... movement in the way Lincoln had transformed the conflict between the states into a moral crusade to end slavery in the Civil War. King's strategy was effective because African Americans in theory at least, already had equal civil and political rights. These had been guaranteed by the three Civil War Amendments of 1865-70. What King and his supporters were able to do through their peaceful protests was to shame America into recognising that fact. Through the use of the media and by linking the Civil Rights cause directly with the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, King occupied the high moral and political ground. In many ways, King was fortunate in facing opponents who, themselves, reflected the intolerance of which he spoke. In 1955, during the Montgomery Bus Boycott, African Americans were attacked and Churches bombed. Then Emmet Till, a young African American boy from Chicago was brutally ...

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