Today’s Information On African American History
There have been numerous books and articles written about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. However, many school children today don’t really have a clue about his importance to national affairs in America. There is not much been taught about how racism and discrimination and segregation conditioned millions of African Americans for failure, negativity, and a bitter spirit. Dr. King helped to change some of that. The positive effects of his teachings need to continue for all future generations, just like we learn about the virtues and contributions of President Washington, President Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, and other American leaders.
First, we examine the times that Dr. King was born into. 1929 was a depressing time for many people. African Americans were still being deprived of many of their basic human rights as Americans, just because of the color of their skin. Those African Americans who could pass for white did so just to be able to have what should have been theirs as an African American citizen.
During the 1930s and 1940s, Dr. King went to segregated schools and suffered the pains of being deliberately mistreated because he represented a color that many citizens did not want to accept. The son and grandson of Christian ministers, Dr. King pushed forward in his education, attending Morehouse College (an African American institution), Crozer Theological Seminary, and on to Boston University, receiving his doctorate.
Dr. King was thrust onto the public beyond his church pulpit when he responded to leadership positions within the NAACP, and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. The world would soon get to know him when he led a public bus boycott when an African American woman refused to move to the back of the bus for a white passenger. The boycott lasted 382 days and King later became the youngest person (at 35) to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, which he donated to the civil rights movement.
Dr. King didn’t plan to become a minister. He actually had ambitions as a lawyer or doctor. However, his “reading of Thoreau’s essay on ‘Civil Disobedience,’ and the influence of Dr. Benjamin Mays brought about a change in his plans.” When he spied the genius in Coretta Scott, he had a teammate willing to put her life and the life of their family in harm’s way in order to focus national attention on a sore spot in American human relations.
During the 1950s and 1960s, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. “traveled over six million miles and spoke over twenty-five hundred times, appearing wherever there was injustice, protest, and action; and meanwhile he wrote five books as well as numerous articles. In these years, he led a massive protest in Birmingham, Alabama, that caught the attention of the entire world, providing what he called a coalition of conscience. and inspiring his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail", a manifesto of the Negro revolution; he planned the drives in Alabama for the registration of Negroes as voters; he directed the peaceful march on Washington, D.C., of 250,000 people to whom he delivered his address, "l Have a Dream", he conferred with President John F. Kennedy and campaigned for President Lyndon B. Johnson; he was arrested upwards of twenty times and assaulted at least four times; he was awarded five honorary degrees; was named Man of the Year by Time magazine in 1963; and became not only the symbolic leader of American blacks but also a world figure.”
In his books and speeches, Dr. King’s words were full of wisdom and carried such power that even today, readers and listeners are awed by his command of words. Although there have been many detractors to Dr. King’s writings, including his doctorate thesis, it has been difficult to “prove” that Dr. King actually stole entire paragraphs of others. When he spoke or wrote, he appeared to be speaking and writing from the heart, or at least he gave the conviction that so touched the heartstrings of many people that he was beloved more than he was hated.
When one rethinks Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., it would be easy to take everything he did at face value. However, for others, it would be very easy to throw out everything he did, period. What we can learn is that there once lived a man who spoke and wrote in such a manner that he affected the conscience of many. Was he led astray by “handlers” and those involved with the Communist Party? Was he really a “man of God” that tried to live his life by what he understood from Christian principles? Did he make a difference for the positive future of America?
Regardless of one’s position concerning Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the man did make an impact on America, as well as on the thinking of many around the world. Some people changed their thinking about many African Americans. Many African Americans began to see that hating white people would do them no good in the long run. Many around the world began to see that destroying other human beings could not be good for the Planet, Earth.
Some people were led to do positive community service because of the speeches, books, and lifestyle of Dr. King. Others became more entrenched in their hatred of African Americans. However, this man caused a pause to be placed in the annuals of recorded human history. In our lifetime, we may never know the real truth about the complete lifestyle of Dr. King. In any event, most will say that his living and taking up space on the earth caused some shifting in the thinking and actions of millions of people. We can learn that if one person can cause shifting or entrenchment in thinking, it’s possible for many people to share a common goal and move in a determined effort to make things better or worse for others.
Dr. King actually followed (or led) in the footsteps of other charismatic African American men: Frederick Douglas, Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. DuBois, A. Philip Randolph, Marcus Moziah Garvey, Walter F. White, Roy Wilkins, Bayard Rustin, James Farmer, Whitney Young, Jesse Jackson, Malcolm X, Elijah Muhammed, Edward W. Brooke, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., Carl B. Stokes, Richard Hatcher, Julian Bond, Colin Powell, Thurgood Marshall, Ron Brown, and now Barack Obama. For every name I mentioned, others could substitute with another well-deserving African American who has done great things in America.
When all the evidence is in concerning what was learned from the teachings of Dr. King, it will probably be reckoned that he used his life and his gifts to cause people to consider that better is possible.
Credits:
www.nobelpeace.org
www.thekingcenter.org
David C. Cook, Black Americans: Yesterday and Tomorrow
Next time: The power of African American writers and artists.
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