When people hear the word Civil Rights Movement, two
men automatically come to their minds, Martin Luther King
Jr. and Malcolm X. While both these men had very
different views and ideas, they also shared similarities. Part
of the reason for their different views was because one was
in the South and the other was in the North. Martin saw a
Dream that could be fulfilled in the South and Malcolm saw
a Nightmare, which would never end in the North. Martin
and Malcolm were raised in very different homes. Martin
Luther King Jr. grew up in Atlanta; his family status was
that of the middle class, he never experienced poverty or
hunger like Malcolm did. Martin was raised in a loving and
supporting environment. His parents instilled in him the
importance of self-respect and self-help. They taught
Martin and his other siblings that they could make
something out of their lives despite the fact that the color of
their skin was black. Martin's father was a prominent
preacher for the Ebenezer Baptist Church. His mother was
a member of the choir. Family and church were a big part
of Martin's childhood, and influenced his adult life and they
way he chose to lead it. Unlike Martin's supportive family,
Malcolm Little, better known as Malcolm X, grew up in a
home that never knew what it meant to be in the middle
class; Malcolm's family grew up in the ghettos of the North.
His parents never taught their children to love themselves
and be proud of who they were, because they themselves
had lost their self-respect. Malcolm's parents were very
abusive to their children and to each other, making the
home environment just as volatile as the surroundings
outside. Malcolm's parents were big supporters of Marcus
Garvey's teachings. His father was the president of the
Omaha branch of the UNIA, which was started by Garvey,
and his mother was the reporter for the meetings. Not only
were their religious backgrounds different and their social
class standings different, their educational history was also
very different. Malcolm dropped out of school when he
was in the eighth grade. His parents never stressed the
importance of getting a good education and so he was
never motivated to stay in school. The rest of Malcolm's
education came from the ghettos of Boston and New
York, and eventually from the Charlestown Prison. Martin
on the other hand not only...
... middle of paper ...
...ation of Islam and it's militant teachings and beliefs. These
two men inspired a nation to take a stand against
oppression and hate. They taught blacks everywhere to
stand up for themselves, whether with civil non-violent
direct action, or with separatist self-defense. They taught
that the most important element was self-respect or
self-love. Maybe if Martin and Malcolm had put their
differences with each other aside they could have combine
the strengths of both their philosophies and united to gain a
more secure force against the white society. At the end of
their careers as leaders they were starting to do just that,
but unfortunately someone took it into their own hands to
make sure unity between the two men would never happen.
Bibliography
Cone, James H. Martin and Malcolm and
America. New York: Orbis Books, 1991.
Franklin, Robert
Michael. Liberating Visions: Human Fulfillment and Social
Justice in African-American Thought. Minneapolis: Fortress
Press, 1990.
Perry, Bruce. Malcolm: The Life of a Man
Who Changed Black America. New York: Station Hill
Press, 1991.
Williams, John A. The King God Didn't Save.
New York: Coward-McCann, Inc., 1970.
Malcolm was born on May 19, 1925, in Omaha, Nebraska to Louise and Earl Little. His Father, Earl, was a Baptist minister and an active member of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (founded by Marcus Garvey). Due to his involvement in civil rights, Malcolm and his family were harassed and experienced racism from an early age, and Malcolm’s encounter before he was even born. In his own words, Malcolm said: “ When my mother was pregnant with me, she told me later, ‘ a party of hooded Ku Klux Klan riders galloped to our home, brandishing their guns and rifles, they shouted for my father to come out’.”
Fate can be defined as being “a power that determines and controls everything that is or happens,” (Newfeldt (Ed.) p.431) while destiny can be described as “what is predetermined to happen in spite of all efforts to change or prevent it.” (Newfeldt (Ed.) p.321) Therefore, fate is the entity that decides all that will occur, and destiny is the decision made by fate. Tragedy can be defined as the dramatic representation of serious and important actions that turn out disastrously for the main character. This indicates that the tragedies in Romeo and Juliet were the deaths of Romeo and Juliet, and to say fate and destiny were not responsible for these tragedies, is to say the characters of the play, rather than some intangible force, were aware and in control of the actions that caused Romeo’s and Juliet’s
Martin Luther King, Jr. was perhaps one of the most influential person of our time. As the father of modern civil rights movement, Dr.Martin Luther king, Jr., is recognized around the world as a symbol of freedom and peace. Born January 15, 1929, King was the son of an Atlanta pastor. King accomplished many achievements during his life. He graduated from Morehouse as a minister in 1948 and went on to Crozer Theological seminary in Chester, Pa., where he earned a divinity degree. After that King went on to earn a doctorate in theology from Boston University in 1955. King also achieved the Nobel Peace Prize in December of 1964. He was assassinated on April 4,1968, outside his motel room by James Earl Ray. While his views at the time seemed radical to many, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is remembered and respected today as a martyr of the civil rights movement and an icon of change through nonviolent means.
Malcolm X and James Baldwin were two men that played a large role in defining a people and a cause during the 1950s and 1960s. Both of these men were dynamic African-Americans who lived primarily to help their people, who were terribly persecuted in the United States for many years. The interesting thing about these two men is that they strove towards the same goal—to unify African-Americans and give them strength and confidence—but they accomplished this goal in very different ways. Malcolm X, a leader in the Nation of Islam movement, believed that African-Americans needed to acquire strength and confidence so that they could separate from the White man and live together in peace, harmony, and production. On the other hand, James Baldwin, renowned writer, believed it necessary for African-Americans to have strength and confidence so that they might coexist on the same level as whites and accomplish what whites were accomplishing. The methodology and teachings of James Baldwin and Malcolm X differed greatly, but their general belief, that African-Americans were just as good as everybody else prevailed over all else, and made these men two of the very important faces of a generation.
The famous speech of Martin Luther King The famous speech, “ I Have a Dream”, was held in 1963 by a powerful leader of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s. He was born January 15, 1929, the son of an Atlanta Pastor. Martin Luther King Jr. always insisted on nonviolent resistance and always tried to persuade others with his nonviolent beliefs. In 1963, King spoke from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and almost 200,000 people attended his speech. All his listeners were Civil Rights supporters who rallied behind him and the people who watched his appearance on television.
Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X were very significant during the Civil Rights Movement. Both were excellent speakers and shared one goal, but had two different ways of resolving it. Martin Luther King Jr. chose to resolve the issues by using non-violence to create equality amongst all races to accomplish the goal. Malcolm X also wanted to decrease discrimination and segregation by using another tactic to successfully accomplish the similar goal. The backgrounds of both men were one of the main driving forces behind the ways they executed their plans to rise above the various mistreatments.
Emily Dickinson was a creative,private poet, unlike Robert Lee Frost. She chose to publish less than a dozen of her almost eighteen hundred poems written during her lifetime. The work that was published during her life was usually altered by the publishers to meet the strict poetic rules of the period. Emily Dickinson’s
Emily Dickinson is one of the great visionary poets of nineteenth century America. In her lifetime, she composed more poems than most modern Americans will even read in their lifetimes. Dickinson is still praised today, and she continues to be taught in schools, read for pleasure, and studied for research and criticism. Since she stayed inside her house for most of her life, and many of her poems were not discovered until after her death, Dickinson was uninvolved in the publication process of her poetry. This means that every Dickinson poem in print today is just a guess—an assumption of what the author wanted on the page. As a result, Dickinson maintains an aura of mystery as a writer. However, this mystery is often overshadowed by a more prevalent notion of Dickinson as an eccentric recluse or a madwoman. Of course, it is difficult to give one label to Dickinson and expect that label to summarize her entire life. Certainly she was a complex woman who could not accurately be described with one sentence or phrase. Her poems are unique and quite interestingly composed—just looking at them on the page is pleasurable—and it may very well prove useful to examine the author when reading her poems. Understanding Dickinson may lead to a better interpretation of the poems, a better appreciation of her life’s work. What is not useful, however, is reading her poems while looking back at the one sentence summary of Dickinson’s life.
Kate Chopin wrote a short piece called “The Story of an Hour” about a woman’s dynamic emotional shift who believes she has just learned her husband has died. The theme of Chopin’s piece is essentially a longing for more freedom for women.
Kate Chopin tells the story using a lot of symbolism and she uses irony to raise the concern of a married women who has experienced oppression. She is raising an issue and she tells the readers that women shouldn’t experience what Mrs. Mallard did and shouldn’t be trapped in the intuition of marriage and follows the rules that society has made only for women. Her use of literary devices makes the story more interesting and meaningful. Which is why this story should be in American literature
“There is no perfect relationship. The idea that there is gets us into so much trouble.”-Maggie Reyes. Kate Chopin reacts to this certain idea that relationships in a marriage during the late 1800’s were a prison for women. Through the main protagonist of her story, Mrs. Mallard, the audience clearly exemplifies with what feelings she had during the process of her husbands assumed death. Chopin demonstrates in “The Story of an Hour” the oppression that women faced in marriage through the understandings of: forbidden joy of independence, the inherent burdens of marriage between men and women and how these two points help the audience to further understand the norms of this time.
"An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity." (S. King 17) These are the words made famous by a man who was one of the greatest civil rights leaders of our time.
“The Story of an Hour,” by Kate Chopin tells the fictional account of a woman who learns of her husband dying in a train crash and the ensuing hour after she is given that news. Within that hour, the protagonist Mrs. Mallard grieves over the loss of her husband, but also realizes a newfound freedom that she didn’t have being married. Chopin focuses on the theme of freedom, especially in terms of a woman’s role in marriage at the time the story was published (December 1894). In the short story “The Story of an Hour,” author Kate Chopin uses elements of the plot to evoke empathy and demonstrate how marriage affected a woman’s freedom in the late nineteenth century.
Emily Dickinson, one of the greatest American poets of the nineteenth century used many different themes, styles, and techniques that make her poetry so widely popular. The enigma that is Emily Dickinson continues to befuddle experts and leaves readers with a sense of deep, intimate connection through poetry. Even though she was a recluse, Emily Dickinson’s poems present universal themes that can communicate with the reader of the poems.
Emily Dickinson was a nineteenth – century American writer whose poems changed the way people perceive poetry. She is one of the most mysterious writers of all times. Her personal life and her works are still the cause of debates and are not fully solved. Her poems are dedicated to life and finding the real truth. Her two poems: “Tell all the truth but tell it slant” and “Much madness is divinest sense” represent Dickinson’s quest to reveal the mystery and truth of life. In order to fully understand Dickinson’s poems, one must learn about her personal and historical event such as “The Second Great Awakening” and “The United States women’s suffrage movement “surrounding her life that contributed to the creation of her works.