Dr Martin Luther King Jr. – An Inspirational Revolutionary

Lee Casey
Ógra Shinn Féin
An Lorgain

The ability to inspire and awaken people is the most potent weapon that any revolutionary can wield and one such inspirational revolutionary is Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Martin Luther King Jr. was born on January 15, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia. He was the second child of Martin Luther King Sr. and Alberta Williams King. His parents knew all too well the power a good education could bring and sent Martin to school before reaching the legal age of 6.

When it was discovered, he was asked to leave until the following year but despite this setback he excelled at school skipping both the 9th and 12th grades and at the age of 15 he entered Morehouse College. He was ordained a pastor in 1948 and continued to study degree after degree culminating in his Ph.D. in 1955 from Boston University.

Dr King became the leader of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and played a central role in the Civil Rights movement. He strategically used many of the same techniques Mohandas Gandhi had previously used; non-violent civil disobedience to agitate and arouse the American political consciousness and it brought the daily torment of intolerance, ignorance and inequality to the forefront.

Speaking of the atmosphere at the time, in his famous ‘I have a Dream’ speech Dr King said ‘the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in a vast ocean of material prosperity….. and he finds himself an exile in his own land’.

Dr Martin Luther King Jr. is an inspiration to republicans and people everywhere alike who attempt to make real the concepts of justice, equality and freedom. Despite his stance of non-violence and peaceful protest Dr King was arrested 30 times for his civil rights actions.

His soul-stirring oratory and his ability to effectively organize and invigorate a beaten-upon and ignored section of society into a movement for change earn him not only the title of inspirational but revolutionary aswell.

Dr King dedicated his life to meaningful change and he did not die in vain. We must use his example for our own march to freedom. The people who marched with him, listened to his oratory and protested with him, knew they had a mountain to climb if they were to achieve their goals, but as Dr King said himself ‘All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence’

On the 4th of April 1968, Dr King was assassinated by James Earl Ray as he stood on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. As Jesse Jackson, another prominent civil rights leader and friend of Dr Kings put it ‘little did they know that when they shot him they had also immortalized him’. Dr King personifies what people can do in the face of wrongful and unjust adversity and long may he be remembered.

‘I just want to do God’s will. And he’s allowed me to go to the mountain. And I’ve looked over, and I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the Promised Land. So I’m happy tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man.’