After his success with the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Martin Luther King was receiving national attention , receiving job offers, speaking calls, and interviews with magazines like Time Magazine and Playboy. It also has parts of Africa and Europe. Of course, he also took time to give speeches and participate in ceremonies. The life of the king of the United States was more hectic than ever. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get Original Essay However, KING worked diligently to help Black people across the country. Meanwhile, Senator Lyndon B. Johnson was pushing the new civil rights bill through the Senate. Despite being the first civil rights legislation since Reconstruction, King believed that the Civil Rights Act of 1957 was too weak, especially regarding school desegregation, to make a significant difference. Therefore, King and 15 other black leaders traveled to Montgomery to form the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, of which King was immediately chosen president. The main goal of the SCLC was to bring the black masses into the fight for freedom throughout the South. In this it differed from the NAACP, which focused on lawsuits, and from CORE, which was too disorganized and concentrated primarily in the North. As always, King's schedule was hectic, but in October he took time to visit his newborn son, Martin Luther King III, or "Little Marty." The first item on the SCLC's agenda was the Citizenship Crusade, designed to double the number of black voters in the South by 1960, starting in 1958. By November, King had begun planning a visit to India and publish his book on the Montgomery boycott, detailing and discussing King's view on the bus boycotts, his major life events, and his insights on everything from communism to southern blacks. With the crusade for citizenship underway, King finally finished his book, Stride for Freedom. Meanwhile, King continued to talk about the civil rights movement. The book was mostly well received and helped increase King's popularity. Another incident that further contributed to King's prominence was an incident that occurred in Montgomery, in June 1958. King had been arrested for attempting to enter a courthouse involving his friend Abernathy. with a case. His arrest, trial and conviction made national headlines. Taking a leaf out of Gandhi's book, King decided to serve his 14-day sentence in prison instead of paying a fine. To avoid further bad publicity, the police station commissioner personally paid himself to ruin King's "publicity stunt". If this made national headlines, however, it was nothing compared to the attempted assassination of King later that same September. Izola Curry stabbed him with a sharp letter opener at a book signing in New York. The attack incited thousands of King's supporters, who felt that somehow this too was part of God's plan for him. The incident only strengthened his faith and resolve. After his ordeal, King decided the time had finally come for him to make his trip to India in February '59, two years after his initial plans. In India, he was struck by the way the Indian government handled its own version of the American Negro: the Untouchables. Indeed, it seemed that the prevailing spirit of Gandhi was still very much alive. After spending amonth to enjoy and learn from India, King returned to Montgomery. Having just returned, King now had the difficult task of keeping the SCLC and its mission afloat. To do this, King decided to return to Atlanta, as close to SCLC headquarters as possible, to maximize the use of his time, although the black leadership established in Atlanta did not allow him to be actively involved in the city's civic life. moment of human rights. Then, on February 2, 1960, four black college students in Greensboro, North Carolina, staged a sit-in at a white restaurant, galvanizing students on campus and across the South to do the same. In fact, the movement preceded the formation of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, which helped coordinate sit-ins to fight segregation in the United States. Black students had finally started to get involved in the movement. In fact, the movement had begun to become so powerful that the city of Montgomery, in an attack on King, accused him of falsifying his tax returns and misusing the money he received as head of the SCLC, even though in later it was discovered that this was not the case. guilty in May. Meanwhile, the SCLC's financial problems had become less severe, giving rise to new growth, although this led directly to clashes with the NAACP, many of whom were jealous of King's leadership. King had also begun meeting with a young senator named John F. Kennedy, discussing potential ways the Democratic Party could help blacks in America. All of this was happening as SNCC clashed with Atlanta's established blacks. They did not want SNCC to continue its sit-ins in Atlanta for fear of the damage it would do to the city's reputation. However, King gave his support to the group and was arrested along with them during the sit-in. Although shortly after the SNCC members were released, King was forced to stay due to a probation violation he received the spring before for driving with expired Alabama license plates. King was sentenced to four months of hard labor without bail and taken away to DeKalb County and finally to Reidsville, a "safe haven" of the Ku Klux Klan. King's luck changed, however, as he was granted release on a $2,000 bond. He later discovered that Senator Kennedy was instrumental in his release. Subsequently, the Kennedy administration took advantage of the incident to garner three-quarters of the black community's votes, giving it a narrow lead in the presidential election. King continued his busy schedule of work, including fundraising, speeches, and debates. Meanwhile, the Kennedy administration was fulfilling some of its promises to aid the civil rights movement. In May of '61, CORE announced that it would launch Freedom Rides throughout the South. The act outraged many in the South, and white mobs mercilessly beat interracial Freedom Riders in Montgomery and even set fire to a bus in Anniston. After seeing this on television, King immediately decided that he would support them. Upon arrival, King spoke at a mass meeting in support of the Freedom Rider at his friend Abernathy's church. During the meeting, a white crowd formed outside and threatened those present with violence, even threatening to bomb the church itself. It took the intervention of federal marshals, state police and the Alabama National Guard to break up the crowd. Subsequently, King decided not to participate in the jousting, for fear of being arrested again in Georgia. The decision damaged his image and many questioned his leadership..