Walking is an ordinary task that people do every day. People walk to class, to their jobs, and even for their exercise. These ordinary walks are deemed as powerless because the only person that is putting meaning to that walk is the person that is experiencing that walk. How does someone make a walk powerful to other people? How does someone make a walk that means more than a means of transportation? The walks that have power behind them are the walks that mean something. These walks are to make a stand. These walks are meant to bring people together in order to shout out the message that they truly believe in. These walks make history. Rebecca Solnit describes in her book, Wanderlust: A History of Walking, the effects of these powerful walks …show more content…
a great deal. The ways that Solnit would describe major walks and marches brought my attention back to what King was trying to accomplish. King wanted to use the movement of walking as a peaceful protest. This peaceful protest made an impact and I believe that Solnit wanted to get across in this chapter that walking can make an impact without being hostile. Solnit said, “When bodily movement becomes a form of speech, then the distinctions between words and deeds, between representations and actions, begin to blur, and so marches can themselves be liminal, another form of walking into the realm of the representational and symbolic-and sometimes, into history”(217). When I read what Solnit had to say about walking in the form of a speech, I thought that this is exactly what King wanted to do. Especially with the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the March on Washington. King wanted to make a powerful stand, in the form of movement, and with the power of the number of …show more content…
was behind was the March on Washington. King worked with a numerous amounts of group to compose this march for freedom. King wanted to make it known that there is injustice with the African American community and that this community of people have to face discrimination on a daily basis. King wanted to again, make this a peaceful protest. The March on Washington was on August 28, 1963 and had more than 200,000 protestors participating in the march. The protestors marched from the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial to peacefully make light of the tragedy that is happening among the United States. Throughout this march, there was many musical performances, praying, and even speeches. One speech that made history during this march, was the “I Have a Dream” speech by Martin Luther King Jr. himself, made on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. With the march from the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial, King and the other protestors made such an impact on the country that people started to notice. Even the people of government started to notice. They started to notice so much that King was named Man of the Year by TIME magazine and King even won a Nobel Peace Prize later on that year. What really was an incredible victory for these protesters was almost one year later after this astonishing march was the signing of the Civil Rights Act on July 2, 1964. This victory for the African American community was