When? Where?

After becoming the pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, King became a member of of the executive committee of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (Bowling, 116). He mobilized the black community during a 382-day boycott of the city's bus lines. He overcame arrest and violent harassment (the thing he was trying so hard to stop. His work paid off however, when the US Supreme Court decided that the segregation of public buses was unconstitutional. In 1957 King was elected president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which provided leadership for the civil rights movement.


For the next eleven years King was speaking anywhere that injustice or protest occurred relating to the civil rights movement. He traveled over six million miles and spoke over twenty-five hundred times all across the country. He also managed to finish five books and many other articles on the subject. He tooks his ideals for leadership from his strong Christian background, and operated in his organizations using the Gandhi’s techniques. His famous “I Have a Dream” speech took place in Washington, DC, where he led a peacful march that some 250,000 people participated in (Martin).

Bowling, Lawson. Shapers of the Great Debate on the Great Society; A Biographical Dictionary. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2005.
"Martin Luther King." NobelPrize.Org. 6 Feb. 2007 .

Who?

Martin Luther King Jr. was born in Atlanta, Georgia. When he was just two years old, Martin Luther King Sr. took the pastor position at the Ebenezer Baptist Church, replacing his father-in-law (Martin).This is when King’s strong Christian background began to emerge. His family, church, and school were the most important thing in King’s life as a child. King was quoted saying
There were also several instances that occurred when King was young that influenced his way of thinking in a negative way. For example starting at the age of five, King was influenced by witnessing soup lines during the Great Depression. At the age of six he felt what it was like to be subjected to racism. The father of one of his white friends banned his son from playing with King because he was a child of color (Moses, 10). Despite these negative events in King’s young life, when he first entered public school, he proved to be an excellent young student (Bowling, 116).


Gandhi was one of the major influences on King’s operational philosophies. Gandhi believed on solving problems, big and small, with out using violence. Gandhi’s philosophy and technique of Satyagraha is the resistance to tyranny through truth and nonviolence (Misra 21). Truth, nonviolence, and Ahimsa, or love, are the bases of Satyagraha. Truth is the fullest possible concordance of one’s experience of a fact or and event or a thought by one’s senses and reason which one believes with one’s whole being as a witness (Misra, 32). Nonviolence is non-injury to any living creature by thought, word and deed in its negative aspect, and love or identity of interest with the ‘others’ in its positive aspect. All life is one (Misra, 32).

Gandhi believed that if injustice blocked the path of individuals or a community from living normal, free from fear lives, then they should adopt Satyagraha as a weapon. They should insist on truth being established and resist all authority or source of evil with nonviolence. He felt that conflict of interests are inevitable, but he believed that the ultimate interests of all are one and therefore, one should strive hard to see that no violence occurs, no destruction takes place, no bitterness is generated, and a solution is found which is just to both sides (Misra, 35). Gandhi’s moral law applies equally to all people, whether you are a common citizen, merchant, lawyer, politician, or a solider (Misra 24). He felt that until people can see that all human life is an integrated whole, there could be no peace in the world (Misra, 24).

"Martin Luther King." NobelPrize.Org. 6 Feb. 2007 http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1964/king-bio.html.
Bowling, Lawson. Shapers of the Great Debate on the Great Society; A Biographical Dictionary. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2005.
Misra, K.P., S.C. Gangal. Gandhi and the Contemporary World. Delhi: Chanakya Publications, 1981.

Is the evidence there?

When talking about Martin Luther King Jr., I think many would agree that there is definately no lack of information out there. He was one of the most influencial people in the history of the United States. Not only is Dr. King famous as a person, but the issues he addressed were also such a large part of our history, that it wont be soon forgetten.

The Civil Rights Movement was huge. It effected everyone in the nation, where they were for or against the rights of American Americans. Once the laws were passed and Dr. King's dream came true, our nation was never the same. There was no more legal segregation, and people were legally created equal.

Today there is still a lot of racism problems out there, and I think the best way to get past it all, would be to learn from our history, and not make the same mistakes over and over again. There are books, movies, websites, journals, speeches, parades, strikes, and many other things that show the part of our history that we need to always remember, otherwise, our country could become divided once again.

Expository

My research paper is most likely going to be an expository research paper. I say this because I will be putting forth specific information, as opposed to bringing up an argument, or trying to persuade the reader to believe what I am writing about. There really is no right or wrong idea about my paper, because it is simply straight up facts about the social, moral, and political philosophies of Martin Luther King Jr.

One might take the information about Dr. King’s beliefs as being right or wrong, but the facts that I will be presenting come straight from our country’s history, and for the most part can not be challenged. If i were to be writing a persuasive research paper, I might try to get the reader to believe in what Martin Luther King Jr. believed in. I may argue that segregation and discrimination are wrong, and should not have gone on as long as they did without a law against them.

Source # 5

My fifth source is a book titled Revolution of Conscience by Greg Moses. I found a certain section in the book useful, because it discusses events in Kings life both at a young age and an adult.

His family, church, and school were the most important thing in King’s life as a child. He was quoted saying: “It is quite easy for me to think of a God of love mainly because I grew up in a family where love was central and where lovely relationships were ever present. It is quite easy for me to think of the universe as basically friendly mainly because of my uplifting hereditary and environmental circumstances. It is quite easy for me to lean toward optimism than pessimism about human nature mainly because of my childhood experiences”.

There were also several instances that occurred when King was young that influenced his way of thinking in a negative way. For example starting at the age of five, King was influenced by witnessing soup lines during the Great Depression. At the age of six he felt what it was like to be subjected to racism. The father of one of his white friends banned his son from playing with King because he was a child of color. Despite these negative events in King’s young life, when he first entered public school, he proved to be an excellent young student

Moses, Greg. Revolution of Conscience. New York: The Guilford Press, 1997.