Martin Luther King Jr - Essay Example

His voice reverberates with every sentence he utters and one can almost imagine the earth shake as those before him listen and confirm the vision they all share. He was the one, amongst a great many, who made it possible for every African-American to enter any establishment he wants to, be the very best in a field of his choice, and paved the way for a man of color to be today’s president of the United States of America. His life was an inspiration and his actions are the epitome of how deed and words can move an entire nation into achieving what was one day considered impossible.

It was no easy feat for a nation that was founded on a history of slavery and discrimination to change its ways. The Movement was going against the current of what had been an acceptable convention in the South. Dr. King is a constant reminder for his own people that they have big shoes to fill in order to prove that everything he had fought for will not be in vain. He is an even bigger representation of how change is possible and that a paradigm shift is attainable as long as there are people who have the vision for change and the fortitude to make things happen no matter what personal consequences may befall upon him, including his own life. Dr. King is a figure who had been so mythologized that we sometimes forget to value the true meaning of his life’s work.

He is among those with the privilege of having a day celebrated every year in his memory, a street or landmark in just about every town or city, and a figure studied within the four walls of a classroom religiously. But these venerations are the source of his popularity and his neglect. Marshall Frady correctly observes, “To hollow a figure is almost always to hollow him. And the truth is, King was always a far more excruciatingly complex soul than the subsequent flattenings effected by his mass sanctification” (Frady 7).

He was by no means perfect but he was a virtuous leader who was able to move