Dr. Martin Luther King made his first appearance in TIME magazine 51 years ago last month. The single paragraph devoted to him certainly gave readers a hint of the speaking ability and personal magnetism of the young civil-rights leader.
In a March 5, 1956, article titled “City on Trial,” TIME reported that King was in Montgomery, Alabama, protesting the arrest of more than 100 blacks who had tried to defy segregation by boycotting the city’s buses:
“Said the Rev. Martin Luther King: ‘This is not a tension between the Negro and whites. This is only a conflict between justice and injustice. We are not trying to improve Negro Montgomery. We are trying to improve the whole of Montgomery. If we are arrested today, if we are exploited every day, if we are triumphed over every day, let nobody pull you so low as to hate them.”
When he spoke those words, Dr. King was just 27 years old.