Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a strong man who fought against racism and discrimination in a non-violent way. He had a lot of things in his childhood that shaped his beliefs and actions as an adult. His personal experiences, role models and mentors, and education all had a part in shaping how he behaved as an adult. According to the article Heeding the Call, by Diana Childress, M.L. had many experiences as a child that had a part in shaping him as an adult. As a six year old some of his friends, who were sons of a storekeeper, stopped playing with him because their father didn’t want his children playing with somebody of color, as a result, he learned about racial discrimination, which he knew was wrong, and later on fought to end. In high school, M.L. went to a speech competition and talked about having people actually follow the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments. On the ninety- mile bus ride after the competition, M.L. and his teacher were forced to stand the entire way to give white people seats to sit in, consequently, he saw how unfair the situation was and his anger made him want to do something about it. In the summer of 1944, M.L. went to Connecticut to harvest tobacco and saw how well the blacks were treated by the whites, this made him realize that things could be better where he lived too, and it made him want to work …show more content…
had mentors and role models who helped him achieve things as an adult. When he was young and his mother taught him about discrimination, she told him that he was “just as good as anyone”, as a result, it inspired him to fight to be treated as well as any white person. One time M.L. and his father went in the white section of a shoe store and were asked to move to the ‘colored’ section. M.L.’s father said that they would buy shoes in that section of the store, or they wouldn’t buy shoes at all, this gave M.L. courage and helped him develop the traits to fight against discrimination like his father