Throughout the semester I have learned to analysis the dialogue of the texts we read and came to find out the characters voices derive the tone of the author's argument. Better yet, I learned how to read between the lines. Based on the series of texts I have read in GEW 101, I come to depict the significance of language to one's identity is that racism is not acceptable, by comparing texts, authors and scholarly sources. Some of the texts and authors include: Martin L. King Jr.'s Letter from Birmingham Jail; Urban Neanderthals; Black Ball; Gran Torino and a Very Old Man with Enormous Wings. I believe that the connection between all these texts brought about a social change in the community by the language of the authors. The leader of the American Civil Rights movement in the 1950's and 1960's was Martin L. King Jr. Martin L. King Jr. was an activist for civil rights who dealt with opposition of his brothers and unjust segregation of Negros. While reading King's Letter from Birmingham Jail I became aware that the letter was written when King and hundreds others gathered to protest in Birmingham, Alabama. The letter is a response to eight clergy men who questioned his protest. Kings writes of the injustice African Americans that have suffered. King realized the best strategy to make his point was, to use nonviolent forms of protest. King was in Birmingham because injustice is there, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere” (Aaron pg. 438). After all, King knew that using violence was not a way of establishing or interacting with others, it would lead to violent counteracts from Whites. He was looking for a way for people to follow him and not get hurt but to create a smooth transition into negotiation. Unfair and ... ... middle of paper ... ... the Montgomery Improvement Association, King didn't stop there. King delivered his most famous speech “I Have a Dream” on the Lincoln Memorial Steps. This speech touched many young blacks searching for freedom. This social change that Martin Luther King was involved in was so touching and made a huge impact on society that he received the Noble Peace Prize on December 10, 1964. King's tone helped change the lives of many blacks, because he promised them hope and freedom. King also gave up his identity as a minister to focus on the Civil Rights Act, in which they walked the freedom walk with 125,000 people on June 23, 1963. King put his life on the line with each and every black that suffered the harsh incidents. There are many people throughout history that have helped get equality for African American's. Martin Luther King did just this, and moved an entire race.
The Civil Rights movement was a movement against racial segregation and discrimination in the southern States that became nationally recognized in the middle of the 1950s. Though American slaves were given basic civil rights through the Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments of the Constitution, African Americans still had a hard time trying to get federal protection of their newly found rights. A man by the name of Martin Luther King Jr. was one of the American Civil rights Leaders who used nonviolence in order to reach a social change. He used nonviolent resistance to overcome injustice against African Americans like segregation laws. He wasn’t just fighting for the equality of all African American but was also fighting for the equality of all men and women. Malcolm X is another great leader who fought for what he believed in. He was a black activist who, unlike King, promoted a little violence. Malcolm X wanted the nation (African Americans) to become more active in the civil rights protests. Both Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. had different methods for gaining civil rights. I believe that Martin Luther King Jr. method was more effective thanMalcolm X methods. In King “’Letter from Birmingham Jail” King defends himself on writing about why he is using nonviolent resistance to racism. Throughout the letter he shows his reasoning using logic, emotion, and ethics. Throughout his life King used this same method to reach how to hundred of thousands of African Americans.
The main goal of the Civil Rights Movement was to instate equality under the law. King was a figurehead for the Civil Rights Movement. King’s ability to organize factions into a force that was unaffected by violence greatly contributed to the success of the Civil Rights Movement. In a letter he wrote from a Birmingham jail, King describes the four steps to non-violent protest. The first step is “collection of the facts to determine whether an injustice exists.”i This relates to Thoreau’s critique of an unjust government. Thoreau believed that every machine had friction, yet “when the friction comes to have its machine…let us not have such a machine any longer.”ii In the case of civil rights, the government has the friction of racial inequalities. That friction had several machines which enables whites to prevail over African Americans. King’s second step was negation. Thoreau lived during a time when negotiation was non-existent. He met the government “once a year--no more--in the person of its tax-gatherer; this is the only mode in which a man situated as I am necessarily meets it.”iii In the case of Thoreau and King, their struggle could not be resolved by simple negotiation. The third step, as King calls it, was self purification.
From 1954 to 1968 the Civil Rights movement was growing at a fast rate. During this time segregation and racism was alive and in full effect. More African- American people were starting to stand up and believe in the rights that wasn’t giving to them, and that they should be treated as equals. Although African-Americans had some freedoms the constant mistreatment, verbal and physical abuse was enough and it was time to take a stand to make a change. Great leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr., Malcom X made a path way for the moment and even though the two had different views of handling the situation at hand. Malcom X was more of a fight fire with fire type of protester, and that the only way changes were going to be made was if we fight back. On the other hand Martin Luther King Jr. was all for peaceful protesting and that they can make a difference just by speaking words of encouragement to the people.
In the 1960s, the nation was faced tumultuous times. There was racial tension between the white citizens and black citizens of America. Whites could not understand why the African Americans were so upset; they had their freedom from slavery and job opportunities. However, the African American was dissatisfied with the small crumbs of God given rights that all American citizens were entitled to. Two men propelled to the forefront of the Civil Rights Movement as leaders; Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X. Their agenda was to seek equal rights for all Americans. But both men differ on the approaches needed to reach these goals; one believed using nonviolence was the answer while the other advocated violence Many people argue that the
The Civil Rights Movement is one of the most important events of the history of the United States. Although many people contributed to this movement, Martin Luther King, Jr., is widely regarded as the leader of the movement for racial equality. Growing up in the Deep South, King saw the injustices of segregation first hand. King’s studies of Mahatma Ghandi teachings influenced his views on effective ways of protesting and achieving equality. Martin Luther King’s view on nonviolence and equality and his enormous effect on the citizens of America makes him the most influential person of the twentieth century.
The article being analyzed is called “The Intersections of Race, Class and Gender in the Anti-Racist Discourse" by George Dei. The purpose of the article is to outline the idea that race cannot be analysed by itself, rather it has to be separated and looked at in connection to other types of identities. The author argues that the current theory about race does not provide a concise understanding of “human and social development”. The ideas surrounding race that already exist do not consider the “totality of human experiences”. This is where the author argues that the study of anti-racism is "integrative". These type of studies aim to provide information on how different identities such as race, class, gender, sexual orientation are connected
Martin Luther King, Jr. advocated nonviolence to suppress oppression in his essay, “The Power of Nonviolent Action.” King's factual and reasoned approach is intended to win his adversaries over by appealing to their consciences. King realized that the best strategy to liberate African-Americans and gain them justice was to use nonviolent forms of resistance. He wanted to eliminate the use of violence as a means to manage and establish cooperative ways of interacting. Moreover, King states that the “oppressed people must organize themselves into a militant and nonviolent mass movement” in order to achieve the goal of integration. The oppressed must “convince the oppressors that all he seeks is justice, for both himself and the white man” (King, 345). Furthermore, King agreed with Gandhi that if a law is unjust, it is the duty of the oppressed to break the law, and do what they believe to be right. Once a law is broken, the person must be willing to accept the ...
The United States civil rights movement was a constant battle for the rights and freedom of African Americans. Martin Luther king Jr., the leader of the civil right movement, was hosting a non-violent protest in Birmingham city. However, the protest did not go as planned and King was arrested for agitating the public. Many fellow white clergymen were angered and upset over the “Ungodly” act. As a result,the Clergymen wrote a statement that claimed Martin Luther King Jr. to be an extremist. Martin Luther King Jr. responds to the clergymen’s statement while residing in Birmingham jail by writing a letter using the ethical, emotional, and logical appeals to defend his actions.
Identity is the condition of being oneself regardless of variation in an individual’s surroundings that provides sameness in their distinctive qualities over time. No two individuals are the same, therefore, no two identities are the same. Every aspect of their past, present, and future molds their being into something never seen before. Each identity is extremely intricate and ever changing so truly understanding another’s identity is an astonishingly difficult task. Identity can be described in all of these ways, but language - the system of communication, diction, and connotation of the form in which an individual speaks - is the backbone of identity. Conforming language to the words someone hears around them instead of truly allowing their
From the Boston Tea Party of 1773, the Civil Rights Movement and the Pro-Life Movement of the 1960s, to the Tea Party Movement and Occupy Wall Street Movement of current times, “those struggling against unjust laws have engaged in acts of deliberate, open disobedience to government power to uphold higher principles regarding human rights and social justice” (DeForrest, 1998, p. 653) through nonviolent protests. Perhaps the most well-known of the non-violent protests are those associated with the Civil Rights movement. The movement was felt across the south, yet Birmingham, Alabama was known for its unequal treatment of blacks and became the focus of the Civil Rights Movement. Under the leadership of Martin Luther King Jr., president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, African-Americans in Birmingham, began daily demonstrations and sit-ins to protest discrimination at lunch counters and in public facilities. These demonstrations were organized to draw attention to the injustices in the city. The demonstrations resulted in the arrest of protesters, including Martin Luther King. After King was arrested in Birmingham for taking part in a peaceful march to draw attention to the way that African-Americans were being treated there, their lack of voter rights, and the extreme injustice they faced in Alabama he wrote his now famous “Letter from Birmingham.”
Kirk, J. (2007). Martin Luther King, Jr. and the civil rights movement: controversies and debates. Basingstoke New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Dr. Martin Luther King lived in a time of Racial Segregation. He grew up with people scorning him simply because of the color of his skin. When he began a family of his own, he had the dream that life should be better than he had it. He marched protests and gave speeches, speaking his dream to everyone who would listen. His most famous speech being the “ I have a dream speech… ”. This speech spoke of his dream that all men were equal whether they were white, or black, or any other color of skin. That was his American Dream.
The civil rights movement in the 1950s-1960s was a struggle for social justice for African Americans to gain equal rights. One activist who became the most recognizable spokesperson and leader in the civil rights movement was Martin Luther King Jr, a christian man dedicated to the ideas of nonviolence and civil disobedience. Although the Civil war had officially abolished slavery, blacks were still treated as less than human for many years after. Martin Luther King Jr has positively impacted the world with his peaceful protest approach to gaining social justice; but with the increase of hate crimes being committed, I believe individuals today need to pick up where King left
Throughout his education, Martin Luther King Jr. tried to find a way to demonstrate his belief of racial equality with the most effective means possible. He quickly realized that the best strategy to end segregation was to use nonviolent forms of protest. At Crozer, Morehouse and Boston University, he studied the teaching of Mohandas Gandhi, who used nonviolent methods to help India claim its independence from Britain. King read several books on the ideas of Gandhi, and eventually became convinced that his methods could be employed by African Americans to obtain equality in America. King knew that any violence on the part of African Americans would lead to violent responses from segregationists, which would lead to injury or maybe even death for his followers. He had to teach his followers not to respond violently to cruel attacks from segregationists. King decided to sponsor workshops to train African Americans in nonviolent beh...
Martin Luther King Jr. was the most influential leader of the American Civil Rights Movement as he fought for the freedom of African Americans. King’s most influential speech is his “I Have a Dream” given on August 28, 1963.1 King himself was a man whom thousands of people admired. Martin Luther King Jr. uses an expressive tone in his speeches by using verbal powerful imagery toward his audience, reminding them of the challenges facing them and defeating racism. Martin Luther King Jr. inspired others to take action, lead by example, as shown in his speeches and promoted non-violence as a method for change.