英语故事-Martin Luther King
玛丽莲梦兔
525次浏览
2021年01月19日 19:56
最佳经验
本文由作者推荐
简单美甲图片-王永庆的球童
英语故事
Martin Luther King
马丁·路德·金的传奇一生和伟大梦想
Martin
Luther KingMartin Luther King, Jr.
was born on January
15, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia. Having skipped both the ninth
and twelfth grades, Dr. King entered Morehouse at the age of
fifteen. He entered the Christian ministry and was ordained
in February 1948 at the age of nineteen at Ebenezer Baptist
Church, Atlanta. From 1960 until his death in 1968, he was
co-pastor
with
his
father
at
Ebenezer
Baptist
Church
and
President of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
Dr.
King
was
a
pivotal
figure
in
the
Civil
Rights
Movement. His lectures and remarks stirred the concern and
sparked
the
conscience
of
a
generation;
the
movements
and
marches he led brought significant changes in the fabric of
American
life;
his
courageous
and
selfless
devotion
gave
direction to thirteen years of civil rights activities; his
charismatic
leadership
inspired
men
and
women,
young
and
old,
in the nation and abroad.
Dr.
King
’
s
concept
of
somebodiness
gave
black
and
poor
people a new sense of worth and dignity. His philosophy of
nonviolent
direct
action,
and
his
strategies
for
rational
and
non-destructive social change, galvanized the conscience of
this nation and reordered its priorities. The Voting Rights
Act of 1965, for example, went to Congress as a result of the
Selma
to
Montgomery
march.
His
wisdom,
his
words,
his
actions,
his commitment, and his dreams for a new cast of life, are
intertwined with the American experience.
Three decades after King was gunned down on a balcony
in Memphis, Tenn., he is still regarded mainly as the black
leader
of
a
movement
for
black
equality.
That
assessment,
while
accurate, is far too restrictive. For all King did to free
blacks from the yoke of segregation, whites may owe him the
greatest
debt,
for
liberating
them
from
the
burden
of
America
’
s
centuries-old
hypocrisy
about
race.
It
is
only
because
of
King
and
the
movement
that
he
led
that
the
U.S.
can
claim to be one member of the
“
free world.
”
Had he and the
blacks
and whites
who marched
beside him failed, vast regions
of
the
U.S.
would
have
remained
morally
indistinguishable
from
South Africa under apartheid, with terrible consequences for
America
’
s
standing
among
nations.
How
could
America
have
convincingly
protest
against
the
Iron
Curtain
while
an
equally
oppressive Cotton Curtain covered the South?
Even
after
the
Supreme
Court
struck
down
segregation
in
1954,
what
the
world
now
calls
human-rights
offenses
were
both
law and custom in most areas of America. Before King and his
movement,
a
tired
and
thoroughly
respectable
Negro
seamstress
like Rosa Parks could be thrown into jail and fined simply
because she refused to give up her seat to some white men. A
14-year old black boy like Emmett Till could be hunted down
and
murdered
by
a
Mississippi
gang
simply
because
he
had
supposedly
make
suggestive
words
to
a
white
woman.
Even
highly
educated blacks were routinely denied the right to vote or
serve
on
juries.
They
could
not
eat
at
lunch
counters,
register
in motels or use whites-only restrooms; they could not buy or
rent a home wherever they chose. In some rural areas in the
South, they were even compelled to get off the sidewalk and
stand in the street if a white person walked by.
The movement that King led swept all that away. Its
victory was so complete that even though those outrages took
place within the living memory of the baby boomers, they seem
like
ancient
history.
And
though
this
revolution
was
the