Martin Luther King, Jr. There Are People

Martin Luther King, Jr.

There are people in this world who are self-interested and live with a single purpose: to promote themselves and better their living situation. Then there are other people who work and sacrifice in order to make the lives of other people better. Martin Luther King, Jr. is most assuredly one of the latter types of people. He is revered as a person who made the ultimate sacrifice in order to secure the civil rights of African-Americans. King was imprisoned, arrested multiple times, suffered physical injuries, and was then assassinated because of his actions as a leader of the period. Martin Luther King is a heroic person because he led fellow African-Americans on successful boycotts and protests in order to oppose segregation and prejudice, organized the March on Washington where he gave his "I Have a Dream" speech which inspired all those who heard it then and subsequent generations who have read it, and because he advocated peaceful means of fighting for justice as opposed to the violent methods favored by other groups and by their opposition.

During the Civil Rights Movement in the middle of the twentieth century, African-Americans fought for rights which were already guaranteed to them by the constitution. Despite being Americans, African-Americans were treated abysmally. In the century following slavery, they had been treated as second-class citizens. Many parts of the country, particularly in the south, made it difficult for African-Americans to hold any kind of substantial jobs, to attend adequate schools, to eat in diners alongside white people, or even to sit in the front seats of buses. They were denied the right to vote and were unable to receive fair treatment under the law. Martin Luther King, Jr. fought to end this iniquity through protests, demonstrations, and boycotts. One of the most successful boycotts was the Montgomery Bus Boycott which took place in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955. It was expected that if a white man or woman entered the bus and there were no seats in the front, then an African-American would get up and give their seat. King organized the boycott following the arrest of Rosa Parks who refused to give up her seat to a white man (Manheimer 103). Most of the people who rode the bus were African-Americans who used public transportation to get to and from work. When they stopped riding the buses, the companies took a huge financial hit. Martin Luther King told his comrades not to compromise, but to continue the boycott until they were allowed to sit wherever they wanted. He did this despite the offers of bribes and despite physical threats to himself and his family and despite being arrested.

During the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, King walked to the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and spoke for seventeen minutes, choosing to depart from the speech he had originally been prepared to give. The purpose of the march was to make the distress of the African-American community apparent to every citizen in the country. They wanted to voice their displeasure with the efforts towards civil rights that had been made by the government up to that time. Marchers demanded an end to segregation in public schools, civil rights legislation to be passed immediately which would actually enforce their civil rights, and for the minimum wage laws to be $2 an hour for all people regardless of color (Singleton 454). In his most famous speech, he expressed the desire that men be treated by the content of their characters rather than the color of their skin.

Inspired by activist Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King demanded that the people who worked with him and followed his leadership use only non-violent resistance in their protests. He urged people to fight with resilience as opposed to physicality. This led to King's being brutalized by police and other authority figures. It also led to his being mocked by other groups including Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam who believed in using violence to combat violence. After a 1959 visit to India, King said, "I am more convinced than ever before that the method of nonviolent resistance is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in the struggle for justice and human dignity" (13). King argued that to attack their opposition physically would give them an excuse for further violence, but that non-violent protests would showcase the message and more easily contrast the two sides.