Martin Luther King

Martin Luther King

Martin Luther King was born in Atlanta, Georgia on January 15th 1929

growing up in the comfort of a rare black middle class community. His

farther was the pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church and an active member

of the NAACP; the church would prove to be a large influence in Kings

early life it became his "Second home" were he felt "special". His

parents and family would repeatedly try to build his self esteem and

confidence through telling him he was "somebody" and rewarding him for

his sensitive personality. King had a white friend as a child yet one

day the boy told him that he was no longer allowed to play with him

because his father would not allow it, it was the first time king had

encountered race problems and it would certainly not be the last. Even

though King came from a middle class relatively prosperous family, he

would still have to suffer the everyday segregation that every black

in America had to experience in the south, he had to sit at the back

of busses, he had to drink from coloured water fountains and had to

sit in the coloured section of a cinema, he was slapped and called "A

little nigger" by a white women, called "A black son of a bitch by a

bus driver who demanded King gave up his seat, witnessed Klansmen

beating blacks in the streets and he lived in what was known as

"nigger town". All this made King "Determined to hate every white

person", examples of his apparent anger come when his maternal

grandmother died, king had been away watching a parade and returned

home to find her dead, he blamed himself and thought he had sinned to

the extent that he attempted suicide, at the age of twelve, by

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...the intention was finally achieved through democracy

and the legal system with this particular protest demonstrating all

three of Kings philosophies. The events of Birmingham in 1963 would

later demonstrate the effectiveness of peaceful protest in portraying

a battle of good vs. Evil. In this demonstration protesters were set

on by dogs and were hit by powerful fire hoses yet they showed no

reaction achieving desegregation in the city to a certain extent was

their reward. King and his followers would continue to practise these

beliefs up until his death in 1968 when he went to Memphis to help

black sanitation workers who were striking for the right to unionise.

He was shot while on the balcony of his hotel by an escaped white

convict, He had died while doing work for the cause as he was willing

to do in his Philosophy.