presentation final work

Running Head: THE IMPACT OF MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. 1

THE IMPACT OF MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. 7

The Impact of Martin Luther King Jr.

The Impact of Martin Luther King Jr.

Slide One

Behind all my family pictures is a bigger frame bearing the image of Martin Luther King Jnr. On merely seeing the picture, my mind has been conditioned to immediately conceptualize a future of peace and tranquility for Americans and the entire world. Ladies and gentlemen I have risen to reflect on the life of a man, whose prescription is critical to the American society fifty-three years after his death. Armed with conviction and great regard for non-violence, King left a legacy that is indelible in our various realms of social life, encompassing aspects of civil rights, racial equality, and economic equality in America.

Slide Two

Although slavery had ended in 1865, it had been replaced by a series of policies and legislations that denied the provision of crucial rights for the sustainability of a healthy American society. The vice of denying its citizenry important rights were further entrenched by leaders such as Jim Crow who fostered the spirit of white supremacy giving whites toxic power over their black counterparts (Dorrien, 2018). This establishment resulted in the denial for a dignified access to education for all Americans through the separate schools for blacks and others for whites with blacks getting poor quality education. Secondly, blacks had undignified treatment in the transport sector. Additionally, King led the movement when the black population had no voting rights in America.

Slide Three

Confronted with this reality, Martin Luther King Jr. embarked on peaceful protests. His activism was anchored on peace and the strict denouncement of violence towards the state and towards others (Werner, 2017). As a result, he applied the use of public lectures and boycotts such as the Montgomery bus boycott to detest the unfair treatment of one race in the mid-19th century. Through his preferred methods of agitation, King influenced the development of substantial legislations such as the voting rights act of 1965. Under this act, all American citizens had equal voting rights hence equipped with equal power to determine the leadership of the white dominated country (Robbins, 2020). There is, however, much that is still unattended. A big percentage of American cannot access basic social amenities decades after the assassination of the revolutionary leader.

Slide Four

Ladies and gentlemen the greatest evil that anchored all other mistreatment was racial injustice. During the tumultuous civil rights movement period, blacks were highly discriminated with their right of survival threatened by unfair policies shielded by leaders dominated by hate and injustice. The end of slavery only provided blacks with emotionally satisfying benefits with little material gain for a people emancipated by the inhuman slavery enterprise (King Jr., 2020). During the reconstruction period, blacks were subjected to inhuman treatment in the public sector with most of them denied transport opportunities. This is however an understatement given the many horrifying stories of blacks horded out of moving buses and trains (Alexander, 2017). The period was also marked with the lack of access to education with African getting what was termed as valueless education.

Slide Five

Confronted with this racial segregation reality, King assured blacks of their equality with the whites in a bid to restore their lost dignity. He extensively quoted Christian teachings to emphasize on the ability of blacks (Clemons et al., 2017). Through public protests and lectures, he ignited a spark of self-determination for all blacks in America. Martin Luther king junior further influenced policy change as he spoke truth to authority and consequently shaped the enactment of the civil rights act which prohibited discrimination on the basis of skin color.

Slide Six

According to King, the most unfortunate consequence of racial injustice was economic injustice. In his lectures and letters to the authority, the leader of the civil rights movement openly firmly maintained that blacks were living in despicable poverty levels in a wealthy America (DR. & Wright, 2019). This circumstance had been created by the laws, policies and attitudes that depicted Africans as lesser citizens whose eternal position was that of slavery. For instance, we will all remember with bitterness the black codes developed in the southern states with the aim of enslaving African Americans to forever work for white merchants. Martin Luther King Jr. termed this as an impoverishing scheme aimed at forcing Africans to slip back to slavery for survival.

Slide Seven

To cure this fundamental ill, Martin Luther King Jr. proposed for the creation of a labor economy where all Americans are granted equal opportunities to employment as captured in his book, where do we go from here, chaos or community? Secondly, King demanded for proper worker treatment. During his last rally in Memphis on 3rd April 1968 he largely amplified his rallying call for economic equality by faulting the government for giving employees starvation wages which did not match the rinsing inflation in a wealthy nation (Borràs, 2017).

As I conclude, I want to pay my sincere respect to the course of Martin Luther King Jr. in his life here on earth. More than his eloquence and powerful conviction, I greatly revere his selflessness and determination for a holistically stable society. I am, however, sad to report that the vices that King addressed are still alive and kicking- black-white family economic disparity are clear for everyone to see, cases of police brutality on black youths is back and the levels of poverty are gradually rising in America. If King were to rise today, he would not mince his words not on the prevailing injustices but on our silence towards the open racial and economic injustice in America.

References

Alexander, J. C. (2017). Seizing the Stage: Social Performances from Mao Zedong to Martin Luther King Jr., and Black Lives Matter Today. TDR/The Drama Review, 61(1), 14-42. https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/DRAM_a_00620

Borràs, J. P. (2017). Martin Luther King:“Now is the time”-His Dream to Influence Education Today. Herbert, A.(2016). Martin Luther King:“Now is the time”-His Dream to Influence Education Today. London: Springer. Social and Education History, 6(2), 222-225. https://www.redalyc.org/pdf/3170/317051453006.pdf

Clemons, M. L., Brown, D. L., & Dorsey, W. H. (Eds.). (2017). Dream and Legacy: Dr. Martin Luther King in the Post-Civil Rights Era. Univ. Press of Mississippi. https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=Y1goDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=Social+justice:+the+impact+of+Martin+Luther+King+Jr&ots=SjHEnmN299&sig=zcK84ku-A-DtBM9jY-uzT3zw-cc

Dorrien, G. J. (2018). Breaking White Supremacy: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Black Social Gospel. Yale University Press. https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=pVBDDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP9&dq=Social+justice:+the+impact+of+Martin+Luther+King+Jr&ots=YHbh3Xierh&sig=As4qe4Dh1HtVJ0yTTMVZ3Yk7N3o

DR, O., & Wright, B. (2019). MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. LECTURE. https://heinonline.org/hol-cgi-bin/get_pdf.cgi?handle=hein.journals/vllalr64&section=16

King Jr, M. L. (2020). A tough mind and a tender heart. Penguin UK. https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/320073/a-tough-mind-and-a-tender-heart/9780241473252

Robbins, S. (2020). Archival Project: Taylor University's Martin Luther King Jr. Commemoration Day. https://pillars.taylor.edu/mahe-student/10/

Werner, J. B. (2017). Building a “Dwelling Place” for Justice: Ethos Reinvention in Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Where Do We Go from Here?”. Rhetoric & Public Affairs, 20(1), 109-132. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.20.1.0109?casa_token=Lsf7uZdLdwcAAAAA:juBorIHdeg7Ata58xDR-Th3sD6T-lSsb0rZAo7hGYgHjVhovkakt3se0sLoojumwI820c5dTSyLyk1HrBkhwJhFK-ESAimjH86wrHyUZnhYQKTBDAw0u