Black people have suffered various forms of oppression. As a result, there emerged people from among them who led them out of this oppression. In this essay, I am going to be discussing about Martin Luther King, Jr. who was among the people that contributed to the emancipation of the black people from oppression.
Martin Luther was born in 1929, 15th January, in Atlanta, Georgia. His parents were Alberta Williams King and Martin Luther King, Sr., who was a reverend. Martin Luther's legal name given at birth but later changed, was Michael King. His father too was born Michael King also, but this was changed by the elder King who changed his name and those of his sons. This was following a trip to Germany in 1934 where he was to attend in Berlin a Fifth Baptist World Alliance Congress. It was at this time when he decided to be named in honor of a German reformer called Martin Luther. Martin Luther had an Irish ancestry which was through his great grand-father from the paternal side(Carson 13).
Martin Luther was in the middle among Martin Luther King's Sr., children, between Alfred Daniel Williams King, who was a younger brother and Willie Christine King, who was an older sister. He married Coretta Scott, in the year 1953 on June 18th, on her parent's house lawn at their hometown called Heiberger, Alabama(Carson 27). They later became parents of four children, that is, Bernice, Martin Luther, Dexter Scott, and Yolanda. During their marriage, Martin Luther limited his wife's role in Civil Rights Movement, where he expected her to be a mother and a housewife.
He became early in his career, a civil rights activist. He led the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955 and in 1957 he helped the founding of Southern Christian Leadership Conference that he served as the first president. While leading the SCLC, Martin Luther in 1962 led an unsuccessful struggle in Albany, Georgia, against segregation which was known as the Albany Movement. In1963 he also helped organizing in Birmingham, Alabama, some nonviolent protests. Martin Luther also helped in 1963 March to organize in Washington, where he gave his famous speech known as "I have a Dream." There, Martin Luther established in American history his reputation as among the greatest orators(Carson 52).
In the 1964, 14th October, Martin Luther received Nobel Peace Prize as a result of fighting racial inequality without violence. He helped in 1965 the organization of Selma to Montgomery marches. The following year, SCLC and Martin Luther took this movement north up to Chicago where it worked on segregated housing(Carson 80). Martin Luther King in the last years of his life, expanded his focus where he included poverty and spoke against Vietnam war, thereby alienating in 1967 most of his liberal friends with speech: "Beyond Vietnam."
Here are other outcomes which Martin Luther King, Jr., brought, they include the following: He became the entire civil rights movement leader in 1960s, which fought to work out conflicts with love and kindness as opposed to violence and hate. He fought for and to achieve mandatory whites and blacks voting rights in the United States of America. He also led some lunch counter sit-ins that gave him an opportunity together with whites and other blacks to demand that people from all races be treated equally in restaurants. Also, because of his contributions, it now not legal in US to discriminate or segregate people on the basis of skin color. As a result, all nations have set this standard of treating equally everyone regardless of skin color due to Martin Luther's work(Carson 177).
Martin Luther achieved his goals, since his biggest society's role was his efforts to advance the civil rights movement. As a result, he brought everyone to attention on an issue which was incredibly sensitive and controversial during his time. Martin Luther's take on non-violence, assisted to gain traction for this movement. Despite his marches and protests being at sometimes unsuccessful, his presence however in our society has a significant effect on African American Civil Rights Movement after and even before his assassination(Carson 203). He was also awarded with Congressional Gold Medal, Presidential Medal of Freedom, and is among the four non-presidents to have been honored with a memorial, located in Washington D.C'S National Park.
In 1968, Martin Luther was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee on April 4th while planning Washington D.C's national occupation to be known as the Poor People's Campaign. As a result of his assassination, many riots followed in most U.S. cities. In 1971, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day got established to be a holiday in many states and cities, and in 1986, it was established as U.S. federal holiday. Many streets in the United States have his name in his honor, and in Washington state, there is a county renamed for him. In 2011, Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial located on National Mall, Washington D.C city got dedicated in his honor(Carson 231).
Work Cited:
Carson, Clayborne. The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. New York: Intellectual Properties Management, 2014. Print.
