“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” This quote summarizes the main points that President Roosevelt and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. were trying to pursue. Both men had similar views on how people all over the world deserved to be treated. they were willing to do something about it differently from how other organizations were attempting to solve their problems. Ending injustice peacefully was the only thing on their mind. Not only the African Americans in America but all people everywhere in the world deserved to be treated equally. Humans were entitled to have their inalienable fundamental rights regardless of their location, ethnic origin, language or religion. Both speeches addressed the issues of equality, only to end injustice civilly. Even though Martin Luther King Jr. was a black man who was also affected by the idea of segregation, he didn’t only want rights for his kind of people. He envisioned a world where no matter what color or race you were, everyone was treated the same. Not privileged or out of the ordinary, just the basic rights that a human deserved. The rights his people were supposed to be granted since birth, but he realized they were victims of broken promises as he said in his speech. Roosevelt, also a man of equality had the same expectations and beliefs as King Jr. , stating …show more content…
These four rights, the freedom of speech, expression, worship, want and fear are the keys of having a world where everyone can genuinely be happy. Any law that degrades the human personality is unjust. Having everyone happy and in unity would lead to a better future for not only America but the whole world, as Roosevelt stated at the end of every freedom in his speech. Strength of unity is purpose, and groups tend to be more immoral than individuals. Non violent, tension was the way that Roosevelt and M.L.K Jr. pictured to fulfill equality of all
The similarity between Susan B. Anthony speech and Martin Luther King Juniors “I Have a Dream” speech is that they are fighting for the equality of America. Susan B. Anthony is fighting for women being able to vote like everyone else. Martin Luther King is fighting for the equality of African Americans. Both just want to see America as an equal place instead of discrimination against others based on race or gender. Even though their message has similarities the way they delivered them was different.
In reading the first few paragraphs in the “Letter from Birmingham Jail” Martin Luther King Jr shows commitment to all African Americans. He says, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”. In the one sentence King declared that he would fight racial...
The presidency of Theodore Roosevelt is well known in the general public and his actions still stand strong in our society today. President Trump’s election was a shock to many that thought Hilary Clinton was a shoe-in for the seat. Trump has already made an impact that will likely be remembered for many years to come. Although there are slight differences, President Trump and former President Teddy Roosevelt are alike in many ways. These ways include their backgrounds, their physical uniqueness, their personalities, and their policies. Taking a detailed look at the comparison of two presidents can lead to a more in depth, applicable way of studying history.
Martin Luther King Jr. and Cornel West both want the same thing; peace and proper freedom for all African Americans within the United States, and even on a worldwide scale. Martin Luther King Jr. stated in his letter while imprisoned in Birmingham that; "Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The urge for freedom will eventually come. This is what happened to the American Negro. Something within has reminded him of his birthright of freedom; something without has reminded him that he can gain it again." (Luther King Jr. 1963).
... was also the clearest way of drawing the Federal Government to the support for the civil rights campaign and the large force that black Americans represented. However, I do not believe that this alone achieved racial equality in America. It is easy to overlook the work of organisations such as the SNCC and SCLC. These played a crucial part in helping to invoke protest that developed in the form of widespread civil disobedience campaigns. Moreover the impact of two World Wars acted as a catalyst as they changed the World and America’s position in it. It created a domestic issue for the United States that needed to be dealt with. America as an emerging Superpower could no longer continue like this. However what is clear is that King’s beautifully articulated speech combined with the mass participation in the March created a day that captured the World’s imagination.
Martin Luther king Jr. didn’t want segregation. He wanted everyone to come together and join and unite as one community.
In the beginning of his speech Martin Luther heralds back almost one hundred years by linking the importance of the march to the Emancipation Proclamation(King 3). By doing this King puts the issue of equality into a timeline by showing that while it has been a hundred years since African Americans had been given freedom it also shows that while freedom has been granted to them there has still been very little that has happened to give the African race a better life. Not much further in his speech King say, “ This note was a promise that all men-yes, black men as well as white men-would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” (King 3) Again by taking an important article from America’s past King says that when the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution they meant for all Americans to be equal. Midway through the speech King pleads with his people to never resort to violence in the face of adversity that is handed to them by their oppressors, because King has came to realize through his own trials that the “their( referring to the white man)destiny is tied up with our destiny.”(King 3) As King’s speech progresses he tells the masses that until they have their rights be equal to those who rights are unbounded that they must not stop until they have achieved their goal. By being able to use
Martin Luther King, Jr. was a very prominent part of the movement to end Jim Crow laws. In 1963 he and the SCLC organized a boycott and marched to challenge these laws in Birmingham, Alabama. He and many others were arrested for this and while in jail he wrote to a response to the white ministers that were critiquing him. King was not afraid to stand up to the white people. He explained two kinds of laws, just laws; laws that needed to be followed, and unjust laws: laws that needed to be disobeyed. He is speaking about the Jim Crow laws, they were the unjust laws meant to be broken, these were the laws that needed to go away and go away for good and African Americans were not going to stop until the unjust Jim Crow laws were gone for good and they were not afraid of a fight. But within the African American community there were two opposing forces; the church force who had a non-violent approach and were very complacent, and the militants who were advocates of violence, believed white people were blue- eyed devils and that African Americans were better off not integrating and should create their own nation. King placed himself in the middle of these two forces. King was smart in placing himself in the middle of the two forces because he created a spectrum of options for himself and others who want to join him. King may have been oppressed by the whites, but he was not afraid to fight back and tell them how he felt, and by placing himself in between the church and
Martin Luther King Jr. was targeting the white people of the America that were still on the fence about taking action for black rights. King references the Declaration of Independence three times in his “I Have a Dream” speech. King was passionate about the social equality for the black people of the United Sates, and said the government had given American people of color a bad check. He proclaimed “This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the ‘unalienable rights’ of Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness” but even 100 years after the emancipation proclamation, the United States citizens of color still were not a free people. It is important to note that Martin Luther King Jr. does something in his speech that the other two have not. He uses “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal” clause as a way to emotionally connect with his target audience. While the other two have just use logic and reason to make their points, King points to the hearts of his audience by talking about the Declaration and his dream for a colorblind society, one where “his children will be judged by not the color of their skin but the content of their
African Americans are fortunate to have leaders who fought for a difference in Black America. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X are two powerful men in particular who brought hope to blacks in the United States. Both preached the same message about Blacks having power and strength in the midst of all the hatred that surrounded them. Even though they shared the same dream of equality for their people, the tactics they implied to make these dreams a reality were very different. The background, environment and philosophy of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X were largely responsible for the distinctly varying responses to American racism.
The 20th century was a definitive time period for the Black civil rights movement. An era where the status quo was blatant hatred and oppression of African Americans, a time when a black son would watch his father suffer the indignity of being called a “boy” by a young white kid and say nothing in reply but “yes sir”. Where a Black person can be whipped or lynched for anything as little as not getting off the sidewalk when approaching a white person, for looking into their eyes, or worse, “for committing the unpardonable crime of attempting to vote.” In the midst of the racial crises and fight for social equality were Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. who despite their difference in philosophies were “icons of social justice movement both in the United States and around the world” .
He believed in a separate but equal policy and thought that the best way to gain racial equality was through accommodating whites and that through hard work and obtaining property African Americans could to prove to whites that they were worthy of rights (p. 613). In his “Atlanta Compromise Speech” Washington (1895) declares to whites that “you can be sure in the future, as you have been in the past, that you and your families will be surrounded by the most patient, faithful, law-abiding, and unresentful people that the world has seen” and “In all things that are purely social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress” (para 4). Washington’s approach to racial equality was very different from Martin Luther King’s approach. Washington wanted African Americans to wait patiently for equality and show that blacks were worthy of rights, King on the other hand didn’t want to be patient. Through civil disobedience and nonviolent protest King sought to make a change, instead of waiting for one to happen.
In his speech, he proclaimed a free and better nation of equality and that both races, the blacks and the whites, should join together to achieve common ground and to support each other instead of fighting against one another. King’s vision is that all people should be judged by their “personality and character and not by their color of skin”(‘I Have a Dream”). All points he made in his speech were so strong that lots of people were interested in his thoughts. He dreamed of a land where the blacks could vote and have a reason to vote and where every citizen would be treated the same and with the same justice. He felt that all Americans should be equal and that they should forget about injustice and segregation. He wanted America to know what the problems were and wanted to point out the way to resolve these problems.
The speech given by Martin Luther King, Jr. to the African Americans and to the white Americans in the August of 1963 was undoubtedly a motivator for many. It is no wonder why a vast majority of people living in the United States can recite words from the speech of a now deceased man. Because his language and diction spoke to all believers in freedom as well as to freedom's adversaries, his message was universal and had a meaning to all who heard it. This continues today. Freedom and equality are something to be attained, for all of us.
Dr. Martin Luther King lived in a time of Racial Segregation. He grew up with people scorning him simply because of the color of his skin. When he began a family of his own, he had the dream that life should be better than he had it. He marched protests and gave speeches, speaking his dream to everyone who would listen. His most famous speech being the “ I have a dream speech… ”. This speech spoke of his dream that all men were equal whether they were white, or black, or any other color of skin. That was his American Dream.