After his most famous speech, Martin Luther King
Jr. faced some of the most difficult months of
his life. But he did not stop. He continued his
activism, and it was during this time period
that he accomplished some of his most important
work. Welcome back to the Learn English Podcast,
the podcast teaching English in context so you
can learn naturally. On today's episode, I want
to talk about Martin Luther King Jr. That is
because today in the United States, it is Martin
Luther King Jr. Day, a federal holiday that we
have here to remember this important historical
figure. We've done two previous episodes on Martin
Luther King. The first one talked about his early
years, and the second one talked about his march
on Washington and his I Have a Dream speech.
Today, we're going to continue his story and
discuss what he was able to do in the months
after his I Have a Dream speech. And as always,
we are going to give you useful English vocabulary
so you can understand the story better. If you're
ready to learn more about Martin Luther King
Jr. and practice your listening comprehension,
then follow along because we're about to begin.
Now let's talk about Martin Luther King. A quick
reminder, he has a number of different names.
If you hear me say MLK or Dr. King or Martin
Luther King, that is referring to the same person,
the civil rights activist who did a lot of work
here in the United States in the 1950s and the
1960s. When we ended the last episode, it was
August of 1963 and Martin Luther King had just
finished his speech in Washington, D .C. Millions
of Americans had watched that speech and were
really inspired by it. They were very excited
and motivated for change. However, a lot of people
weren't happy about it. Of course, there were
people in the United States who were opposed
to MLK's message. They did not want the change
that he was trying to achieve in the United States.
And then there was also the federal government.
One of the agencies in the US government is called
the Federal Bureau of Investigations. Usually
you hear this abbreviated FBI. This is the intelligence
part of the US government. They monitor for threats
inside the United States. During this time period,
the FBI was led by a man called J. Edgar Hoover.
J. Edgar Hoover is controversial because while
he was in charge of the FBI, he used his power
to illegally spy on American citizens. Spy on
them means to watch them, to get information
about them without them knowing it. J. Edgar
Hoover would identify people who he thought were
threats or who had different political ideologies
than he did, and he would spy on them. And then
he would save all of this information into files
on the person. He would later use those files
to publicly embarrass or shame or harass the
people that he was spying on. J. Edgar Hoover
thought that Martin Luther King was a threat.
And he ordered the FBI to start listening to
Martin Luther King's phone calls, his office,
and his hotel rooms. The goal was to get information
that could weaken Martin Luther King and also
destroy his movement. And according to the FBI
files from this time period, Dr. King actually
had a lot of threats against him. Like I said,
there were people in the U .S. who were very
opposed to the work that he was doing. They did
not want to have civil rights for all American
citizens. And because they did not like what
he was doing, They would call in threats to police
departments or to newspapers. They would threaten
to hurt Dr. King or his family or somehow interrupt
his work and his activism. Many of these threats,
though, were most likely not very serious. Most
of them were just done by people who wanted to
threaten Martin Luther King, who wanted to disrupt
or stop his activism, but they didn't actually
have a plan to harm him. However, this really
does show how much of a threat he was viewed
as by some people in the United States and how
people were angry enough to want to threaten
to hurt him. There is a movie called Selma that
came out in 2014. In that movie, it does show
the FBI and the illegal spying and the threats
that he's receiving. even with the stress of
being watched and having his life threatened
dr king continued with his work one of the primary
goals was to end segregation i've mentioned segregation
in previous episodes but it was a practice where
in some states the american citizens were separated
based on race And although Martin Luther King
had been speaking out about ending segregation,
he knew that he needed more than speeches. He
knew to end this practice, there would have to
be legislation. Legislation means laws. And Dr.
King knew that the laws of the United States
had to change in order to end segregation. In
October of 1963, Dr. King traveled to Birmingham,
Alabama. I've mentioned Alabama before in previous
MLK episodes and that was because Alabama had
very strict segregation laws. Birmingham in particular
was one of the most violent cities for African
Americans. The reason that he went to Birmingham
was because there was a church in Birmingham
called the 16th Street Baptist Church. And this
church was bombed by white supremacists, people
who were members of the Ku Klux Klan. That is
a terrorist white supremacist organization in
the U .S. And when these people bombed that church,
they did it on a Sunday when people were inside.
As a result, four girls actually died because
of the bombing. Newspapers showed photographs
of the destroyed church. Americans saw the faces
of these four girls. That became a turning point,
a point where it was very hard to ignore what
was happening. Like I said, these very strict
segregation laws only existed in certain areas,
particularly in the southern part of the United
States. So some Americans just didn't realize
how bad it was in certain areas, or maybe they
chose to ignore how bad it was. But this bombing
really brought national attention. Dr. King went
to Birmingham to attend the funeral for these
girls and he actually gave the eulogy. A eulogy
is a speech that someone gives to remember and
to honor the person who has died. In that speech,
he said that they did not die in vain. That means
that their death had purpose. He used this moment
to remind the country that violence would continue
unless the government took action. He really
wanted justice for these four girls. And sadly,
it actually took decades for that to happen.
Some of the people involved were arrested in
1977, 14 years after this attack, but some other
ones were not even arrested until 2002. Even
though justice did not come immediately after
this attack, Dr. King continued his work to push
for legislation, and he found an ally in then
-president John F. Kennedy. John F. Kennedy was
one of the youngest presidents that we've had
in U .S. history. And he was known for being
a very liberal, very progressive president. He
was also the first Catholic president who was
ever elected. And he wanted to be the president
who helped reform segregation, to end segregation.
He began to support the Civil Rights Bill. This
would be a major piece of legislation that would
end discrimination in public places and in education.
Sadly, another tragedy soon occurred. On November
23rd, 1963, John F. Kennedy was assassinated
in Dallas, Texas. The word assassination describes
the killing of a political figure, and his death
shocked the country. I did an episode a few years
ago, I think, about my trip to Dallas, Texas.
You can go to Dallas, Texas and actually see
where this assassination took place. Sadly, JFK's
assassination was another reminder of the level
of violence that was occurring in the country.
If the president of the United States could be
assassinated, that showed that really anybody
could be. And it showed how dangerous this work
was to work in civil rights. After Kennedy's
death, members of the civil rights movement were
afraid that the civil rights bill was not going
to happen. Because JFK had been the president
who had wanted to pass this bill, people were
worried that because he was no longer alive,
this bill would die as well. His vice president
though was the person who took over. His name
was Lyndon B. Johnson, and he was from Texas.
He ended up shocking people because he actually
continued JFK's work on the civil rights bill.
Instead of stepping back, he actually made civil
rights a priority and put pressure on Congress
to pass this legislation. Again, in the movie
Selma, this is depicted. You see the conversations
between Lyndon B. Johnson and Dr. King and the
work to try to pass this bill. In spite of all
of the instability, the fear, and the violence
that was occurring, Dr. King continued his work.
He knew that he had to keep the momentum, the
energy of this movement, and he had to keep it
in the news if he wanted to put pressure on lawmakers
to pass the Civil Rights Bill. In December of
1963, Martin Luther King focused on voter registration.
Voter registration is the process where you sign
up so you are able to vote in elections. Even
though African Americans technically were allowed
to vote because they were US citizens, a lot
of them couldn't actually do it. i know i keep
mentioning this film selma but again it's just
a really good representation of what was happening
at that time and it is shown in the movie selma
how african americans were prevented from voting
local government officials would make it very
difficult for african americans to vote they
would put fees on voting which were called poll
taxes they would make really difficult tests
and if you could not pass them you could not
vote And they would also just use intimidation.
They would threaten people who they did not want
to vote. King believed that voting was power.
If Black Americans could exercise their right
to vote, they would be able to elect leaders
who would advocate for them and would also bring
about change to the segregation laws. during
this time king also helped develop new leadership
in the civil rights movement he trained new leaders
to stay non -violent and how to remain calm in
dangerous situations but not back down from intimidation
he really believed in non -violence and using
peaceful protest as a method for change in january
of 1964 he was awarded the nobel peace prize
becoming the youngest member to ever win it When
he accepted the prize, he said that it did not
belong to him, but belonged to everyone who was
a part of the civil rights movement. The people
who marched, who participated in nonviolent protests,
who registered voters, and who risked their lives
for freedom. From his speeches in Europe, he
continued his message of nonviolence and he got
a lot of publicity. He actually got more news
coverage in Europe than in the United States
because, like I said, there were a lot of people
here who did not like his message. That international
media attention really brought more focus on
to what was occurring and what he was advocating
for. But at the same time, the FBI also increased
their determination to discredit him. Discredit
means to make someone less trustworthy, to get
people to not believe what someone is saying.
So the FBI really started to put pressure and
tried to stop his work and the civil rights movement.
And it was around this time that King had one
of his most disturbing incidents with the FBI.
The FBI sent him an anonymous letter. Anonymous
means that there is no name attached to something.
So he received a letter, but no one signed the
letter and he didn't know who it was from. Now
we know that it was written by the FBI, but at
the time he did not know that. The intention
of the letter was to get Dr. King to step down
from leadership, to stop his activism and to
harm himself, to hurt himself. In the letter,
it said that he should no longer be alive. I
can't actually say what it really says because
YouTube does not like certain words being said.
That is a very disturbing thing to do. That is
a very evil thing to do, to tell someone to hurt
themselves like that. But it really shows that
the FBI viewed what he was doing as a threat
and wanted him to stop his work. The letter came
with recordings of Dr. King's phone calls of
his hotel room, of the recordings that they made
when they were spying on him, and the letter
threatened him. But King continued to speak out,
and one of his most famous lines is, Our lives
begin to end the day we become silent about things
that matter. That showed that Dr. King was not
going to be silent about something he thought
was very important. At the same time, Congress
was debating the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This
was a long battle. A lot of Southern senators
used the filibuster to try to prevent it. A filibuster
is when you talk for a very long time and you
just keep talking and you prevent the legislation
from being voted on. So a lot of Southern senators
filibustered the Civil Rights Bill, but it actually
did end up passing. When it passed in July of
1964, it made segregation illegal and guaranteed
equality under the law. This became one of the
greatest victories of the civil rights movement.
That same month, Dr. King published his book,
Why We Can't Wait. In the book, King explains
why waiting politely for social justice and equal
rights was not possible. It had taken too long,
people had suffered too much, and it had cost
too many lives. Instead, he argued that people
needed to act urgently, which means immediately
or quickly. The book also included his Letter
from a Birmingham Jail, which is a letter that
I mentioned in the last episode we did about
Dr. King. I would recommend reading Why We Can't
Wait if you want to learn more about Dr. King's
ideas and his philosophy. He was a very powerful
writer, so the level of English is very high,
but I do think that it is an interesting book
to read. And I want to end this episode with
one of my favorite quotes from Why We Can't Wait.
The quote is, A social movement that only moves
people is merely a revolt. A movement that changes
both people and institutions is a revolution.
I hope you enjoyed this episode and I hope you
learned a little bit more about Martin Luther
King and why he was so important here in the
United States. He inspired millions, he helped
push legislation, and he really changed the direction
of the country. We're going to continue his story
in future episodes because there is just so much
to what he did. But for right now, we're going
to pause here. And if you did like this episode,
if you enjoyed it, please leave a comment. Tell
me if you would like more episodes like this
in the future, or if there are certain people
you would like me to do episodes on. I also want
to remind you to look at the description of this
podcast episode. There you will find helpful
links and today's vocabulary list. If you enjoyed
the episode, share it with someone who is also
learning English. Or you can leave us a rating
on whatever app you're using to listen to this
podcast on. You can follow us on social media
or go to our website, learnenglishpod .com. And
remember to follow the show so you don't miss
our next episode when it comes out next week.
Until then, keep learning English.