Dr. MLK Jr.:My Speech: A Call For Peace

             
      Today we celebrate the life and death of Martin Luther King, Jr., one of the greatest civil rights activists of all time, and a great leader in the African-American civil rights movement. But he not only impacted the lives of African Americans, he made an impact on the world.
           
      Martin Luther King, Jr. was born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia. He was born and bred in a world where blacks weren’t allowed to drink at a “White Only” drinking fountain, or go to a “White Only” movie entrance, or go to a “White Only” public school. He grew up in a country where people some would blatantly tell you that they didn’t hire you because you were black, or asian, or Hispanic. He grew up in a country where the governor of Alabama, George Wallace, had said in his inaugural address “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.”
             
    He grew up in a country where the “N” word was commonly used by whites to other blacks. He grew up in a country where a great amount of white people were racist to the black person, where people thought that blacks were second class citizens, where they were believed to be somehow less than whites, where they were believed to have been cursed with blackness, where they were believed to have been closer to monkeys than whites were. He grew up in a country where intermarriage and interracial couples were illegal, and many blacks were publicly beaten and lynched, by police, the Klu Klux Klan, and other White Supremacy groups.
             
      As a Baptist minister, MLK Jr preached of a world where people of all colors could come together as sisters and brothers, even though his present world was full of hatred and violence. He preached of a world where there wouldn’t be such hate and discrimination for African Americans. He protested about injustice to the black man with passion, but him and his followers did so non-violently. He protested about how blacks were horribly degraded and mistreated.
   
    Even though he protested non-violently, King’s house and his brother’s house were bombed following the aftermath of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which lasted 385 days.
This was a perfect example of how many African Americans had tried to do the right thing, by protesting non-violently, but had to go through even tougher times, just for standing up for what they believed in. Many were assassinated, all because they wanted a better life for themselves, their children, and others. Prominient examples of this is Martin Luther King Jr. himself, and Malcolm X. Felton Turner, an African American man who lived in Houston, was walking by a protest, a block from his home, when the KKK kidnapped him, beat him with a chain for 30 minutes, and carved the two sets of “KKK” into his stomach, and hung him by his knees to a nearby tree. He lived, but not all are that lucky.
         
    In 1981, 2 KKK members in Alabama randomly selected a 19 year old black man, Michael Donald, and murdered him, because a comepletely different black man was declared not guilty of murdering a police officer.
After MLK’s house was bombed, a case was heard in Montgomery, Alabama, called Browder V. Gayle, ending segregation on Montgomery public buses.  This could have been thought of as a win for African-Americans, and all those who hated oppression and injustice, but there was still a lot of discrimination, therefore there was still a lot to fight for.
   
    Dr. king, Jr, now the leader and co-founder of the SCLC, otherwise known as the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, was instrumental in the organization of the March on Washington, in 1963. This was where he had his “I have a dream” speech. In his speech he talked about how even though African-Americans had been freed from slavery, they still hadn’t been free from the segregation, hatred, violence, and discrimination that had been given to the blacks and other minority groups. What his speech says to me is that we cannot be a good country when we have so much hatred for one another.
   
    Though Martin Luther King, Jr. was brutally assassinated, his words, values, beliefs, and his courage still lives on. And those who plotted to kill him, and those who wanted him to die, are the ones who have made his dream spread around across the nation, and across the world.
It should not take a man or woman to die before we realize that we shouldn’t listen to the music of hate, but to rejoice to the melody of peace.

    A great, wise man, who was also killed, once told his followers to “love one another as yourself” and to “treat others the way you would like to be treated”. I strongly believe that our purpose on Earth was not so that we could hate each other. I also believe that our purpose was also not to say “Oh, he’s black, or she’s a jew, or he’s asian,” but to say “He’s Bob, or he’s Bill, or he’s Jack, or she’s Jane” or to say “He’s my brother, and she’s my sister”. We must come together as brothers and sisters, whether black or white,  jew or gentile, Hispanic or Native American, Chinese or Japanese, Mixed or Indian, Eskimo or Islander, Aborigine or Austrailian, a Black African or a White African, in the name of MLK, Jr, not just tolerate one another, but to love one another. I believe that in doing so, we can to free ourselves from the chains of racism and hatred, and bask in the light of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. In doing so, we can make Scarlett Middle School, Ann Arbor, Michigan, America, and the world—a better place for us, our family, our future children, and generations to come.