Martin Luther King Jr. Hoped to Be Conscience of All Political Parties Instead of President (Video)
Martin Luther King Jr. believed civil resistance movements could force officials to effect change. Forty-eight years after his death, King's nonviolent, transformative legacy lives.Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968. To honor the American civil rights leader, we look back at when people wanted him to run for president of the United States against Lyndon Johnson in 1968.
King understood the desire to have a firm, principled candidate who stood against the war in Vietnam and for the poor in urban communities. But King believed he could do greater work outside the realm of partisan politics through civil resistance. As a result, he opted against a presidential run.
King — who was born on Jan. 15, 1929, and would have been 87 this year — explained his reasoning at an April 1967 news conference.
—Posted by Eric Ortiz
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