Page 56 - All About History - Issue 12-14

“I have a dream”

King gave his speech to just under
Gandhi's a quarter of a million people
influence “ King was a man who had endured

While the two never met in person, King
derived a great deal of inspiration from death threats, bomb scares, multiple
Mahatma Ghandi’s success in nonviolent arrests and prison sentences”
protest, and so in 1959, made the journey to
Bombay (now known as Mumbai).
King and his entourage were greeted with a speakers were preparing to give their speeches to blood plasma and cancelled elective surgeries, and
warm welcome: “Virtually every door was open an audience of a quarter of a million, a far greater prisoners were moved to other facilities – measures
to us”, King later recorded. He noted that Indian number than the 100,000 hoped for. taken to prepare for the civil disobedience many
people “love to listen to the Negro spirituals”, The growing crowd buzzed with hope and thought an inevitable consequence of the largest
and so his wife, Coretta, ended up singing to optimism but undercurrents of unease also rippled march of its kind in US history.
crowds as often as King lectured. through the throng. Against a backdrop of violent Many of those attending the march feared for
The trip affected King deeply. In a radio civil-rights protests elsewhere around the country their own safety but turned up on that warm
broadcast made on his last night in India, President Kennedy had been reluctant to allow August day because of how important they
he said: “Since being in India, I am more the march to go ahead, fearing an atmosphere of believed it was for their country, which was being
convinced than ever before that the method unrest. Despite the organisers’ promise of a peaceful ripped apart at the seams by race. In his book,
of nonviolent resistance is the most potent protest, the Pentagon had readied thousands of Like a Mighty Stream, Patrik Henry Bass reported
weapon available to oppressed people in their troops in the suburbs and nearly 6,000 police that demonstrator John Marshall Kilimanjaro, who
struggle for justice and human dignity.” officers patrolled the area. Liquor sales were travelled to the march from Greensboro, North
banned throughout the city, hospitals stockpiled Carolina, said that many attending the march felt

The long road to civil rights in america

1619 1712 1780 1790-1810 1863 1865
O First known slaves O New York Slave Revolt O A minor victory O Manumission of slaves O The Emancipation O Black Codes
The first known A group of 23 enslaved Africans Pennsylvania Slaveholders in the upper Proclamation Black Codes are passed across
instance of African kill nine white people. More than becomes the first south free their slaves President Abraham the United States – but most
slavery in the 70 blacks are arrested and 21 state in the newly- following the revolution, Lincoln proclaims the notoriously in the south –
fledgling English subsequently executed. After the formed United and the percentage of free freedom of blacks still in restricting the freedom of
Colonial America uprising, the laws governing black States to abolish blacks rises from one per slavery across ten states – black people and condemning
is recorded. people are made more restrictive. slavery by law. cent to ten per cent. around 3.1 million people. them to low-paid labour.
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