Martin Luther King, Jr and The Civil Rights Movement
In the late 1950s O'Dell withdrew his membership from the CPUSA to work in the Civil Rights movement in the South. He worked with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. O'Dell was a director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). Because of O'Dell's past involvement with the Communist Party, Dr. King received pressure from many liberal leaders—including the Kennedy brothers, John and Robert—to distance himself from O'Dell. After conferring with King, O'Dell decided to accept a less prominent post within the movement in order not to alienate important allies of the Civil Rights struggle; nevertheless, he continued to play a decisive role in the SCLC, as well as in King's move towards the political left towards the end of his life.
Read more about this topic: Hunter Pitts O'Dell
Famous quotes containing the words martin luther, martin, luther, civil, rights and/or movement:
“Martin Luther King, Jr., was the conscience of his generation.... He and I grew up in the same South, he the son of a clergyman, I the son of a farmer. We both knew from opposite sides, the invisible wall of racial segregation.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“She’s out there in the john, trying to get her knees unwelded.”
—Robert Getchell, U.S. screenwriter, and Martin Scorsese. Flo (Diane Ladd)
“Christians are to be taught that the pope would and should wish to give of his own money, even though he had to sell the basilica of St. Peter, to many of those from whom certain hawkers of indulgences cajole money.”
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“Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites; in proportion as their love to justice is above their rapacity; in proportion as their soundness and sobriety of understanding is above their vanity and presumption; in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good, in preference to the flattery of knaves.”
—Edmund Burke (1729–1797)
“The Civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner, or on any pretext, be infringed.”
—James Madison (1751–1836)
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