Martin Luther King, Jr. - Ideologies, Life, Work

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Dear Student,
The solution below should provide you an example/perspective from which you can start and get ideas from for your own take and version on the subject and the questions in relation to his assassination. Thank you for using Brainmass and Good luck.

Sincerely,
OTA 105878/Xenia Jones
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Martin Luther King, Jr.: Civil Rights Icon

While it was his assassination that finally made him the icon that he is in American History particularly that period of the Civil Rights Movement where the minorities where finding their voice to fight for reform, it was what King did in life that made him the leader and philosopher many aside from African-Americans listened to. He was a pacifist and did not play politics - he genuinely had a vision and hoped to inspire. Unlike Malcolm X - he did not condone violence and grew into a man full of himself. Like Gandhi and Corazon Aquino, Martin Luther King Jr. is a unifying symbol of humanity, democracy and people power. It is in this struggle that he created enemies as his philosophies and viewpoints became warmly received through his speeches. As a trained preacher, he knew how to deliver. His fight in Alabama against segregation thrust him to become the leader in the centre of a debate that divided the nation both legally and spiritually. At 35, he was the youngest Nobel Peace Prize awardee but chose to donate this to civil rights causes. King's assassination while stood on the balcony of his hotel room had a nationwide repercussion. Pres. Johnson issued a day of morning but, despite this, a wave of riots started. It did not probably help that King was campaigning in the South in a state that was strongly pro-slavery before slavery was abolished. The South then still held to a very traditional, very racially centered social hierarchy brought about by the colonial days - African Americans, Negros were still seen as stocks descended from slaves. The idea of equality, the Lockean philosophy, while accepted was only selectively applied. Racial discrimination was a social reality and ...