In our Facebook Story of the Day you wanted to know what role Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. played in the Albany Civil Rights Movement
Wiggins says Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was arrested briefly while helping the Albany Movement
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ALBANY, GA --
In our Facebook Story of the Day, you wanted to know what role Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. played in the Albany Civil Rights Movement.
According to Lee Formwalt – formerly of the Albany Civil Rights Institute – King played a large role in the local Student Non Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). He says King encouraged the students to challenge the system that oppressed them. Formwalt says the student's movement in Albany would have been a different movement had he not helped them.
Gloria Wiggins, the former secretary of CB King – an Albany civil rights lawyer – says she remembers many people being worried about the attention King brought to Albany.
"They thought he was being disruptive and they were also looking out for their income: They would receive threats from employers, they thought they would lose their job. They just had to be a little more low on the scale and not be too much 'M.L.K., M.L.K.' because they were worried about their own welfare," says Wiggins.
Formwalt says King was briefly arrested during the time he was here, from December 1961 to August 1962. He says King arrived in city well into the Albany Movement; he says nearly 700 people were already in jail in Albany during the Civil Rights Movement.
He says King did bring national media attention to Albany.
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