Dr Martin Luther King Jr example essay topic

World wide racism has been an issue, and still is. Many people have tried to solve this problem in many ways. One way that is common is influencing people through speech. A number of the speakers were successful and others unsuccessful. Martin Luther King Jr. was definitely one of the many very successful. As many already know, Martin Luther King Jr. was a civil rights leader for the black people of America.

"American clergyman and Nobel Prize winner, one of the principal leaders of the American civil rights movement and a prominent advocate of nonviolent protest". 1 King was a leader during the 1950's and the 1960's. "His charismatic leadership inspired men and women, young and old, in this nation and around the world". 2 "His wisdom, his words, his actions, his commitment, and his dream for a new way of life are intertwined with the American experience". 3 The life of Martin started in 1929. He was born and raised in Atlanta Georgia.

Michael Luther King his original name but was changed to Martin. Martin was the first son and the second child. Christine was Martin's older sister and had a younger brother named Alfred Daniel. The two proud parents were Reverend Martin Luther King, Sr. and, Alberta Williams King. At five years of age Martin began his life as a student. Martin excelled throughout his entire academic career.

Having scored very highly on his entry college exams, he skipped the ninth and twelfth grades. King never formally graduated before he started college at the age of fifteen. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in sociology in 1948. Martin then enrolled in Croze r Theological Seminary. He then went to Boston where he earned a doctoral degree in systematic theology in 1955.

Martin was now known as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr... While in Boston, Martin had met his love. Her name was Coretta Scott. She was a native and a music student. The marriage occurred in 1953. They were the proud parents of four children.

The two boys were Martin Luther and Dexter Scott. His two daughters, Yolanda Denise and Bernice Albertine. King's speaking abilities started to show through his collegiate years. He received second place in a speech contest.

He took two public speaking courses in his first year. At the end of his third year, Martin was praised for the strong and powerful impressions he made during discussions and public speeches. Martin was adapting the nature of Protestant ministers who preached against racism in America. An important person in the shaping of Martin's theological development was Benjamin E. Mays. Martin entered the Christian ministry in 1948.

Following this, he obtained a job as an Assistant Pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church. After completing his studies at Boston University, he became a pastor for Dexter Avenue from September 1954 to November 1959. "Dr. King was a pivotal figure in the civil rights movement". 4 On December 5, 1955 Rosa Parks refused to obey the city of Montgomery rules mandating segregation on buses. Martin was elected president of the newly-formed Montgomery Improvement Association by the Black residents who had launched a bus boycott. Martin had gained national prominence due to his exceptional public speaking skills and personal courage and will.

Martin's house was bombed and he along with other boycott members were convicted on charges of conspiring to interfere with the bus company's rules. After the attempts of the boycott to suppress the movement, Montgomery busses were desegregated, after the United States Supreme Court declared Alabama's segregation laws unconstitutional. He was arrested thirty times for participating in activities of the civil rights activists. In 1957 Martin helped in the founding of Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCL C). He became the president of the group and also became the group's primary influence. He was responsible for fund raising, so he preached at many Northern churches.

Martin and other leaders influenced the usage of non-violent actions. These included demonstrations, boycotts, and marches. Several of the whites' violent responses forced action to take place. Eventually the federal government began to confront a few of the racism issues. Martin had made several alliances with white people from the northern regions. This would reinforce his success in influencing the public.

Working through Bayard Rust in, Martin managed to acquire connections with many other activists. A lot of the activists were Jewish and provided advice and money. His closest adviser was Stanley Le vision. He was a recent member of the American Communist Party. He also developed strong bonds with Protestant Ministers whom shared and discussed moral and theological views.

Martin spoke at the Lincoln Memorial during the 1957 Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom. There he emphasized the goal of black voting rights. In 1958, he published his first book that is called Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story. That following year he toured India in order to understand the Gandhian non-violent strategies.

Martin returned from his trip and became a co-pastor with his father at Ebenezer Baptist Church from 1960 to 1968. In the spring of 1963, Martin and many of his followers, guided massive demonstrations in Birmingham, Alabama. There the white police officers were known from their anti-black attitudes. Conflicts between the black demonstrators and the police force using police dogs and fire hoses had caused major news reports.

President Kennedy had reacted to the Birmingham protests by submitting broad civil rights legislation to Congress. "That eventually came to be the Civil Rights Act of 1964". Following demonstrations in many areas resulted in a march on August 28, 1963, that had lured more than 250,000 protesters to Washington, D.C... Addressing the protestors, Martin delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" oration. In the following year Martin became Time magazine's Man of the Year. In December 1964 he received the Nobel Peace Prize, An honorary award.

Martin had confronted many obstacles over his leadership. Malcolm X (another famous black leader) sent a message of self-defence. Many black people were angered by this and caused many conflicts. During 1966 and 1967, Martin turned his focus of his civil rights activism to economic issues. He argued for redistribution of the country's money to help out the enormous black poverty. In 1967 he designed a "Poor People's Campaign" to address economic justice.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Was assassinated on April 4, 1968. He was in Memphis, Tennessee to help lead sanitation workers in a protest against intolerable working conditions and better wages. He was shot by a sniper while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. The name of the sniper was Earl Ray. His sentence was to serve ninety nine years in Tennessee State Penitentiary.

The following is a newspaper article that is a follow up on the assassination. "Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years, 1963-65. (book reviews) Jon Meacham 01/19/98 Newsweek, Page 62 January 6, 1964, was a long day for Martin Luther King Jr. He spent the morning seated in the reserved section of the Supreme Court, listening as lawyers argued New York Times Co. vs. Sullivan, a landmark case rising out of King's crusade against segregation in Alabama. The minister was something of an honoured guest: Justice Arthur Goldberg quietly sent down a copy of Kings account of the Montgomery bus boycott, "Stride Toward Freedom", asking for an autograph. That night King retired to his room at the Willard Hotel.

There FBI bugs reportedly picked up 14 hours of party chatter, the clinking of glasses and the sounds of illicit sex -- including King's cries of "I'm f -- ing for God" and "I'm not a Negro tonight!" What is not mentioned in this article is that Martin Luther King was having sex with three White women, one of whom he brutally beat while screaming the above mentioned quotes". 5 A year after Martin's death, his younger brother was killed in a tragic accident at his home in Atlanta. In June of 1974, the mother of Martin was shot and killed while playing the organ at a church ceremony. In 1975 Rev. Martin Luther King Sr. resigned from his pastorate career. Even after the deaths of his family members he declared "I cannot hate any man".

6 Some of the many statements Martin made have been listed below. Each holding a true, powerful, and meaningful message. "Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now.

I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor in America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home and death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. The great initiative in this war is ours.

The initiative to stop it must be ours". Martin Luther King, Jr., The Trumpet of Conscience, 1967. "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction...

The chain reaction of evil -- hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars -- must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation". Martin Luther King, Jr., Strength To Love, 1963. "Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted". "We must combine the toughness of the serpent and the softness of the dove, a tough mind and a tender heart". "If a man hasn't discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live". Martin Luther King, Jr., speech, Detroit, Michigan, June 23, 1963.

"Being a Negro in America means trying to smile when you want to cry. It means trying to hold on to physical life amid psychological death. It means the pain of watching your children grow up with clouds of inferiority in their mental skies. It means having your legs cut off, and then being condemned for being a cripple. It means seeing your mother and father spiritually murdered by the slings and arrows of daily exploitation, and then being hated for being an orphan".

Martin Luther King, Jr., Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? , 1967". 7 These statements have influenced many people. The most famous speech of all is the "I Have A Dream". Here it is as following; "I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today, I have a dream that one day down in Alabama with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with the little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today". 8 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. will always be remembered. He was a great black leader. A role model or someone to look up to. He touched the lives and the hearts of many Americans.

His ways of doing things, the effort he put in and the outcomes showed how truly great this man really was, and is never to be forgotten.

Bibliography

1) Encarta. Robert J. Norrell, "King, Martin Luther, Jr". . Microsoft, Inc. 1993-1997 2) web 3) web 4) web 5) web 6) Martin Luther King Sr.
7) Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 8) Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Bibliography Encarta. Microsoft, Inc. 1993-1997 web web web web web.