Martin Luther King Jr.: An Activist For Civil Rights

894 Words4 Pages
Civil Rights Abraham Sirkin Ms. Lundgren English 11 April 28, 2015 The American Dream is the ideal that every United States citizen should have an equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work, determination and initiative. Since the beginning of time men and women have been trying to create equal grounds for everyone. For over 90 years African-Americans have been trying to get the same rights as everyone else. A civil right is an enforceable right or privilege, which if interfered with another gives rise to an action for injury. For many Americans the American Dream is living in a country where all citizens have equal rights, opportunities, and no discrimination; but this is not true. During the 1950’s to…show more content…
was a major activist for African Americans and minorities for civil rights. Martin Luther King was a peaceful activist for civil rights. King had initially known little about Gandhi and rarely used the term "nonviolence" during his early years of activism in the early 1950s. King initially believed in and practiced self-defense, even obtaining guns in his household as a means of defense against possible attackers. The pacifists guided King by showing him the alternative of nonviolent resistance, arguing that this would be a better means to accomplish his goals of civil rights than self-defense. King stated that African-Americans, as well as other disadvantaged Americans, should be compensated for historical wrongs. In an interview conducted for Playboy in 1965, he said that granting African-Americans only equality could not realistically close the economic gap between them and whites. He posited that "the money spent would be more than amply justified by the benefits that would accrue to the nation through a spectacular decline in school dropouts, family breakups, crime rates, illegitimacy, swollen relief rolls, rioting and other social evils"(Haley). Martin Luther King heled develop the Fifteenth Amendment and other major government decisions that helped get African-Americans and minorities “equal…show more content…
got amendments and other government decisions, there was still discrimination happening. Many African Americans and minorities still faced discrimination. One major place they experienced this was the work place. Many were not making as much as their white counterparts. This breaks one major part in the American Dream, which is the equal opportunity for success. The web article states, “In 1960, Black men earned about 60 percent what white men did” (Your Black World).Their opportunity for success is much less than a white American in the
Open Document