Martin Luther King Jr., African-American, born in Atlanta, Georgia, is a pastor, social activist, and leader of the American civil rights movement. In 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. met with President Johnson to ask for the passage of a new civil rights law that would give blacks equal rights. On August 28, 1963, in front of the Lincoln Memorial, he delivered a speech entitled "I Have a Dream." He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. In April 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis at the age of 39. Since 1986, the U.S. government has designated the third Monday of January every year as Martin Luther King Jr. National Day of Remembrance.
(Martin Luther King Jr.)
The speech "I Have a Dream" is arguably the most famous speech in the world. Because this speech is not only well known to Americans, but also has influenced the whole world. This speech by Martin Luther King Jr. sent out the truest voice of the people and touched not only the American people, but also the people of the world. One of the most famous sayings is: "I dream of a day when this country will stand up and truly realize the true meaning of its creed: we believe that these truths are self-evident and that all men are created equal."
This sentence was deafening to the American people, and the American people suddenly woke up and were greatly shocked. Nearly two hundred years after the founding of the United States, because of this sentence of Martin Luther King, Jr., everyone suddenly turned back to the ideals of the founding of the United States. Wasn't the original intention and ideal of building the United States to pursue freedom, equality, and democracy? Isn't it just for the sake of a free country where everyone is equal? But after so many years, people seem to have forgotten this ideal, and on this day, the ideal of the founding of the country has not yet been realized.
(Washington Lincoln Memorial)
On July 22, 1862, Lincoln read to the Cabinet the first draft of the Emancipation Proclamation. Lincoln freed the black slaves, but the blacks did not have the right to vote at the time. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered this speech a hundred years after Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. Under President Grant, blacks gained the right to vote, but only as a superficial one. Until the 1960s, blacks were discriminated against in the Southern United States. Martin Luther King Jr.'s most important battles were related to discrimination against blacks.
Martin Luther King Jr. first led the people in a struggle in the city of Montgomery, where he lived, stemming from the "Montgomery Ride." At that time, the southern states of the United States, especially Alabama and Georgia, still maintained a policy of racial segregation for blacks. In Montgomery, Alabama, whites and blacks were required to sit in segregated when riding the bus. On December 1, 1955, a black woman was sitting in a white man's seat while riding in a car, and when the white man came up and asked her to give up her seat, she refused to let her, so the black woman was arrested. After the black woman's arrest, under the leadership of Martin Luther King, Jr., large-scale protests broke out among blacks. If the apartheid policy was not abolished, all blacks would not take the bus. White people are generally rich, in the 1920s when the car was popular among white people, most white families have cars, so the bus is actually mainly black people to sit, but at that time to set aside half of the area for white people, even if the white seat is empty, black people can not sit in this position.
(Martin Luther Kingfa speaks)
Martin Luther King Jr. is a bit like Gandhi, india's founding father, who advocated nonviolent protest without smashing and looting. Led by Martin Luther King, Jr., the blacks persisted for more than three hundred and eighty days, resolutely not taking the bus. In the end, the bus company couldn't run anymore. The federal court ruled by ruling that the apartheid policy was illegal. This was the first battle led by Martin Luther King Jr. for blacks, and after this victory, blacks could ride the bus as equally and freely as whites.
Next, Martin Luther King Jr. led the Black Seating Movement. For a long time, black and white Students in the United States were allowed to study separately and could not go to the same school. During the Eisenhower era, black American students could go to the same school as white students, but the two sides continued to clash, and the "Little Rock Incident" broke out at the most intense time, white people held guns at the school gate, and black people dared to go to school, they would shoot directly. In this case, President Eisenhower even sent airborne soldiers to escort black people to school. Blacks and whites were only co-located in the southern states.
Although the same school was realized, blacks were still discriminated against on the university campus, and all cafes and supermarkets in the school did not allow black students to enter. So Martin Luther King Jr. led the Blacks to launch a massive "Seating Campaign", in which the Negroes wanted to go to the school café, to go to the school supermarket to buy things, and to get equal service, and if they were denied service, then sit down, don't drink coffee, don't drink water, just sit here and write their homework. Countless black students answered his call and very politely went to the café: "Please bring me a cup of coffee." The white waiter said, "I can't serve you." Then the black students sat down to write their homework, and countless black college students were arrested and imprisoned. Martin Luther King Jr. made another call: "We will fill the prison." All the blacks sat in the café, and you arrested me, but I didn't commit any crime, and slowly this thing got bigger and bigger.
On August 28, 1963, to commemorate the centenary of the emancipation of slaves, Martin Luther King Jr. led everyone to "march to Washington", more than 200,000 blacks followed him to Washington, many white people attended the rally, and eventually millions of people attended, listening to Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech that caused a sensation in the world. This speech touched not only the American people, but also President Kennedy. President Kennedy met with the representatives of the rallyers at the White House and said, "I also have a dream, and this is not only your dream, but also my dream."
(Statue of Liberty)
Thanks to the efforts of Martin Luther King Jr., the U.S. Congress was under intense pressure to finally pass the Civil Rights Act in 1964, and since then blacks have truly been equal to whites everywhere. A country founded on "freedom and equality" as its founding purpose, wrote the ideal pursuit of "all men are created equal" in the Declaration of Independence in 1776, but it was not until 1964 that the Civil Rights Act was passed, and equality was achieved at the legal level.
(Passed the Civil Rights Act)
In fact, to this day, racial segregation and racial discrimination still occur frequently in the southern states of the United States. Although the manifestations of racial discrimination are different from those of that year, racial discrimination is still deeply rooted. As a result, in some of the southern states of the United States today, some cities are mostly white, and some cities are mostly black. In a few U.S. states, some policies of racial segregation and discrimination were only abolished in the 1970s, including North Carolina. In North Carolina, blacks at the bottom were subjected to IQ tests before giving birth, and those with low IQs were subjected to forced sterilization, a policy that was not abolished until the 1970s. North Carolina is a very strange state in the United States, and the people of North Carolina still firmly believe that they are independent North Carolina people and do not recognize themselves as federal Americans.
Martin Luther King Jr., America's greatest civil rights leader, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, the year after his famous speech "I Have a Dream." Martin Luther King Jr. was also hated by white racists, assassinated by a white racist during a speech in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1968.
(Martin Luther King, Jr.)
Some years after his death, other civil rights leaders began to expose some of his old bottoms, saying something about Martin Luther King Jr. who had personal private life issues. But man is not a sage, he is flawed, and no one's soul can stand up to public scrutiny. The American people understand that the problems of his private life will not affect his great ideals and achievements, as well as his changes to america. Martin Luther King Jr. remains in the top three on the list of the most respected Americans voted for by the American people.
After the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., not only black people, but all Americans were outraged. In honor of Martin Luther King Jr., the day of his death was changed to a public holiday in the United States, the second American public holiday to be named after a person. Until now, public holidays across the United States have been named after people for only three days. The first anniversary is the commemoration of Washington, and the other day is the commemoration of President Lincoln. Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Day is also the most important day for the American people, and it is not an exaggeration to say that he is the greatest black man in American history. Not only the negroes in the United States miss him, but all the people of the United States also miss him, and his ideals have inspired and influenced people all over the world. Freedom and equality are the common ideals of mankind, and it is the torch of this ideal that guides mankind to continue to advance toward civilization.