After his success with the Montgomery bus boycott, Martin Luther King received national attention, receiving job offers, speaking calls and interviews with magazines like Time Magazine and Playboy. It is even part of Africa and Europe. Of course, he also made time to give speeches and attend functions. The life of the King of the United States was as eventful as ever. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Still, 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. Although it was the first civil rights legislation since Reconstruction, King believed that the Civil Rights Act of 1957 was too weak, particularly 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 involve the black masses in the struggle for freedom in the South. In this, he distinguished himself from the NAACP, which focused on legal actions, and from CORE, which was too disorganized and focused mainly on the North. As always, King's schedule was busy, but he took time in October 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, beginning in 1958. By November, King had begun planning a visit in India and to publish his book on the Montgomery Boycott, detailing and discussing his own vision of the bus boycott, major events in his life, and his ideas on everything from communism to Southern blacks. While the crusade for citizenship was underway, King finally completed his book, Stride for Freedom. Meanwhile, King continued to speak about the civil rights movement. The book was generally well received and helped increase King's popularity. Another incident that helped increase King's notoriety was an incident in Montgomery in June 1958. King had been arrested for attempting to enter a courthouse in which his friend Abernathy was involved. with a case. His arrest, trial and conviction made national headlines. Taking inspiration from Gandhi's book, King decided to serve his 14-day prison sentence instead of paying a fine. To avoid any further bad publicity, the precinct commissioner paid himself to spoil King's "publicity stunt." While it made national headlines, it was nothing compared to the attempted assassination of King later in September. Izola Curry stabbed him with a sharp letter opener during a book signing in New York. The attack incited thousands of supporters of King, who felt that, in one way or another, this was also part of God's plan for him. The incident only strengthened his faith and determination. After his ordeal, King decided it was finally time for him to make his trip to India in February 1959, two years after his original plans. In India, he was impressed by how the Indian government treated its own version of the American black: the untouchables. Indeed, it seemed that the ruling spirit of Gandhi was still very much alive. After havingspent a month enjoying and learning about 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 the SCLC headquarters as possible, to maximize the use of his time, although established black leaders in Atlanta did not allow him to become actively involved in the civil life of the city. Then, on February 2, 1960, four black students from Greensboro, North Carolina, staged a sit-in at a white restaurant, galvanizing students across campus and across the South to do the same. Indeed, the movement preceded the formation of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, which helped coordinate sit-ins to combat segregation across the United States. Black students had finally begun to get involved in the movement. In fact, the movement had begun to become so powerful that the city of Montgomery, in order to attack King's character, accused him of falsifying his tax returns and improperly using the money he received. he had received as head of the SCLC, although it later turned out that he had no money. guilty in May. Meanwhile, the SCLC's financial problems had become less severe, harboring new growth, although this led directly to clashes with the NAACP, many of whom were jealous of King's leadership. King had also met with a young senator named John F. Kennedy, discussing potential ways in which the Democratic Party could help black people in America. All this was happening while SNCC was clashing with established blacks in Atlanta. They did not want SNCC to continue its sit-ins in Atlanta, for fear of damaging the city's reputation. Still, King supported the group and was arrested with them at the sit-ins. Although shortly after the SNCC members were released, King was forced to stay due to the traffic probation violation he had received the previous spring for driving with expired Alabama license plates . King was sentenced to four months of hard labor without bail and taken to DeKalb County and eventually to Reidsville, a Ku Klux Klan “safe haven.” King's luck changed, however, as he was allowed to be released on $2,000 bail. He later discovered that Senator Kennedy was instrumental in his release. Later, the Kennedy administration took advantage of the incident to garner three-quarters of the black community's vote, giving it a slight advantage in the presidential election. King continued his busy schedule, including fundraising, speeches and debates. Meanwhile, the Kennedy administration kept some of its promises to help the civil rights movement. In May 1961, CORE announced that it would launch Freedom Rides across the South. This act outraged many people in the South, and white mobs mercilessly beat interracial Freedom Riders in Montgomery and even burned a bus in Anniston. After seeing this on television, King decided then and there to support them. Upon his arrival, King spoke at a mass meeting in support of Freedom Rider at his friend Abernathy's church. During the meeting, a white mob had formed outside and threatened the meeting attendees with violence, even threatening to bomb the church itself. It took a contingent of federal marshals, state police and Alabama National Guardsmen to break up the crowd. Afterwards, King decided not to go on the rides for fear of being arrested again in Georgia. This decision damaged his image and many questioned his.