Achievements

• Vital role in the demise of de jure segregation- South- protests, inspiration & organisations
• Exceptional impressive rhetorical skills & ability to inspire helped to ensure the success of the Montgomery Bus Boycott- after this recognised as leading spokesman for Black Americans
• Although his SCLC was poorly organised & ineffective at first- other protesters recognised his publicity values & those involved in sit-ins & Freedom Rides sought & gained his support-kings credit that he was willing to be led as as well as lead
• his belief in the effectiveness of mass protest & his manipulation of white violence switched the emphasis of black activism from the NAACP's litigation strategy to mass action & turned anti segregation principles enshrine in Brown into reality
• • Influenced-1963- speech- March on Washington & Birmingham campaign- both played a vial part in encouraging Kennedy to support what became the Civil Rights Act
  • Selma Campaign- key in the passage- Voting Rights Act
• Others who played a vital role- civil rights

  • protesters
  • other civil rights organisations
  • churches
  • local community organisations
  • thousands of unsung field workers
  • Federal GOV
  • Supreme Court
  • President Johnson
  • white extremists- aroused moderate white sympathy
• Black Organisations- Critical- King

  • After Bus Boycott-NAACP leader Roy Wilkins felt King had taken too much credit & the SNCC resented his 'top-down leadership'
• King's contribution-transformation of the South- extremely important
• • Failed to achieve anything in Chicago but ghetto problems were great & long-standing
  • After 1965- Congress did little more to help black people but President Johnson & Nixon supported affirmative action programmes designed to remedy the effects of past discrimination & to combat current discrimination in employment & higher education
  • Under Nixon's Philadelphia Plan 1969- Federal GOV pressed companies with Federal GOV contracts to ensure non-discriminatory employment practices- universities have ethnic minority students places even if test score were lower than those of whites
• • Affirmative action proved to be a great significance & assistance to aspirational black Americans in the quarter-century after King's death
  • Had repeatedly called for affirmative action- so it could be argued that King played an important part in the introduction of such programmes
• More radical activists- Malcolm X & some of the advocates of Black Power- MLK was a moderate+

  in his challenge to the nature & structure of American society- he had become revolutionary- and in the South- a successful one