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Martin Luther King Jr. Martin King luther Jr Photes  Martin Luther King Jr Movies  My Bibliograghy page  My Speech

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**Martin Luther King Jr.** media type="youtube" key="arw_HQLnwqE" height="291" width="342" align="right" Was born on January 15, 1929 as Michael Luther King Jr, but later had his name changed to Martin. Martin Luther King Jr was born in Atlanta on Sunset Adams Street in 1929. He was an American clergyman, activist, and prominent leader in the African American civil rights movement. His main legacy is securing progress on civil rights in the United States. Because of this work, he has become a human rights icon. For example, Dr. King is ev en recognized as a martyr by two Christian churches.

A Baptist minister, King became a civil rights activist early in his career. He led the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott and helped found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957, serving as its first president. King's efforts led to the 1963 March on Washington, where King delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech. There, he raised public consciousness of the civil rights movement and incidentally established himself as one of the greatest orators in U.S. history. Now I will give you the "I have a dream speach"

"Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves, who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds."

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so we have come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.

We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must ever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

<span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.

<span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

<span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecutions and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends. And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream."

<span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Thankyou!

<span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Sadly, Martin Luther King Jr dired at 6:01 pm on April 4, 1968 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was shot while standing on the second floor balcony of his room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. The bullet traveled through the right side of his neck, smashing his throat and then going down his spinal cord before lodging in his shoulder. King was rushed to St. Joseph's Hospital, where doctors opened his chest and performed manual heart massage. He was pronounced dead at 7:05 p.m. James Earl Ray who killed Martin was captured two months later. and was sentenced to 99 years in prison.

**Why he shows courage** -He tried to make America a better place to live -He did not only stand up for himself he stood up for black and white people alike -Courage is an indefinable thing. It’s not as brash as bravery, and anyone can have it. You can be courageous even if you are the most timid and meek of people, or the most softly spoken and thats only one reson -He led marches for Civil Rights for Black people. These marches and protests in the late 1950s and early mid 1960s were designed to call attention to injust practices of city bus policies, voting rights, job and housing discrimination. His philosophy was non-violence, so that when the police and Ku Klux Klan types taunted, spat on, and beat the marchers, even killed several, his response was not to respond in kind. The feeling was that press coverage of firehoses, attack dogs, axe handle beatings and bloodied protesters showing up on TV screens across the country would infuriate the US public and pressure Congress to pressure cities and States where these discriminatory actions took place. His philosophy was not universally supported in the Black Community, as witnessed the rise of the Black Panther Party and other more militant protesters. -I also think he shows courage because he did machers to stand up for black people and also he stood up for white people

**Some of his Quteos where-** "We are prone to judge success by the index of our salaries or the size of our automobiles, rather than by the quality of our service and our relationship to humanity." <span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">"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." <span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">"At the center of non-violence stands the principle of love." !Thankyou for reading my pages!