MIA Mass Meeting at Holt Street Baptist Church
Holt Street Baptist Church
December 5, 1955. Montgomery, Ala.
Summary: Martin Luther King Jr began the Montgomery bus boycott with this empowered speech where he told thousands of Montgomery’s black citizens “there comes a time when people get tired of being trampled over by the iron feet of oppression”. This was Dr. King's first speech as president of the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) and King later recounted he only had twenty minutes to prepare it. In his speech, King described the mistreatment of black bus passengers and the civil disobedience of Rosa Parks, and then justified the nonviolent protest by appealing to African-American Christian faith in love and justice and the American democratic tradition of legal protest.
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Read in Full: The entire text and audio of this speech available at: http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/kingpapers/article/address_to_first_montgomery_improvement_association_mia_mass_meeting_at_hol/