Guangyu Zhu
IUF1000 014A
Laura Dedenbach
October 31st, 2015 What is a good life for a group of people in a society? Peace, freedom, equality and justice are what people want for their good life. However, looking back at history, not all people thought that all men should be created equally. That is why back in the history of the U.S., African Americans were treated as slaves and were not on the same pedestal as the primitive Caucasians were. Although we want to pursue the equality for the society, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Louis Menand show us how we must overcome the difficulties and publics’s resistance in order to finally achieve the goal of creating an equal and peaceful society. An individual can have a great impact on society by …show more content…
For example, Oliver Wendell Holmes was trying to admit three African American students, Daniel Laing, Jr., Isaac H. Snowden and Harriet Hunt, to attend Harvard Medical School. But the medical students there revolted by getting a petition approved, stating that they cannot be fellow students along with them. Continuously, some of the white students there intended to transfer. So then Dr. Holme capitulated and claimed that no more African American students would be accepted. Keep fighting is hard especially when there are a lot of against voices. But once we give up, we capitulate, the change will never be made. Compare to Dr. Holmes, Martin Luther King, Jr. put a lot of effort into making a change for society; even with a lot of opposing voices towards him, he did not give up the fight. He advocated nonviolence campaigns, such as sit ins in restaurants and marches through cities. But, why do these nonviolence campaigns? Fittingly, the set goal was to create such a tension so that the community could no longer ignore the issue. Martin Luther King, Jr. believed …show more content…
He used words to change people from inside, change people’s mind. Injustice has existed for such a long time which makes it even harder to achieve equality for this society. But Martin Luther King,Jr. never gave up. Even though he was arrested in the jail, he was still trying to do something to tell people that they should not stop fighting. He believes one day people will realise its real hero, as he indicated in his letter: “One day the South will recognise its real heroes. They will be the young high school and college students, the young ministers of the gospel and most of their elders, courageously and nonviolently siting in at lunch counters and willingly going to jail for conscience’ sake.”(Paragraph