Martin Luther King's Role In Violence And Nonviolence

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If I could meet one person of historical significance it would be Martin Luther King Jr.. I admire and would like to meet Martin Luther King Jr. because everything about his life interests and intrigues me. For instance, the fact that he was a Christian, got so many people involved in his movement and successfully impacted them, and that he dealt with all he faced, including jail and violence against him and his family, with non-violent tactics and yet was still effective and made the difference that he intended on making amazes me. I would be curious to personally ask him advice on how he did it all and stayed sane, so that I could get a genuine answer, rather than just facts that are read about in sources. King became a major leader in …show more content…

In answering this question, I believe that King would mention Mahatma Gandhi as the one who had the most influential role in causing him to truly be sold on the idea that a nonviolence strategy would actually be more applicable and effective in this movement than a violent strategy would be.3 I believe this because in "Violence, Nonviolence, and the Civil Rights Movement" it says that "Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy sparked King’s interest because of his efficacy."4 In divinity school, King was actually against the idea of a nonviolent movement and thought that it would take a revolt in order to make a difference, but through talking with others and studying Gandhi's work his mind was changed on this subject and he began leading this movement.5 To the second part of the question, Martin Luther King's most likely response would be that the main pitfall of this strategy was that it caused many of the demonstrators in the movement to be harmed and even killed and King felt responsible for this happening when he was the one leading.6 Along with Martin Luther King Jr. feeling guilty already, other ministers and people in his community criticized and blamed King for the violence taking place at these demonstrations and for the people that were being hurt.7 Another question that I would like to ask Martin Luther King Jr., is how he managed to maintain his Christian views and demeanor while all of this hate and violence was being played out around and against him? King would probably start out his response to this question by saying "I am a troubled soul,"8 to show that although he is looked at as this great example and that he made a huge impact on society that he stumbled too, but then say that through it all he tried to humble himself with a limited salary and materials and a life