Paper 1
Intro w/thesis
The recent political election, which gave the American people their 45th president, has lead our nation into a new mindset. President Obama is the first African American president of the United States and with his election new ideas are being born and old beliefs are being laid to rest. This recent political activity is very simiar to the life changing movement of the 60′s involving Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Both King and Obama have brought this nation to new heights many of the ideas that these two revolutionalry men have had are very similar, our nation both in the 60′s and today has grown, and we have grown not only as a nation but also as individuals.
Both President Obama and Martin Luther King Jr believed in equal rights for all. King was in the middle of a revolutionary stage and played a pivotal role in gaining African American rights, similar to Obama today.
Obama in his speech discusses the anger that the black man feels, even today, despite the advances our society has made. Obama discuses his former Reverend Wright who gave a sermon that was played on Fox news channel and possibly misinterpreted. The news channel showed a short clip that shows Rev Wright shouting from the pulpit “God Damn America!” After watching that short clip I was curious to see the rest of it. The entire clip gives more justice to the point that the reverend was making that America has failed its people and that is why he will not bless a nation that has failed him, rather he damns this nation. The anger that the black man feels toward America, as we see by the example of Rev Wright and many other black men, is the point that Obama was making and the point that King also frequently made in almost every one of his speeches. King even states in his “I have a dream” speech that “America has given its Negro people a bad check, one marked insufficient funds.” The way the African American man felt
back in the 60’s is very similar to the deep seated feeling of
minorities today! Both King and Obama wanted to address the issue of
racism and conquer it.
As a nation we have learned and grown from the example of these two men. Obama was raised by his white grandparents yet had an African American father and a white mother. Being married to an African
American woman and having African American children, and him himself
being a black man enables him to empathize with the plight of the black man. He knows and understands about the deep seated anger that the minorities feel, he knows how the poor immigrants and the black teen living in the ghetto feel, and he knows and sympathizes with the issues of health care and poor living conditions. Obama wants to focus on bigger issues then race, not the petty squabbles of the people but rather how to address and conquer health care issues, the economic
crisis, terrorism, and education issues just to name a few. Once we can focus beyond race we can solve larger issues that affect everyone and better the nation as a whole. Both King and Obama had the opinion that the issue of race isn’t going to be solved overnight, or that they are the sole reason for change but rather realized this was a gradual change and would evolve with time. Similar to when King was alive he didn’t know that his grandchildren would see the first African American
president, he hoped, but he knew that eventually and hopefully in part to his contribution that the dream of equal rights to all would be a reality.
We have had the benefit of enjoying equal rights for all that King helped to make a reality. Without the civil rights movement who knows
what America would be like? We certainly wouldn’t have a black
president right now and we wouldn’t be able to enjoy the freedoms that we currently have.
