essay #2

Martin Luther King
In 1957 he was elected president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization formed to provide new leadership for the now what they call burgeoning civil rights movement. The ideals for this organization he took from Christianity, its ideas on leadership from Gandhi. In eleven years between 1957 and 1968, MLK traveled over six million miles and spoke over twenty-five hundred times, showing up wherever there was injustice, protest, and action, and meanwhile he wrote five books as well as many articles. In these years, he led a huge protest in Birmingham, Alabama, that got the attention of the entire world, providing what he called “a coalition of conscience“. and promoted his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail", a manifesto of the Negro revolution, he planned the drives in Alabama for the registration of Negroes as voters. He directed the march in Washington, D.C.. 250,000 people showed up to his, "l Have a Dream" speech, he talked with President John F. Kennedy and campaigned for President Lyndon B. Johnson, he was arrested at least twenty times and assaulted at least four times. He was awarded five honorary degrees. And was named Man of the Year by Time magazine in 1963. Also became not only the symbolic leader of American blacks but also a world figure. But when you look at everything this man did, its incredible and should always be remembered that this man dedicated his hole life to making it a better place for blacks.
Huey Newton
It all started at Merritt College in Oakland, California, Huey Newton met Bobby Seale and in 1966 they formed the Black Panther Party. Initially established to protect local communities from police brutality and racism, it eventually developed into a Marxist revolutionary group. The Black Panthers also ran medical clinics and provided free food to school children. So basically these to men did an great thing for colored people who wanted to attended school, which back then would have been hard for any colored person to go to school. Which is not right at all. But then they had a problem with the country thinking they were up to no good. Like the activities of the Black Panthers caught the attention of J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI. J. Edgar Hoover described the Panthers as "the greatest threat to the internal security of the country" and in November 1968 ordered the FBI to employ "hard-hitting counter-intelligence measures to cripple the Black Panthers". Now I don’t know about you but that sounds so wrong and not right at all.
Malcolm X
Intelligent and articulate, Malcolm was appointed as a minister and national spokesman for the
Nation of Islam. Elijah Muhammad also charged him with establishing new mosques in cities such as Detroit, Michigan and Harlem, New York. Malcolm X used newspaper columns, as well as radio and television to communicate the Nation of Islam message across the United States. His charisma, drive and conviction drew in an amazing number of new members. Malcolm X was largely credited with increasing membership in the Nation of Islam from 500 in 1952 to 30,000 in 1963. All the things he did made him a total media magnet. He was featured in a week long television special with Mike Wallace in 1959, called "The Hate That Hate Produced." The show explored the important things of the Nation of Islam, and tracked Malcolm's progress as one of its most important leaders. After the special, Malcolm was faced with the reality that his fame had made him totally forget about his mentor Elijah Muhammad. Racial problems got extremely high during the early 1960s. On top of all the media, Malcolm's great personality had captured the government's attention. As membership in the Nation of Islam continued to grow, FBI agents hated the organization, one even acted as Malcolm's bodyguard. Also secretly placed bugs, wiretaps, cameras and other surveillance equipment to monitor the group's activities. Okay okay, now please tell me all this sounds completely wacked too you, cause it definitely does to me. This isn’t right at all, what so ever.
But I still find all these men an amazing part of history, I mean reading all the biographies really makes you think these are the kind of people that didn’t just sit there and watch something happen, they noticed something was not right in the way things went and decided they were going to be the ones to change it and yes sir they did. So I know it doesn’t really affect me, but its different. They changed what could have been a disaster still today. They made it so everyone’s equal. No one should be out down because of there skin color or religion its not right.