Would It Be The Same World Without Martin Luther King?
Written by Elaine Wilson, Posted on , in Section Essential Reads
Many look upon today as an oh, hey, that Monday we don’t have to go to school or work. Martin Luther King Jr. Day has become a holiday that some take into real consideration, but one that many, many others forget beyond sleeping in. What would the world be like if Dr. King had never come along?
It’s true, the civil rights movement was moving before King got involved. President Truman signed Executive Order 9981 in 1948, declaring all Americans equal, without regard to race or religion. The NAACP (the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) was founded in 1909, and was working hard to desegregate schools and churches that were still fighting a Supreme Court ruling to end segregation. Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white person, thus beginning the bus boycott, which Dr. King later joined. He began to speak openly about the dissonance between the races in what was considered by most a free country. In the course of the next thirteen years, King delivered many speeches, empowering and encouraging those within the movement and without. He served time in jail, and was a target for all types of violence, which finally took his life at the young age of 39.
He Did Far More Than Delivering "I Have A Dream"
So if Martin Luther King had not been a part of the movement, what could have happened? A powerful quote came to me today in another article about MLK, which read, “But this is what the great Dr. Martin Luther King accomplished. Not that he marched, nor that he gave speeches. He ended the terror of living as a black person, especially in the south” (bolding original, HamdenRice, dailykos.com).
Would anyone else have been able to do the same?
There were hundreds, thousands of people that contributed to the freedom cause; there were leaders, such as Malcolm X, that were rising up against the discrimination. But would anyone else have been as influential as Dr. King?
It is my argument that Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. is a man among men, a person who gave everything he could to help something that was far greater than himself. No one else would have led the people they way he could. Many men and women made bold statements and did amazing things for the cause with their courage; Dr. King touched the world then and now with his soul.
Most of us cannot even begin to comprehend the horrors that Dr. King and his supporters dealt with then. Even a quiet black citizen was forced to watch themselves constantly in order to avoid anything like what happened to young Emmett Till, the 14 year old accused of whistling at a white woman, who was punished by brutal beatings and murder. Reverend King directed a movement that I believe would have been much more violent without him. It would have been left to those with more anger, who did not follow King’s ideals of equality, not superiority—for any race.
Even now, there are many fighting for equality in this country—a country that can’t imagine the injustice of just 50 short years ago. Today, I want to honor Dr. King as a man who not only took action, but inspired millions with his truth.
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