First-place Martin Luther King Day essay

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Today, in America, there are still racial issues that affect many African Americans. Martin Luther King Jr. had spent a large majority of his life trying to perfect the way different races, especially African Americans, are treated in the United States.

During his time, there were many segregation issues. African Americans were not allowed to use the same facilities as Caucasians. Martin Luther King Jr. felt the need to change people's mindsets and make them give African Americans equal rights. His works altered Caucasian's belief system.

If Martin Luther King Jr. were alive today, he would be pleased and satisfied with the fact that his beliefs, ideas and "dreams" were carried out and that so much positivity for the African American race culminated from his efforts and those who had followed him.

In his era, the idea of having an African American president was completely unthought of. Now, there is an African American president and an African American in the presidential candidacy. I feel as if Martin Luther King Jr. would be pleased with America today, but would also feel that further efforts could be made to better our nation even more.

Not as many racial incidents have occurred with the older generations, but with the young people. Too many children these days are growing up in impoverished communities. Their upbringings are poor and are inadvertently the cause of the children's brutal actions. Some schools have at least six racial problems a day such as racist jokes, name calling, and bringing racist literature into the school building. These are actions by which Martin Luther King Jr. would be deeply troubled.

Many movies made nowadays have racist jokes and these jokes have become the funniest among young children and teenagers. Races that differ from one's own are "punch lines" for the majority of jokes that are told. If Martin Luther King Jr. were here to educate the younger generations he would try to reform their social moralities and make known their effects on the rest of the communities' population. These younger generations are what communities around the nation will be depending on in the future. These generations will be raising young children and preparing them for the life ahead of them. America cannot afford to have each generation teaching others to be careless and without morals.

Instead, they need to be taught the consequences and effects of their actions on peoples' feelings and community stability. Martin Luther King Jr. would be more than willing to focus on these younger generations and inform them, along with other people, of the devastations their actions can cause. He would also show the better outcomes from cooperation and respect between all peoples.

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