Civil rights movement

===Native Americans===
King and the civil rights movement inspired the [[Native American rights movement]] of the 1960s and many of its leaders.<ref name="Natives King">{{cite web |last1=Bender |first1=Albert |title=Dr. King spoke out against the genocide of Native Americans |url=http://www.peoplesworld.org/article/dr-king-spoke-out-against-the-genocide-of-native-americans/ |website=People's World |access-date=November 25, 2018 |date=February 13, 2014}}</ref> Native Americans had been [[dehumanized]] as "merciless Indian savages" in the [[United States Declaration of Independence]],<ref>{{cite news |title=Facebook labels declaration of independence as 'hate speech' |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jul/05/facebook-declaration-of-independence-hate-speech |access-date=September 7, 2020 |newspaper=The Guardian}}</ref> and in King's 1964 book ''[[Why We Can't Wait]]'' he wrote: "Our nation was born in genocide when it embraced the doctrine that the original American, the Indian, was an inferior race."<ref>{{cite web |last1=Rickert |first1=Levi |title=Dr. Martin Luther King Jr: Our Nation was Born in Genocide |url=https://nativenewsonline.net/currents/dr-martin-luther-king-jr-nation-born-genocide/ |website=Native News Online |access-date=November 25, 2018 |date=January 16, 2017 |archive-date=November 26, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181126092832/https://nativenewsonline.net/currents/dr-martin-luther-king-jr-nation-born-genocide/}}</ref> John Echohawk, a member of the [[Pawnee people|Pawnee tribe]] and the executive director and one of the founders of the [[Native American Rights Fund]], stated: "Inspired by Dr. King, who was advancing the civil rights agenda of equality under the laws of this country, we thought that we could also use the laws to advance our Indianship, to live as tribes in our territories governed by our own laws under the principles of tribal sovereignty that had been with us ever since 1831. We believed that we could fight for a policy of self-determination that was consistent with U.S. law and that we could govern our own affairs, define our own ways and continue to survive in this society".<ref>{{cite web |last1=Cook |first1=Roy |title='I have a dream for all God's children,' Martin Luther King Jr. Day |url=http://americanindiansource.com/mlkechohawk.html |website=American Indian Source |access-date=November 25, 2018}}</ref> Native Americans were also active supporters of King's movement throughout the 1960s, which included a sizable Native American contingent at the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.<ref name="Natives King"/>