Martin Luther King was arguably the most influential civil rights activist in the United States during the twentieth century. He was a man who did more for the Africa-American race than anyone else in this nation's history. King had his own unique political and social theories regarding how his people should go about obtaining their freedoms and rights. Martin Luther King embodied the civil rights movement, he was the single greatest motivator behind this quest for equality. When King died, many of the dreams and the hopes of the civil rights movement passed along with him. Martin Luther symbolized the campaign for racial harmony and equality by non-violent means. King possessed a quality that every great theorist must have if he is to ever sell his ideas to the masses, the ability to inspire his people. No other black leader has ever been able to match King's ability to rally large numbers of people from both races to actively participate in the cause of civil rights. Above all, King preached nonviolence as the heart and soul of his theories and ideas. That theme runs through his career and legacy. He left a decisive mark on American political and social history and his ideas and theories are an extraordinary example of American political theory.Martin Luther King's theories were molded and formed during his early studies by the works of two men, Walter Rauschenbusch and Mohandes Ghandi. Rauschenbusch called for an activist church that focused on remedying social injustices and Ghandi's work championed the resistance of oppression by nonviolent means, as in his native India. (p.500, "Encyclopedia of Civil Rights in America.") The blend of these two philosophies together became the basis for King's ideas and theories, an activist church that called for nonviolent resistance. This theory was a new and unique approach to attacking the problems of social injustice in the United States. Martin Luther received his first chance to util...
