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By William Rogers
Broadcast: January 23, 2005
ANNCR:
People in America, a program in Special English on the Voice of America.
(Theme)
Today, Shep O'Neal and Warren Scheer finish the story of civil right's leader, Reverend Martin Luther King, Junior.
(THEME)
VOICE ONE:
Martin Luther King was born in Atlanta, Georgia, in nineteen twenty-nine. He began his university studies when he was fifteen years old, and received a doctorate degree in religion. He became a preacher at a church in Montgomery, Alabama.
In nineteen fifty-five, a black woman in Montgomery was arrested for sitting in the white part of a city bus. Doctor King became the leader of a protest against the city bus system. It was the first time that black southerners had united against the laws of racial separation.
VOICE TWO:
At first, the white citizens of Montgomery did not believe that the protest would work. They thought most blacks would be afraid to fight against racial separation. But the buses remained empty.
Some whites used tricks to try to end the protest.
They spread false stories about Martin Luther King and other protest leaders. One story accused Martin of stealing money from the civil rights movement. Another story charged that protest leaders rode in cars while other protesters had to walk. But the tricks did not work, and the protest continued.
VOICE ONE:
Doctor King's wife Coretta described how she and her husband felt during the protest. She said:"We never knew what was going to happen next. We felt like actors in a play whose ending we did not know. Yet we felt a part of history. And we believed we were instruments of the will of God".
The white citizens blamed Doctor King for starting the protest. They thought it would end if he was in prison or dead. Doctor King was arrested twice on false charges. His arrests made national news and he was released. But the threats against his life continued.
