Book Review: How Did Martin Luther King Changed the World
The book that I read was titled, Martin Luther King Jr.:Fulfilling a Dream, written by Jacqueline Conciatore Senter. The book gives a very good summary of King's life and goes into detail about the great things he did for the Civil Rights Movement. Senter also wrote about King's parents briefly, and how they raised him. It showed how brave and compassionate he was. This is “How did Martin Luther King changed the world” essay in which I will review the book to show who was this man and what influence he made.
The Author not only gave quotes and writings of Kings own, she also included quotes of his friends and people he affected positively. Senter did this to help us get a better understanding of who King was as a person. Many of King's speeches were included as well. Senter helps the reader understand his long, treacherous journey to fight for equal rights for all men.
The beginning of the book talks about Kings childhood and how he was raised. He was born on January 15, 1929 in Auburn's Avenue, Atlanta. His parents were Martin Luther King Sr. and Alberta Williams King. Even though he grew up in a good home, his parents still taught him about segregation, racism, and the Civil War from a young age, which is most likely what made him such a good leader. They told him that this was not natural. Martin started his work for Civil Rights when he was just a teen, ¨The teen who had just just won the prize for his speech, ¨The Negro and the Consititution¨, stood in the aisle with his teacher for 90 miles¨.
Martin entered Morehouse College in 1944, at first wanting to be a lawyer fighting against the Jim Crow Laws. However, he then realized he wanted to be a preacher instead. While studying at Crozer Seminary he discovered Mahatama Gandhi, who had led India´s people in a nonviolent revolt against British rule. This sparked Kingś idea about using nonviolent resistance during the Civil rights movement. He believed it would not work unless it was peaceful. King believed, ¨Black people had to fight for equality, he believed, but they had to do it peacefully¨.
He was frustrated with the Jim Crow Laws, mainly because the facilities were never equal. He gave a speech in 1956, talking about how he had been seated in the backroom of an airport restaurant. In this same speech, he talked about the Plessy vs. Ferguson discussion. King stated during this speech, ¨But we all know what happened as a result of that doctrine; there was always a strict enforcement of separate without the slightest intention to abide by the equal¨. An example of this is that schools for African American children often had poorly educated teachers and were very crowded;sometimes having 4 grades crammed into 1 school. The law that reversed Jim Crow was not passed until 1954 however.
In Montgomery, Alabama, brave African Americans took a stand against prejudice. After Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man, she sparked what would be called the, ¨Montgomery Bus Boycott¨. African Americans were often treated very badly by the Montgomery Bus company. They had to get up their seats for white passengers even if they were there first. Even worse, they were cursed, slapped, and kicked by the white drivers. They would be arrested if they did not listen to the white man. They eventually decided that they would stop giving the Montgomery Bus Company business. On November, 15, 1956, after 381 days without riding the bus, the Supreme Court ruled that bus segregation was unconstitutional.
King headed to Georgia to try to stop segregation in Albany. He used sit-ins, marches, and boycotts. In the process of this, hundreds of activists were arrested by the sheriff Laurie Pritchett. After Dr. King got there, he and Ralph Abernathy were arrested as well. The city said that it would begin to negotiate with the activists, but they did not follow through. King and Abernathy were able to leave soon after but had to come back for a trial 6 months later. When they came back, they were arrested a second time, again only staying for one night before an anonymous person bailed them out. Although that campaign was not successful, King learned how to make his next campaign better.
In 1963, King went to Birmingham with determination to have a successful campaign. It wouldn't be easy still, because Birmingham was one of the most segregated cities in the South. This campaign was very significant to the Civil Rights movement because, if it was successful, it would encourage other places to desegregate. This time, Kings target was businesses in Birmingham, this time being more confrontational. The head of public safety wanted the court to stop the movement, but were not successful because King was obeying the law. When he and Abernathy went on a march, they were arrested for the second time. Good came of it this time nonetheless, because King was able to write one of his most famous writings, ¨Letter from Birmingham Jail¨. King did not want to wait for things to change, ¨For years now I have heard the word, ¨Wait!¨, It rings in the ear of every negro with piercing familiarity¨.
In spring 1964, Civil Rights were finally progressing. Congress was about to pass a Civil Rights bill. Young people in Mississippi still did not give up however. They worked with volunteers to register black voters, establish health clinics and to establish better schools for negro children. In the midst of this, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Micheal Schwerner were killed by klansmen. The other activists kept fighting after this. By the end of the project, they had set up 50 schools and registered around 1500 new black voters.
Another one of King's strategies was to fill up the jails so that they would give up on arresting them. King said, ¨For the first time, King said while speaking to the press, they had been able to fulfill the Gandhian principle of effective nonviolent action:filling up the jails¨. This happened for the first time on May 2 in Birmingham after a thousand students met at a downtown street in Birmingham. The students were assaulted with fire hoses, bitten by the officers dogs and then arrested. They stayed in cells with 75 or more people in them, while they were meant for far fewer. The media published stories and pictures of the ¨Childrenś Crusade¨, and it made people realize that they needed to fight for what was right. The first white mass meeting related to Civil Rights was held in Cleveland. King even persuaded John F. Kennedy to negotiate with Birmingham to get them to desegregate lunch counters and facilities.
Dr. King attended the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, here he delivered his famous, ¨I Have a Dream¨ speech. He had originally planned to give another speech, but Mahalia Jackson told him to talk about his dream. The speech gave the audience hope and a sense of togetherness. Clarence Jones said, ¨Dr. King was a prominent figure before the speech, but after the, ¨I Have a Dream¨ speech, King had stepped down on the other side of history¨. After the speech Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibited discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and also more strongly banned segregation. Dr. King was right at his side when he signed it.
The work was not done after the act was signed though. There were still many poor African Americans that had rights but did not have money to use their rights. King moved to Chicago to start the, ¨Poor People's Campaign¨. This reached communities from all over, not just the black community. Solving economic problems was often harder than solving equality problems and some people hated King for focusing on economic problems. This involved changing how much people should be taxed and whether some people are not paying enough taxes. Dr. King gave a speech about another America. What he meant by this was, there was a side of America that was prosperous and now equal, but there was the other side that was poor and did not have food or a home.
In 1968, King traveled to Tennessee in support of striking sanitation workers. He stayed at Lorraine Hotel. On the evening of April 4, he stepped out onto the balcony and was shot in the chin and neck. Unfortunately, he was pronounced dead at 7:05 pm. People around the world watched Kingś televised funeral. There are now streets, monuments and parks all over the world named after him. He is still influencing people to fight for what they believe in today.
In conclusion, this book was very educational and I would recommend it for anyone who is interested in Civil Rights or just wants to know more about Martin Luther King. It gives a very good account of how he handled things and the things he did for the world. He was a very good man and without him, we may not have equality.
