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Martin Luther King Jr.’s life is the definition of never giving up. King suffered through many hardships in his battle for equality. His protests led him to be arrested over 20 times. He was the target of several violent attacks on himself including getting stabbed. His house was bombed and set on fire, and he constantly was receiving death threats. All of this did not stop King from fighting for what was right.
He is remembered for being a driving force in motivating people to support the civil rights movement. His great orations including I Have a Dream inspired many. When he spoke his intensity, passion, and commitment to racial injustice became contagious.
Martin Luther King Jr. faced opposition from not just the whites and their leaders but also some from his own race. King embraced the non-violent principles of Gandhi while other civil rights activists took a more militant approach. He was under investigation by J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI for “causing too much trouble” and Hoover called him “the most notorious liar in the country”.
M.L.K. strongly believed in the power of peaceful protests. He believed that violence degraded the movement. Peace on King’s end did not always result in a peaceful protest.
In 1966 King led 700 peaceful protesters on a march in Chicago. He was met by thousands of white people throwing rocks, firecrackers, and bottles. King even got hit in the head with a brick. But that didn’t stop him. He continued to march afterward.
The Albany Coalition was a movement started in 1961 to protest the Georgian city’s segregation policies. King joined the movement in December only planning to counsel the protesters for one day. Instead, he was jailed during a mass arrest of peaceful demonstrators. He declined bail until the city changed its segregation policies.
King narrowly escaped death in 1958 when a mentally ill woman stabbed him in the chest with a letter opener. M.L.K. was signing copies of his book in a bookstore in Harlem when the attack happened. He was given first aid by two local police officers before he was rushed into surgery. He remained in the hospital for several weeks.
The Selma to Montgomery march, publicized by King, proved to be a turning point in the civil rights movement. The violence that occurred led the march to be dubbed “Bloody Sunday”. Of the event, King later wrote, “If I had any idea that the state troopers would use the kind of brutality they did, I would have felt compelled to give up my church duties altogether to lead the line.”
Throughout his life, King faced his hardships front forward with bravery and conviction. After countless arrests and violent acts he kept with his fight and continued to do it peacefully always sticking by his morals. Today he is still the face of the civil rights movement and will forever be remembered for his inspiring words and for setting the bar for peaceful protests going forward.
King is a shining example of never giving up on your goals, and also not giving up on your standards of how you achieve these goals. His accomplishments were achieved through determination, conviction, and bravery. He never gave up no matter what was said, what happened to him, or how bleak his cause may have looked. Martin Luther King Jr. is the gold standard of never giving up.
Photo: Wikipedia
Sources: Wikipedia, Nova, Yahoo News
