Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday was first agknowledged as a national holiday in 1986. However, his life had become a part of Americans for years before this. To many African Americans whose rights he helped expand, to many other minorities whose lives his victories touched, and to many whites who welcomed the changes his leadership brought, Mr. King's life seemed overwhelming even as he lived it. He is celebrated as a hero not only for the eyes he's opened, but for his dreams and hopes he shared during a time of change.
             After long training in the North, Mr. King returned to his home, becoming a pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. Mr. King became the leader of the Montgomery Bus Boycott when it broke out in 1955. That year long non-violent protest, which led to a Supreme Court ruling against bus segregation, brought Mr. King to the attention of the entire country.
             The occurances immediately following were less successful, but still provided Mr. King with the opportunity to strengthen his protest strategies. Then, in 1963, Mr. King and the SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference) joined a campaign in Birmingham, Alabama to end segregation there and to force downtown businesses to allow blacks to work. Peaceful protests were not long after met by fire hoses and attack dogs, joined by local police. Images of this violence broadcast on national news, began an outrage, and this reaction stirred the political atmosphere, and the next year President Lyndon Johnson signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Meanwhile the SCLC was repeating the tactics of Birmingham in Selma, Alabama but this time for the African American voter registration. Once again, images of the police brutality because of the protest helped the passage of federal legislation, this time the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
             The community of black activists felt that these two major victories set the limit of what gains could still
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