MLK's+Dream

THE MARCH

** Read the [|last paragraph from ABC-CLIO] and the second paragraph from [|CORE's discussion of the March] to answer the question below: **

**What was the impact of the March on Washington?**The march gave a new and fresh impetus to the increasing civil rights movement and showed the government, which had been dragging its feet on litigation in this area, that action was needed quickly. It impacted both on the passage of civil legislation and on nation wide opinion. It showed the power of mass appeal and gave influence to antiwar, feminist, and environmental movements. The march was know as the high point of the Civil Rights Movement. The procession was a integrationists, nonviolent, liberal form to protest.

** AFTER ** **If we didn't get to it in class, watch [|16th Street] to see what happened right after the March.** The 16th street baptist church, which was used as the center for civil rights movements, was bombed. The purpose was to hurt anyone in the church, not just one specific group. Four kids died and twenty-one people were wounded from this "attack".

KING

** Read the essay from [|**TIME 100 - Martin Luther King**] **. As you do, respond to the following questions:

**Why does the author feel that whites owe King the greatest debt?**He feels that whites owe King the greatest debt because he liberated whites from centuries-old struggle over race. In addition, without his actions while leading the civil rights movement, the U.S. cannot claim to be the leader of the free world because segregation may still occur. With King's actions, blacks do not have separate public facilities any longer, they aren't beaten if they show intimacy with white women, they can sit anywhere in the buses and can attend any school with mixed races.

**Was King "the right man at the right time"?**African American struggle for civil rights had been going for two centuries by courageous men and women, but Martin Luther King Jr. was the culmination of all those events. The civil rights movement would have likely not unfolded as it did without MLK as it's leader. He was a preacher so he was well known in the black church and familiar with Old Testament stories. He was also very physically courageous.

**Would King be upset with the current use of his most often quoted line? Why or why not?**Yes, he may have been upset because this quote became the slogan of opponents of affirmative action like California's Ward Connerly. Also, many people have wrongly interpreted this quote and selectively used it to mean things Martin Luther King Jr. didn't intend on.