...Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a man of great faith and a strong Christian role model. He was a source of inspiration to those around him because he knew he had God by his side. However, in an excerpt from his book Strength to Love (Nicknamed Our God is Able), King’s analysis of evil, particularly in his description of science, raised some questions in my mind. Martin Luther King Jr. is correct in arguing that we need God and cannot blindly trust science. But is his depiction of “the god of science” really a proper way to think about science? In systematic theology early this year, we came to the conclusion that science is another tool just as given to us by God as the Bible is, and though they should play different roles in developing our faith, both reveal some truth about God. Science and Religion have often been unjustly put head to head in debates, but one who does this must not truly understand either one. While no one expects King to understand science to the degrees of Stephen Hawking, I do believe that it is not right to so blatantly deny some gift from God. Perhaps a similar comparison will help explain what I mean - when two people get married, they are expected to love their partner as a whole person. They cannot say, “I do… so long as you do something about your laugh. I don’t get it!”...
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...Rhetorical Analysis of Martin Luther King Jr.'s Letter from Birmingham Jail The nonviolent approach remains supreme as a way to achieve a peaceful resolution to conflict arising as a result of social, economical and political change in a contemporary society that has faced many of those challenges as a result of the fight for equality and social vices. This is because non-violent actions tend to create an atmosphere for peaceful negotiations and dialogue. In the case of Martin Luther King Jr in his letter from the Birmingham Jail, his idea was to create an atmosphere to frame the minds of his readers and clergymen of the situation in Birmingham caused by injustice and inequality. Martin Luther King Jr’s letter from Birmingham Jail was an icebreaker. The Letter intended to break the chains of segregation and injustice. The letter was written in the 1960s when African Americans were facing a series of injustices in the South as a result of racial segregation. This social injustice was seen in his letter when he used words such as “Negros,” to support his point. He said “ Negros have experienced grossly unjust treatment in the court. They have been more bombings of Negro homes and churches in Birmingham than in any other city in the nation. These are the hard brutal facts of the case. On the basis of these conditions, Negro leaders sought to negotiate with the city fathers. But the latter consistently refused to engage in good faith negations.”(Lee 215) These citations reiterate...
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...Renowned Nobel Peace Prize winner and celebrated orator, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, in his zealous speech, "Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution", illustrates and pleads for the growing need of active participation across a social revolution in America. Dr. King's purpose is to empower young African American college graduates and inspire positive involvement in the Civil Rights Movement through the promotion of non-violent means. He adopts an authoritative tone in order to persuade his prospective audience into taking action and elevating the rights of African Americans across the nation. Dr. King begins his speech to the college graduates by acknowledging the great challenge to remain awake through the social revolution and transformation from the "old order of slavery" to the "idea of freedom and human dignity". He appeals to their consciences by stating the obstacles faced by the graduates were to unify the races and dissolve racial barriers "in terms of a brotherhood". He calls for "moral and ethical commitments" in order to create "a brotherhood" because he aims to inspire educated African Americans into catapulting themselves from the bottom of the social ladder to racial equality...
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...King uses metaphorical imagery to prove that equality is the foundation of a truly democratic society. King is able to persuade his audience to think beyond the literal with his idea that current conditions in America need to be changed in regards to freedom and equal rights. His repetitive metaphors provide liberal comparisons that do not distinguish between any color or race. When referring to the Emancipation Proclamation, he compares “a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice.” King aims to set a hopeful tone for all those unfairly treated members of society, but instead contrasts light with freedom, provoking a sense of devastating inequality. When King distinguishes...
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...In 10th grade my english teacher had a Martin Luther King Jr. quote pinned up on the wall behind her desk. It read, “An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.” Everyday during class I would stare at that quote, and I was able to think about how these words could be applied to my life, and the lives of those around me. Everything Martin Luther King Jr. stood for was derived from the idea of equality and tolerance. So it is only natural that his words have helped me realize what it truly means to be inclusive. An inclusive environment is one in which everyone is treated with respect and can share their opinions and ideas without fear...
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...Speech Opinions Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech is an important guideline and goal of equality for the world to follow. Even if the performance, and the marching was staged as Malcolm X stated, the morals of the speech are still valuable and relevant in today’s society. However I agree with Malcolm’s dissatisfaction with the people watching the speech and some participating in the march. To throw away personal opinions and pretend to support a cause to seem “chic”, as Malcolm wrote, is disrespectful to the cause. It is also disappointing that money and publicity bring more people together than serious issues that need to be resolved. Even in the present time most people don’t care about other people’s suffering unless it affects them directly. Throughout history it is clearly shown that affecting a nation's money is a sure way to get some sort of change. For example, the United States would have had no interest in being involved with the Middle East if they didn’t have a rich oil supply. Because oil is a profitable and limited product, the United States ensures that the Middle Eastern countries’ affairs don’t affect oil fields. The only thing that matters is profitable oil, not human lives....
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...Doctor Martin Luther King Junior captured the entire crowd's attention with his strong and influential message. All of the crowd was cheering during the whole speech. The crowd got even louder when he quoted the message he was putting out there. Having an excellent message for what is being said is always a wonderful way to catch consideration. The audience will not dismiss a speech with an important message. The crowd stayed the entire speech. They reacted to everything Dr. King said. If the audience does decide to stay that means it has a good meaning. It also means it has a meaningful and important message. The crowd joined him to deliver the same message as him and they decided on him to speak for them. They chose him because...
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...In those Halcyon Sixties, specifically in April of 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. wrote his remarkable Letter from Birmingham Jail. In it he explained to his fellow clergy critical of his sit-ins, marches, and direct action why he felt non-violent activism was necessary. He wrote from his cell that he has “almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride towards freedom is not . . . the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice.” He acknowledged that while they truly do agree with the goals he seeks, they choose to avoid the tension of activism. After the long day at the office or chauffeuring the kids around, we need to relax in front of the...
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...Martin Luther King Jr. uses specific rhetorical devices to tap into the emotions of a diverse audience. Throughout his letter MLK uses several rhetorical devices to stress important points and to allow the readers empathize and understand with black people in America who were lacking the civil rights they deserved. MLK uses devices such as metaphor and symbolism to make the audience sympathize with colored people, specifically the colored people in Birmingham. This helps the reader to understand the consequences that these people forced to deal with due to the extreme racism in the South. King utilizes diction to make his metaphor more powerful, “your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty… (P.264)”. His word...
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...I feel that “On the death of Martin Luther King Jr”.By Robert F. Kennedy was an important historical event because it changed the way lot of American people think about racism and how white people have more rights than the black people because of their color. Kennedy wants all people to not have hatred but love for one another and also he wants to stop violence and he knows that the death of MLK was by a white man that it will cause people to have anger and hatred inside of them and because of this incident he wants to try and change the country and how people think. Kennedy says that he can relate to MLK being killed by a white man because one of his family members was killed by a white man and can also feel the way others feel about the...
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...Literary Techniques of Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream Speech Literary Techniques of Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream Speech Introduction Martin Luther King, Jr., a prominent civil rights leader, delivered a powerful speech at the historic March on Washington. The speech uses several literary techniques to engage the listener. In the speech, King especially likes to use repetition and metaphor to convey his ideas. These devices are the foundation of King?s unique and effective style. Repetition In I Have a Dream King uses repetition throughout. Repetition is a good tool to use to reinforce an important idea. In Dorothy Seyler?s Read, Reason, Write, she states: ?Some repetition of key words and phrases will occur in well-written and unified essays. Some writers, though, go beyond this technique of unified writing and use repetition to produce an effective cadence, like a drum beating in the background, keeping time with the speaker?s fist pounding the lectern for emphasis.? (58). King?s speech is a perfect representation of this. I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal." I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons...
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...Human Equality Kaleigh A. Butler ENGL-113-ND Willmore Kanyongo, PhD March 1, 2014 The analysis of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech, alongside with Abraham Lincoln’s “Gettysburg address”, reveals that both men had the same idea of human equality. What is the definition of human equality? This is a definition that was brought to the country’s attention by two great men of history. Nearly one hundred years separated two men that both had the same ideals of what human equality means in a free nation. They both came to the same ideal that was set by our founding fathers. All men were created equal and had the rights to liberty and justice, including the prosperity of the American Dream that so many fought for with demonstrations and the wars of our fathers. In 1863, Abraham Lincoln walked on the battlefield of Gettysburg and delivered the Gettysburg address. Compelled by the constitution and the Declaration of Independence, the ideals of the American nation were to be upheld to the highest regard for basic human life. The wars that were fought previously and the war that the President was going through in order to uphold the promises that the founding fathers promised all those living in the new nation. The civil war separated a single nation fighting one another based on the ideals that one man can own another man. This war lasted for 4 years in order to retain what both sides thought to be right. President Lincoln of the Union stated that we were...
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...------------------------------------------------- AMERICAN DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE Civil Rights Movement Deyana Faraj On the 4th of July 1776, 56 delegates to the Continental Congress signed a document that would not only declare independence of America from British colonial power but less than 200 years later, become the backbone of a new established America where the walls of discrimination and segregation would finally begin to deteriorate. The Declaration of Independence is a powerful document that has led to the development of equal rights and social justice within societies on a world context. More specifically, principles in this document were instrumental when argued by African American Civil Rights leaders in achieving equality and abolishing racial segregation and discrimination against African- Americans in the United States, during the African American Civil Rights Movement (1954-1968). Before the American Civil Rights Movement, laws known as Jim Crow laws had forced racial segregation of facilities and the prohibition of intermarriage. These laws were similar to the apartheid legislation and it became the law mainly in the south of America. Where there is inequality and injustice within a government, the people of the nation demand change. Since the Jim Crow laws were enacted, the laws that mandated racial segregation in public areas and the prohibition of intermarriage in the Southern United States were socially and morally unjust and this fuelled...
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...A Rhetorical Analysis of MLK Jr.’s “I have a dream” Speech Martin Luther King Jr. gave a speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial during the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, one hundred years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, which outstandingly furthered the civil rights movement. At that time, racial segregation, police brutality, and other forms of racial inequality were terribly prominent in America. The speech successfully focused the country’s attention at the need for racial equality “Now” (King, I Have a Dream). King gave the speech in order to motivate his followers to peacefully continue to demonstrate, protest, and boycott until they were fully granted the equality and privileges that any other citizen was allowed to have. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech is his most notable, and one of the most influential of Twentieth-Century-America because of his excellent rhetorical use of repetition and anaphora, contrasting metaphors, and appropriate quotations and allusions throughout the speech. Martin Luther King Jr. used a profuse amount of repetition and anaphora throughout his speech. A subtle form of repetition, the repetition of singular words, was mainly used to emphasize key themes in the speech and keep them in the minds of the audience. Such repeated key themes were “freedom”, “justice” and “injustice”, “America” and “American”, and plural nouns such as “we” and “our”. Since the preceding words were repeated so frequently...
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...Dr. Martin Luther King’s Funeral and Assassination Word spread like wildfire when the news of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination hit the public. As the leading civil rights activist in the 1960s, Martin Luther King Jr. preached words of peace and understanding among races. A well known name throughout the North and South, King gained extreme popularity within the African American community. When Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated a wave of sorrow spread across the nation. With rage, sadness, and hopelessness in the public eye, clearly the assassination hurt more than just one man, it hurt a nation. A single shot killed 39-year-old Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1968. At the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis, Tennessee, a sniper from about “50-100 yards away,” shot and struck Dr. King’s neck, while instantaneously killing him (“Martin Luther King Slain” 139). From the crime scene, F.B.I. investigators traced a “white Mustang automobile,” and an “‘unusually large’ amount of physical evidence” (Waldron 1). With fingerprints, the actual rifle, and eyewitnesses as definite pieces of evidence, F.B.I. agents concluded that a Caucasian man executed the assassination and that he would be very easily caught (Waldron 1). Eyewitness testimony even stated that the “saw a white man [ran] from the house immediately after the shooting” (“Martin Luther King Slain” 140). As a shocking and horrific event, the assassination of Dr. King proved to test the nation’s character. Shortly...
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