FAMOUS PERSON DIAGNOSTIC

Famous Person Diagnostic

Disclaimer

The contents of this paper are meant to serve biographical purposes and are not meant to provide concrete accounts of events, incidents and individuals. This content of this autobiographical paper have been derived and verified from secondary sources. Therefore, the writer does not bear the essential responsibility of the stated facts and figures.

Famous Person Diagnostic

Background Information

Americans of a certain age remember where they were on April 4, 1968, when they heard the news of the assassination of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., in Memphis, Tennessee. Since the organization of the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955-1956, King had become a household name in America. The extremes of emotion that King evoked in America derived from the fact that for over a dozen years prior to his murder, he had been a major force in America's fight against racism, discrimination, and injustice. By the time of his death, King's activities had forced landmark legislation in the areas of civil rights, educational opportunity, voting rights, and fair housing. As King himself stated, his goal was “to save the soul of America.” In this struggle for America's salvation, King endured vilification, public ignominy, and incarceration, and ultimately gave his life.

A descendant of a long line of preachers, King was born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia, to the Reverend Martin Luther King, Sr., and Alberta Williams King. King Sr. was a preacher at the Dexter Baptist Church in Atlanta. King Jr. grew up surrounded by love at home and his community. Given the power of positive influences in his formative years, King was able to lean more toward optimism regarding human nature. His subsequent education and religious development reinforced those views. King attended Morehouse College in Atlanta, from which he graduated with a B.A. in 1948. After Morehouse, King attended Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania, and received a Bachelor of Divinity degree in 1951; and later went on to Boston University where he received, in 1954, a doctorate in philosophy (Leonard, 2003). At Crozer and at Boston University, King studied the works of major Western thinkers, including Reinhold Niebuhr, Plato, and Emmanuel Kant. He also became acquainted with the tactics and techniques of Mahatma Gandhi—skills of social reform, which would be pivotal to his career as a social activist and reformer.

Socio-Cultural Aspects of His Life

The black leader of the city had organized the boycott to protest against racial segregation in public transportation. This was in response to the arrest of the black Rosa Parks, who had refused to let a white passenger to their seat. The protest lasted 381 days. King was subsequently arrested and imprisoned. His house was burned down during this time, and King received several death threats. The boycott, however, ended 1956 with a decree of the Supreme Court, which declared all forms of racial segregation in public transportation in the city illegally. King co-founded in 1957 with the black clergy, "Southern Christian Leadership Conference," which he chaired later (Brown, ...