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Essay on the life of martin luther king jr
Essay on the life of martin luther king jr
Impact of the civil rights movement
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Martin Luther King Jr's Impact on the Civil Rights Movement
Martin Luther King's 'I Have a Dream' speech directly contributed to the Civil Rights movement. While delivering his speech at a kairotic moment, King tells us how blacks have been serving an injustice and that they should be treated equally.
Much had transpired before the speech was delivered. As civil rights protests spread throughout the nation, King continued to combine peaceful methods of protest and his theological training to work towards the hope of equal rights for blacks (Kauffeld and Lefrd, 1989). During this time, blacks were not treated equally and were often denied service. King was trying to get the merchants and the government officials to negotiate on their terms which would allow blacks to be allowed in all facilities that white people were and to be hired on a non-discriminatory basis (King, 1969). For example, in Birmingham, Alabama, black men and women held sit-ins and kneel-ins where they were denied service at lunch counters and attendance at church. Many demonstrators were fined and arrested for these acts. In 1963, King, Reverend Shuttlesworth, and Reverend Abernathy lead a protest in Birmingham. They were then arrested and taken to Southside Jail. Society treated blacks and whites differently, like they didn't matter. King was raised to treat others in the same manner no matter what the circumstances, which lead to his speech that contributed to the civil rights movement and helped change blacks rights (Dyson, 2000).
On August 28th, 1963, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C., the African-American civil-rights movement reached its high potential when Martin Luther King spoke to over 250,000 people attending h...
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... our nation became one and is a better place because of it. The ?I Have a Dream? speech not only contributed to the civil rights movement, but it is the most influential speech in history.
Works Cited
Bond, Julian. "Kings 1963 I Have a Dream Speech." Seattle Times 4 April 1993.
Dyson, Michael. I May Not Get There With You: The True Martin Luther King Jr. New York: Free Press, 2000.
King, Corretta. "My Life with Martin Luther King Jr." Holt Rinehart and Winston: Canada. 1969
King, Corretta S. The Words of Martin Luther King Jr. New York: Newmarket Press,1987.
Kauffeld, Fred and Lefrd, Michael. Texts in Context: Critique dialogues on Significant Episodes in American Public Rhetoric. Davis: Hemagoras Press, 1989.
Rappaport, Dorreen. Martins Big Words: The Life of Martin Luther King Jr. New York: Scholastic Inc., 2002.
Martin Luther King Jr. “I Have a Dream” speech was delivered as motivation to fight for their rights and help paint the picture of what America could look like in the future. He does this by in the beginning saying that even though the Emancipation Proclamation was signed African Americans are not treated as normal citizens. By saying this Martin Luther King Jr. was saying we should not just be content with being free from slavery. That now it is time to fight for our rights and to end discrimination because of the color on one’s skin.
King, Martin Luther, Jr. “I Have a Dream.” Current Issues and Enduring Questions. Ed. Adam Whitehurst. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2014. 687-690. Print.
Bainton, Roland H. Here I Stand: A life of Martin Luther. New York. Abington Printing Press. 1950
King, Martin Luther. "I Have A Dream." The McGraw-Hill Reader: Issues Across the Disciplines. 8th edition, Ed. Gilbert H. Muller. New York: McGraw Hill, 2003. 309-312.
Discrimination is still a chronic global issue, and drastic inequalities still exist at the present time. Thus, the Affirmative Action Law is an important tool to many minorities most especially to women, and people of color, for the reason that this program provides an equality on educational, and professional opportunities for every qualified individual living in the United States. Without this program, a higher education would have been impossible for a “minority students” to attain. Additionally, without the Affirmative Action, a fair opportunity to have a higher-level career...
Alger, Jonathan. "The Educational Value of Diversity." The American Association of University Professors. Academe, January/February 1997.
Naval Posstgraduate Security Digital Library, “Public Law 253: National Security Act of 1947,” GPO, PL 253, S. 758, access online, https://www.hsdl.org/?view&did=2787.
On August 28, 1963 Dr. King made his way to Washington Mall from the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial to commit his speech to his fellow Americans. Dr. King commands his speech during an ironic period time of America history. African-Americans were frowned upon by the Caucasian. Not only the African-American had a difficult time fitting in, also Asians and Hispanics were discriminated and surrogated from the Caucasian population. The heartless Caucasian police officers would verbally command their racists’ hounds on the desperate but yet innocent African-American young adults and children. The inhuman Caucasian fire department used their almighty water hose on the nonviolent protesters, only because the protesters’ skins were darker than theirs.
Whenever Martin Luther King Junior, began to speak, he held everybody’s attention. This was the case in 1963 during the pinnacle of the Civil Rights Movement when Martin gave his career defining speech “I Have a Dream”. Over a quarter million people attended the protest, and the crowd varied in color as well as cause. A crowd of this size would certainly frighten most people; but Martin was not the type of man to be phased easily. Martin grew up on the racist streets of Atlanta, Georgia and faced much adversity in his life. Not even thirty-five Martin would give a speech that would shake an embroiled nation to its core. Martin Luther King Junior gave a speech to beautifully wove together the three appeals of ethos, logos, and pathos into one
"Martin Luther King Jr." - Acceptance Speech. The Novel Foundation, n.d. Web. 22 Apr. 2014. .
Aziwike, Abayomi. "The Civil Rights Movement and Martin Luther King: Continuing the Legacy of the Great Walk to Freedom of 1963." Global Research. N.p., 25 Mar. 2013. Web. 21 Nov. 2013.
The most common question that arises in contemporary debates over affirmative action is, “Does affirmative action still work as intended?” The original purpose of affirmative action in college admissions was to eliminate racial bias in the applicant selection process and provide a helping hand to disadvantaged minority students. Has this happened? The simple answer is “No”, but a more precise answer requires more elaboration. Richard Rodriguez, the Mexican-American author of Hunger of Memory and a direct beneficiary of early affirmative action policies, puts it this way, “I think – as I thought in 1967 – that the black civil rights leaders were correct: Higher education was not, nor is it yet, accessible to many black Americans” (Rodriguez 144).
American & World History. http://www.history.com/topics/martin-luther-king-jr (accessed October 1, 2013). Primary source: a. King, Martin Luther, and Clayborne Carson. The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. New York: Intellectual Property Management in association with Warner Books, 1998.
...chulke, Flip. He Had a Dream: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1995.
I Have a Dream was a speech given by Martin Luther King Jr. This speech was delivered on the afternoon of Wednesday, August 28, 1963, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. The speech was intended for the 250,000 civil rights supporters that attended. The speech addressed the topic of equality for the African Americans and the White people. The purpose of the speech was to address the issues of segregation and racism as a whole. King speaks about the issues of racism and segregation in America during the 1960’s. He encourages the use of non-violent protests and to fight for equality to help America solve the issue.