Set a Purpose

Find out the effect of Martin’s words on others.

In 1955 on a cold December day in Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks was coming home from work. A white man told her to get up from her seat on the bus so he could sit. She said No, and was arrested.

Montgomery’s black citizens learned of her arrest. It made them angry. They decided not to ride the buses until they could sit anywhere they wanted.

For 381 days they walked to work and school and church. They walked in rain and cold and in blistering heat. Martin walked with them and talked with them and sang with them and prayed with them until the white city leaders had to agree they could sit anywhere they wanted.

“When the history books are written, someone will say there lived black people who had the courage to stand up for their rights.”

In the next ten years, black Americans all over the South protested for equal rights. Martin walked with them and talked with them and sang with them and prayed with them.

White ministers told them to stop. Mayors and governors and police chiefs and judges ordered them to stop. But they kept on marching.

“Wait! For years I have heard the word ‘Wait!’ We have waited more than three hundred and forty years for our rights.”

They were jailed and beaten and murdered. But they kept on marching. Some black Americans wanted to fight back with their fists. Martin convinced them not to, by reminding them of the power of love.

“Love is the key to the problems of the world.”

Many white Southerners hated and feared Martin’s words. A few threatened to kill him and his family. His house was bombed. His brother’s house was bombed. But he refused to stop.

“Remember, if I am stopped, this movement will not be stopped, because God is with this movement.”

The marches continued. More and more Americans listened to Martin’s words. He shared his dreams and filled them with hope.