A Diagnosis and Prognosis of Western World Society
Doctor Martin Luther King Junior was thirty five years old when he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize, presented by Gunnar Jahn of the Nobel Committee of the Norwegian Parliament on December 10, 1964 (Jahn). The reason for King’s nomination and award was for the doctor’s doctrine of nonviolence as a means of protest, specifically for social inequality in the southern United States that hit an apex in 1960’s. Upon accepting his Nobel Peace Prize, he made one of his most famous speeches, The Quest for Peace and Justice, of which he cited works and people of significance to recapitulate his ideology to his audiences. King’s lecture that consisted of these references was not simply intended to be for the audience at the Nobel Peace Prize Award ceremony, but rather he also spoke indirectly to politics, philanthropists and philosophers, opponents of the Black Civil Rights movement, and the devotees that had rallied for equality.
The first discernible audience would assuredly be the politicians of the United States at the time of the Black Civil Rights Movement. The United States President John F. Kennedy (assassinated a year before passage of the bill in Dallas) was a predominant vocal advocate for the Civil Rights Bill that had a difficult time to be approved by Congress during his term. The tragedy of Kennedy’s death caused the loss of sponsors of the bill and stalled the passage of the new law. Lyndon B. Johnson assumed the role as the American President, who eventually signed the bill into law when it was finally approved by the House of Representatives and Senate in 1964. It was no surprise that the passage of the new law still allowed inequality to exist in the southern United States. King made a point to executives, legislators, and judges that just one single law was not sufficient to bring about the change necessary