I’m on my way

Peace movements

Martin Luther King was not the first man to organize nonviolent demonstrations against segregation, racial discrimination and for the freedom of peoples. Many years before, Gandhi had made heroic efforts to free India from British rule and he had employed a variety of techniques, from general strikes to boycotts, man marches, massive civil disobedience and passive or non violent resistance. Luther King organized many demonstrations. In 1963 he led a big march in Birmingham, Alabama, to protest against city-wide racial discrimination, and on August 28 of the same year more than 200,000 persons marched after King in Washington, D.C. asking for Negro civil rights. Partly as a result of these mass demonstrations, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In 1960s peace groups organized marches and nonviolent resistance to demonstrate opposition against U.S. involvement in the Vietnam war and they also called for disarmament and an end to the threat of nuclear war.