Martin Luther King Jr. og borgerrettighedsbevægelsen

An afternoon on 28 August 1963, the black Baptist-priest from Montgomery, Alabama, Martin Luther King, stood on a stair in Washington. In front of him there stood 250.000 people. This audience – consisting of black and white, young and old, men and women - heard one of the most affected speeches in American history: ‘I’m telling you today, my friends, that so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream. That one day sons of earlier slaves and sons of earlier slave-owners could sit down on same table in a common association... I have a dream, that one day my four kids wouldn’t be judge of their skin color, but for their personality… I have a dream, that one day little black boys and black girls go hand in hand with little white boys and white girls – like sisters and brothers.’When King holds his speech, the black peoples have been in America in 350 years. Trough the 250 years the most of them were slaves in the South states, which means that they were owned of other people. 8 of 12 presidents in America owned black slaves. USA – also known as with the ideals equality and freedom. The slavery got rid under the horrible civil war almost 100 years before Kings Speech. In the first decades of the 20 century, thousand moved from the south states to the cities in north. Here they hoped to find better possibilities. But also here they had to accept the poverty and racial prejudice.In the beginning of the 1900 they made a movement that should give the blacks political, economic and social equality. It was the American Civil Right Movement, which also had a lot of support from white Americans. The movement still won more strength, and in 1963 King was in the top of it. The movement made a big change. That time Lincoln was the president and they convinced him to disengage the slavery in America from the 1. January 1863.The declaration gave thousand of slaves’ courage to escape to the Union. But racial prejudice arises. Still the republican in 1863 suggested - with Lincolns support – to ban all slavery in America. Demonstration quick got violence. Buildings were in fire, stores got looted and lynch-gangs terrorized and killed more than 100 peoples. White workers wasn’t satisfied with fighting for black emancipated, that later could take their jobs. The most notorious terror-organization were Ku Klux Klan, or KKK,