A celebration of Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy

Eirinn Moore - Senior / Jackson Hethcox - Junior | Features

Martin Luther King Jr. was an icon and a leader. He grew up in a period of racial prejudice and had to learn how to fend for himself. He was an American Baptist minister that inspired many others through his sermons and speeches.

What many know Martin Luther King Jr. for is his famous “I Have a Dream” speech delivered on Aug. 23, 1968. Throughout this speech, Dr. King addresses the strive for equality and racial justice.

Dr. King said in his speech, “...we refuse to believe the bank of justice is bankrupt.”

Dr. King held many events such as his famous march over the Edmund Pettus bridge in Selma, Alabama for racial justice was the site of a brutal massacre by the state police to the peaceful demonstrators. As well as, joining in the march former congressman John Lewis who later died this year. Both Lewis and King were both essential members in the civil rights movement.

Dr. King played a large role in the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 60s. He eventually becomes the face of this movement.

Dr. King said, “A riot is the language of the unheard.”

At this time many people didn’t agree with riots or marches because they originally arose when women’s rights marches began to be prevalent. These protests originally received major outlash when they started to occur.

Dr. King was very family oriented. From his humble beginnings King's paternal grandfather, James Albert King, had been a sharecropper near the small town of Stockbridge, Georgia. Kings was the second of ten children. He had left Stockbridge for Atlanta at the age of sixteen, with nothing but a sixth-grade education and a pair of shoes.

His ideas still live on. Dr. King is more relevant today than ever before. The protest and riots that have occurred this year and past year, have brought to light Americans' first amendment right to protest. However, the question has been brought up: what are the limits to freedom of protest?

Dr. King will be remembered as a social activist and the founder of the Civil Rights movement. King sought equality and human rights for not only African Americans but for all people who were not represented equally.