As he learned Ghandi’s teaching, he began to sense that there is in the natural order of things an eternal truth, and that once one has glimpsed that truth, one can never again be the same. For King the essence of this truth was non-violence. The second influence was the Sermon on the Mount. This served as the bedrock of King’s philosophy of non-violence. He believed that Christian love was valid not only for individual relationships, but social relationships as well. More importantly, Christian love could become the instrument for reforming the social order. The third influence on King was Reinhold Niebuhr’s idea of social evil. King studied Niebuhr in seminary and graduate school, and was impressed with his "Christian Realism." King, like Niebuhr, was not so naive to assume that love in simple terms would ever be sufficient to the reform social order. But this love could be expressed in real ways that would have a social and political impact. In the Montgomery Bus Boycott, for example, King had learned about the real impact of such measures on the finances of a community, and how that impact could be leveraged to bring out needed social reform. Fourth, King was shaped by Hegel’s dialectic. He learned from Hegel about the possibilities for growth through conflict and struggle.