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Martin Luther King Jr I Have A Dream Speech Analysis

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Martin Luther King Jr. was a civil rights activist and first hand witness of mistreatment of African Americans from the mid-1950s until April 4, 1968 when he was assassinated. He was a black man who grew up during a time of segregation and injustice. King Jr. came from a loving and structured home in which his father was an influential role model and a had a big impact on his future professions. Religion was also a large part of his life and was one of the biggest influences for his involvement in the Civil Rights Movement. In this contextual analysis I will be summarizing the historical context of King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream Speech” and how it impacted his social standing and life's work. I will be exploring how Martin Luther King Jr.’s upbringing set the stage for his civil rights activism involvement and allowed him to become one of the most famous African Americans in the twentieth century. Martin Luther King Jr. was originally born as Michael King Jr. on January 15, 1929. His family was very religious and his father had changed his own and five year old King Jr.’s names from Michael to Martin, in honor of the sixteenth-century German Protestant religious leader, Martin Luther. King Sr. was from a poor farming community and had risen in social status through marriage and education (Berg). After the death of his father-in-law, King Sr. became the pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church, he was a successful minister and served as president of the Atlanta chapter of the NAACP.

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