MLK's+Dream+Questions

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?** The author feels that King liberated them from the burden of America's centuries-old hypocrisy about race. America was supposed to be the land of the free and even our own citizens were being malled by dogs and sprayed with fire hoses because of the color of their skin. So, the author says that King was the man that made America the free world. If the blacks and whites who marched beside him failed, vast regions of the U.S. would have remained morally indistinguishable from South Africa under apartheid, with terrible consequences for America's standing among nations.


 * Was King "the right man at the right time"?** King was defiantly the right man at the right time. King was a man of extraordinary physical courage whose belief in nonviolence never swerved. Also, he was a preacher, so being a minister put King in touch with the spirit of the black masses but also gave him a base within the black church, then and now the strongest and most independent of black institutions. He had incredible leadership and would not take no for an answer.

** Would King be upset with the current use of his most often quoted line? Why or why not? ** He would be very upset that people would use a line from a moving speech about equality to "crusade against racial preferences." He would hope that people understand the topic that they are dealing with. However, when people use this line helping to push for more racial equality he would probably be pleased and happy to help out other equality activists.