Martin Luther King
And the conflict towards black and white people
About 600 years ago, the discrimination against Blacks began, Americans imported them and (ab-) used them to work as slaves. In 1592, a Spanish slave trader bought 38 250 slaves, over 7000 of them died in progress of the transport to the USA. Until 1800, 7 000 000 Blacks have been deported and sold. From 1861 to 1865 the war of secession took place: The northern states of the USA fought against the southern States, where over 10 000 000 of Blacks vegetated, and won the war. In 1867 the famous Ku-Klux-Klan was found, at it's climax it had millions of members. In 1871 the Klan has been forbidden, but still exists today.
The most famous fighters against discrimination against Blacks have been the peaceable Martin Luther King and the ancient criminal Malcolm X.
Martin Luther King:
¨ 15th January 1929: King's born as the son of Martin Luther King senior and Alberta King, who has been killed in a church by her husband in 1947.
¨ 1st December 1955: Rosa Parks refuses to stand up in a bus to let a white woman sit down, gets arrested and looses the trial.
¨ March 1955: A 15-year old girl gets arrested for the same "crime".
¨ 28th January 1956: First bomb assassination on King, destruction of 3 churches.
¨ 30th January 1956: Second bomb assassination on King jr.
¨ February 1957: Foundation of the "Southern Christian Leadership Conference".
¨ March 1957: Demonstration of 37 000 people against president Eisenhower.
¨ 1957: 208 talks of King, travels 780 000 miles.
¨ September 1958: Man tries to stab King with a knife, King's badly hurt.
¨ 1958: Sit-ins, arrest of King and sentence of 6 months prison in Reidsville, a stronghold of the Ku-Klux Klan; commitment of John F. Kennedy, who wins the election with a lead of 100 000 votes, 85% of Blacks vote for him. King writes his first book ("Stride toward Freedom").
¨ 5th December 1961: The bus boycott (supported by Japan and Switzerland) startsTthe bus society suffers looses of 65%.
¨ 4th July 1962: Street riot between 2000 Black Teenagers and 170 policemen.
¨ 12th June 1963: Assassination on a school for Blacks, 4 girls get killed, 21 hurt. The criminals get a 100 Dollar fine because of possession of dynamite.
¨ 15th September 1962: A 13 year old black boy gets killed by two Teenagers, sentence for 7 months on probation.
¨ 28th August 1963: March on Washington , 250 000 people, 60 000 white people join it; "I had a dream".
¨ 22nd November 1963: John F. Kennedy gets killed.
¨ September 1964: Famous speech in Berlin in front of 25 000 people, lending of the Nobel price for peace.
¨ 1965: 18th January: Next assassination; 21st February: Malcolm X gets shot; 4th April: King's shot on the balcony of his hotel by James Earl Gray, who died some months ago, some weeks before his retrial; Mass-riots, 39 people get killed, thousands hurt; 150 000 people come to King's funeral.