Martin Luther King Research Paper

Free at Last The American Dream means something different for everyone. The American Heritage Dictionary states that the American Dream is an American ideal of social equality and material success. Some people may pursue a dream that contains an abundance of money and wealth. Another, a life exploding with adventure and memories. Maybe someone would want to get a home and have a family. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dream was a little different. He not only changed his life, but also the life’s of others. King’s American Dream was to make this world a place free of hate, prejudice, and violence. This dream was achieved through hard long years of dedication. King was named Michael Luther King at his birth in Atlanta on January 15, 1929. The name

is identified in many historical moments in the civil-rights movement. He was the dominant force in the civil-rights movement from 1957 to 1968. He made his first mark on the civil-rights movement by organizing a boycott of bus rides on Monday December 5th after the Rosa Parks incident. Because of this, King became the president of the Montgomery Improvement Association. Eventually he and some others were sent to jail for the boycott when he had done nothing wrong or illegal (??????). Then King formed and became the president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to fight the Jim Crow laws. He sought to assist organizations of protest campaigns against discrimination. The beginning of the “ending” of the laws was when the supreme court pronounced that separate schools for whites and blacks was unfair. King spoke all over the U.S. trying to get the blacks to vote. In 1963 King led the march for freedom in Birmingham where police attacked them including children. Eventually the Jim Crow laws ended and the whites were no longer separated from the blacks. The biggest march that King lead was the March on Washington that two hundred thousand people, including black and white, joined (??????). Then in 1964 and 1965, president Johnson helped push the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Acts through

delivered the most passionate addresses of his career. The “I Have a Dream” speech was directed toward his American Dream. King talked about how he came to make a difference and knows that he will eventually get the freedom that will change history forever. He describes the blacks as people who are held back by the chains of discrimination. They are in exile by those who live in the same country. The Constitution and the Declaration of Independence was signed to promise that every American has their rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Yet, the Americans have not honored this great obligation. King says that they must come out of the dark and the shadows to be heard. He will never give up until the nation gives them justice (King, Jr.1). King also talks of nonviolence in his speech, “Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred” (King, Jr. 3). King also points out that their children are being stripped of their own childhood and identities to the point where they lose their dignity. If America is to be a great nation as it is said to be, then this must come true when the blacks and whites and all races unite brothers and sisters as one to make our nation strong. “It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up, live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident,