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U.S. History 1877-Present 11.6: Dr. King 40 Views
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Description:
Martin Luther King Junior is one of America's most celebrated and important historical figures. With a name like that, we suppose he was destined to do something pretty awesome.
Transcript
- 00:03
Some people just have a clear goal. They know who they are and [Woman asleep in bed dreaming about being an Astronaut]
- 00:08
what they want to do with their life. There's no time spent searching for
- 00:11
their spirit animal, they just know oh and for future reference our spirit
- 00:16
animal is a horse. Took us 20 years to figure that one out. Someone who didn't
- 00:20
take 20 years to figure it out? Well that'd be Martin Luther King Jr. He had
Full Transcript
- 00:24
the power to inspire millions with his message of equality and hope. Well heck he [Crowds cheer MLK at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference]
- 00:29
didn't even need a spirit animal, he was one. MLK became the face of the
- 00:33
nonviolent struggle to end segregation. Take a second and let the awesomeness of
- 00:38
this statement sink in, non-violence.. So why is that so awesome? Well because by
- 00:44
this point African Americans had more than earned the right to be angry. But
- 00:49
Dr. King figured he could make his point in a different way he thought in
- 00:53
ideals and he refused to engage in violence under any circumstances. His [Two tanks approach MLK and protesters and he holds up a rose]
- 00:57
approach was peaceful drawing much of its inspiration from India's
- 01:01
independence fighter Mohandas Gandhi. King referred to Gandhi as the guiding light
- 01:06
of our technique of nonviolent social change. Well the idea was that civil
- 01:11
rights activists could use the techniques and rights granted them by
- 01:14
the Constitution to enact social change. We Americans love a good rally or [The Bill of Rights]
- 01:19
protest to get our point across and Dr. King used these nonviolent methods to
- 01:24
fight for an end to segregation in the south, and boy was he good at it, like
- 01:29
super good at it.. he was basically the nonviolent protest ninja. Anyway you know
- 01:34
how they say you catch more flies with honey than vinegar, while MLK's [Bowl of honey with a lot of flies in next to a bowl of vinegar with only 1 fly in it]
- 01:37
movement definitely caught the attention and earn the respect of millions of
- 01:41
Americans. Besides his early successes in Montgomery he also led a revolutionary
- 01:46
nonviolent campaign in Birmingham Alabama called by some the most
- 01:50
segregated city in America. The world watched in horror as police assaulted
- 01:56
peaceful protesters with water hoses and dogs, well not long after MLK led a huge
- 02:01
march on Washington where he delivered his famous I have a dream speech [Footage of MLK delivering his speech on a TV]
- 02:06
cementing him as a major world voice for civil rights. Well pretty soon he was being
- 02:12
awarded the 1964 Nobel peace prize and congress was
- 02:15
passing the Civil Rights Act which guaranteed equal opportunity for people
- 02:19
of all races and it did it a lot more specifically than the constitutional
- 02:23
amendment had done before and MLK didn't stop there. Thanks to his campaign
- 02:28
in Selma, Congress passed a voting rights act in 1965 knocking down all the [MLK leading a crowd of protesters]
- 02:34
practices that were barring blacks from the poll. Later King spoke out strongly
- 02:39
against the Vietnam War and fought for economic equality for the poor of all
- 02:43
races tragically MLK's peaceful crusade was finally stopped on April fourth 1968
- 02:50
when he was shot by a sniper at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis Tennessee. His [MLK's memorial]
- 02:55
body was taken to his hometown of Atlanta where dignitaries from all over
- 02:59
the world attended his funeral. We're sure there wasn't a dry eye in the house.. [Crowd of people crying at a funeral]
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