We're talking 50 years ago. Jim Crow, white's only facilities, segregated schools, back of the bus, and don't even think of trying to vote or eat at that white's only lunch counter. King stood up and said it was wrong. King, not Carver or 'Edmund Brooke' (could you be thinking Edward Brooke from Massachusetts?). In no small part because of him we as a nation recognize that when George Wallace stood and vowed 'segregation forever' he was 100 years behind the times. King, in his own way, helped make Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice and Clarence Thomas possible, as any one of the three would be the first to admit.
I believe that King's role was to step into and solidify a simmering movement already under way. King did NOT invent this movement any more than he directed Rosa Parks. The creation of the SLC was an attempt to create a coalition and obtain a unified front for the national media. King learned, somewhere, the tactics and techniques of doing just that. Because of this, he is pointed to as the luminary of the age in just the same way as Jesse Jackson is today and, of course, this was also why it was so important for JJ to steal the mantle and annointing ASAP.