Martin Luther King's speech

So I'm going to present you the famous speech of Martin Luther King ''I have a dream'' and the role of this man in the American History.

At first, Martin Luther King Junior was a leader of the African American Civil Right Movement.

He was, as well as an activist, a Baptist minister who used his Christian beliefs in a non-violent civil disobedience.

His non violent civil disobedience was also inspired by Henri David Thoreau, an american philosopher, essayist and poet of the 19th century, and of course by Gandhi.

He was regarded as the leader of the Civil Rights Movements since 1955 and the Montgomery bus boycott organized to support Rosa Parks.

On december 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, an African-American woman was arrested for refusing to give up her seat in a bus in Montgomery, the state capital of Alabama, a southern state with segregation laws.

The long boycott was a sucess and the United States Distric Court ended racial segregation on all Montgomery public buses.

King's important role transformed him into the leader and the best-know spokesman of the Civil Rights Movement.

Let's focus now on the speech : it took place in August 28, 1963 at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC. For the African-American Civil Rights Movement, the Lincoln Memorial was a very symbolic place because slavery was abolished by Abraham Lincoln in 1865.

So the date and the location of this speech lead us to its context : It is very special here, it's the end of what was called the ''Great March on Washington'' even thought the full name was ''The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom''. This march demanded civil and economic rights for African American.

Indeed this march is regarded as a great part of the African American Civil Rights Movement and we can notice that jobs are asked before the freedom.

Martin Luther King Jr was one of the organizers, among others, he was there as the president of the southern Christian Leadership Conference.

The main organizer was an old activist, regarded as the father of the African-American Civil Rights Movement Asa Philip Randolph. He was fighting for a very long time, indeed, Asa Philip Randolph organized the 1st African-American labor Union in 1925.

The march was organised by different organizations, religious organizations (with Protestants, Catholics, Jews...) and labor organization joining the Civil Rights Movement.

It was a great sucess, estimates of the number of participants varied from 200 000 to

300 000. (thousand)

As we all know, the Martin Luther King's speech had a major impact and the ''Civil Rights Act'' was voted in 1964 under president Lyndon Baines Johnson.

The president in August 1963 was John Fitzgerald Kennedy, he started to prepare the Civil Right Act but he was killed in Dallas in November of the same year. It's the reason why his vice-president Lyndon Baines Johnson became president and signed the act in 1964.

The same years MLK received the Nobel Peace Prize for combating racial inequality though nonviolent resistance.

In spite of the ''Civil Right Act'' of 1964, things were moving very slowly and on April, 4, 1968 MLK was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. His death was followed by violent riots and the issue of race is still a problem in the US.

In opposition of MLK we can quote another big personnality, his principal opponent : Malcom X. Malcolm X was a minister, prominent black nationalist leader who served as a spokesman for the Nation of Islam during the 1950s and 1960s.

He is imprisoned in 1946 for delinquency and during his stay in prison, he discovered Nation of Islam, a political-religious organization advocating an African-American nationalism, corresponding with its leader Elijah Muhammad and converted to Islam.

When he was released from prison in 1952, Malcolm Little took the nickname ''Malcolm X'' with a strong meaning because he did'nt know his real name. ''Little'' was the name of the master of one of his slave ancestors.

In fact MLK and him have ideas in common but he was very extreme and violent. Malcolm X had emerged as a leading voice of a radicalized wing of the Civil Rights Movement. He promoted the black supremacy, advocated the separation of black and white Americans, and rejected the civil rights movement for its emphasis on integration.

Now let's have a look on the speech itself : So I'm gonna quote some extracts that I found very important.

1°) '' And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow,

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