Who Killed Martin Luther King Essay -- Civil Rights

Scratching the Surface, Not Driving in Bullets or: Why White People are Such Morons A great number of people know who Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was. My generation has had the opportunity to learn about his work in the civil rights movement and his â€Å"I have a Dream† speech as early as elementary school. I’d venture to say that a fewer amount of people know that this icon was assassinated and James Earl Ray, a white man, was arrested as his killer. Unfortunately, an even smaller number of people have heard of, or have read about a remarkable civil rights writer named James Baldwin. Determining whom killed Martin Luther King seems to still be an issue because of the guilt of the white man. If white men were properly educated, there would be no reason for the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. If white people would analyze their past, like Baldwin suggests, in a truthful manner, the guilt should dissipate. Martin Luther King Jr. was a civil rights leader during the middle part of the twentieth century. He gave many speeches and led peace marches to gain equal rights for African Americans. I chose to research the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. I guess I knew that he was assassinated but I didn’t know the details. I wanted to know who killed him, when, where, and how King died. The Purpose of this paper is not to determine if James Earl Ray did in fact kill Martin Luther King. Rather, it is a dissection of characters and events utilizing the ideas of the illustrious James Baldwin. In the early part of 1968 he was interested in producing another civil rights march for the poor. Before that could happen, the sanitation workers of the city of Memphis, Tennessee, summoned him. He arrived in March in ord... ...ca, 1998. 63-84. ---. â€Å"Down at the Cross.† 1955. James Baldwin: Collected Essays. Ed. Toni Morrison. New York: Library of America, 1998. 63-84. Harrison, Eric. â€Å"The Killing of Dr. King Revisited.† NewsBank NewsFile Collection 4 (1994): A-15 McKinley, James. Assassination in America. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1975. Pepper, William F. Orders to Kill: The Truth Behind the Murder of Martin Luther King. New York: Caroll & Graf Publishers, Inc., 1995. Ray, James Earl. Who Killed Martin Luther King? The True Story By the Alleged Assassin. Washington, D.C.: National Press Books, 1992. Seigenthaler, John. A Search For Justice. Nashville, TN: Aurora Publishers, inc., 1971. Wexler, Sanford. An Eyewitness History of The Civil Rights Movement. New York: Checkmark Books an imprint of Facts on File, Inc., 1993.

Gender Communication Differences in Traditional Marriage Essay

Men and women communicate differently. Two people of opposite gender joined in marriage have two very different styles of communication to the extent that this problem is sometimes insurmountable. Lack of clear communication between partners in a traditional marriage is often cited as the cause for divorce. What often occurs â€Å"is not a failure to communicate, but a failure to understand communication† (Akin, 2003, 1). Long before technology took over society and created more avenues for communicating with each, men were used to showing support by â€Å"doing things† for the family and women showed their affection through talking (Torrpa, 2002, 1). Women expect their marital relationship to be based on mutual dependence and cooperation while men expect it to be based on independence and competition (Torppa, 2002, 1). Clearly, these two different sets of expectations will have an effect on how the two partners communicate and ultimately, on the strength of the union. According to Ohashi (1993) marriage is a system established on the assumption of a division of labor based on gender-role stereotypes (from Katsurada, Sugihara, 2002, 2). Women traditionally tend to want to â€Å"make everyone happy† while men make decisions based largely on their own personal needs (Torrpa, 2002, 1) – one aspect of marriage that is unchanged for the most part yet responsible for many breaks in communication between the partners. Differences in characteristic gender roles also affect communication between husband and wife. Typically, women are characterized as being the more talkative of the sexes as well as being comfort providers and more secure in showing their emotions. Women are also better at â€Å"reading between the lines† regarding interpersonal issues (Torrpa, 2002, 1). Men, on the other hand, are known for their distinct lack of communication and inability to provide emotional support. Their ability to â€Å"read between the lines† regarding status is more pronounced than in women. With traditional roles in marriage declining and technology taking over, communication is at once both more effective and less available (Morris, 2001, 1) – we have more ways of communicating (e. g. text messaging, Email, etc. ) but we have less time to do so with multiple careers. Both male and female partners tend to see the other as being more controlling of the relationship (Torppa, 2002, 1) and without the ability to communicate effectively, this assumption can be quite damaging to the marriage. This research will explore the varying roles of a man and woman in a traditional marriage relationship, how these roles influence their ability to effectively communicate, and the level of satisfaction each partner feels based on their idea of whether or not they are communicating effectively with each other regarding important issues. According to Torrpa (2002, 1): â€Å"understanding differences is the key to working them out†. B. Hypothesis It is expected that marriage partners with traditional roles (i. e.the husband as breadwinner, the wife in charge f the household) will experience a greater chasm between what is being said and what is meant in that these partners will have communication styles more typical of their gender. It is hypothesized that men will have a very different style of communication than the women in each partnership. C. Participant Selection A minimum of 15 married alumni couples will be identified via public records office and sent a mailed invitation. Commitment may also be obtained via telephone. Respondents to the survey will be offered a gift card from a local merchant. D. Materials 1) Written questionnaire regarding the couple’s marriage 2) Assessment of task completion using a scale model E. Procedure In this study, the married couples will be surveyed regarding their role in the marriage. Each couple will be surveyed individually. A task will be randomly and privately assigned to one of the partners with specific instructions to verbally communicate the specifics of the task to the other partner. Communication style and effectiveness will be measured by the ability of the spouse to complete the task and a post-task survey completed by the spouse that will rank the value of the instructions given on a scale of one to 10. The spousal differences between the style of communication (i. e. non-verbal direction, logic) will be made apparent by the answers to the post-task survey. Analyzing the data with frequency tables is expected to show that the males in the group communicate using logic, while the females will rely more on non-verbal signals they expect their partner to recognize. Potential Risks to Participants There are no potential risks associated with participation in this research study. However, should participants feel the need for counseling services following the survey, they will be directed to the campus counseling center. G. Expected Benefits for Participants and Society Participants in the survey should garner a much better idea of how to communicate more effectively with each other. The hope is that through awareness of communication deficits, the married couples will be able to put this new knowledge to use when needing to communicate about larger and more important issues.

How does the writer make you sympathize with one of the following characters in the Yellow wallpaper? Essay

In the story, â€Å"The Yellow Wall Paper†, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, a woman tells her story. It is told by a narrator in first person who we do not know the name. She has been diagnosed with a temporary nervous depression. The setting is around the early 1900’s in a colonial mansion that the narrator and her husband have rented. She spends most of her time in her bedroom, writing, where there is also a mysterious wallpaper. In this story, there are many points where I would feel sympathy for the narrator which I will now bring to light. First of all, back then in Victorian times, the relationship between men and women were very different compared to present time. Today, most women desire equality with their partner. The reader never even learns the name of the narrator, possibly to give the illusion that she could be any woman. On the very first page, Gilman illustrates the male dominating society and relationship. It was normal for men to think that they were the gender who knew when, what, how and why to do things. The narrator’s husband, John is a doctor who’s words and actions reflect the stereotype I previously mentioned: â€Å"John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage†. This statement illustrates the way gender, at that time, was relevant. This makes me feel pity for the narrator who is oppressed by the circumstances of that time making her illness get worse. Another factor is that John doesn’t believe that his wife is sick, while she is really suffering from her illness. He neglects to listen to his wife about her thoughts, feelings and health. According to him, there is not anything wrong with his wife except for the temporary illness, which should not be serious. The narrator says that the house â€Å"Is quite alone, standing well back from the road†. It is an isolation which John is having her to suffer. By closing her off from the rest of the world, he is taking her away from things that are important to her mental state, such as her ability to read and write, her need for human interaction and to make her own decisions. All of these are important to people. This also makes me feel sympathy towards the narrator who is not given the right to live the way she should. John treats her like a child and infantilises everything. â€Å"The windows are barred† and also when John says â€Å"What is it little girl? †¦Don’t go walking about like that – you’ll get cold.† are both quotes which show this child-like way of treating the narrator. This makes me feel again pity for her because it is as if John was superior to everything and that crying, for a girl in those times, was a sign of weakness. Throughout the beginning of the story, the narrator tends to follow the idea that men are always right: â€Å"It is so hard to talk to John about my case, because he is so wise and because he loves me so.† In a good relationship, each partner should be able to express one’s own thoughts and feelings. In this case though, the narrator feels that she can not tell him what she feels so as not to upset him and make him mad. When the narrator does attempt to have a discussion with John, she ends up crying and not being able to express herself. This shows how at that time, men were supposed to be respected and that women were somehow considered useless. This is very upsetting and irritating, making the reader want to change the story. This is a few ways that the writer makes me sympathise with the narrator. The period she is living in and especially her husband highly contribute to this. You notice that they are not a really good couple and that John is careless with her.

A Critique on Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” Essay

The task of this paper is two-fold; first, this paper will trace and explain the evolution of Martin Luther King, Jr. ’s belief that war, racism and economic injustice are all intertwined and can be dealt with the restructuring of society’s priorities and addressed the necessity of a revolution of values; second, this paper will also explain how he carried out his beliefs in the his speech at the Lincoln Memorial, â€Å"I Have a Dream†. At the onset of this paper, it is important to note that King’s ‘background’ [which includes his race, habituation, education and religion among many others] is crucial in his struggle against racial discrimination, violence and economic injustice as experienced by blacks in the United States of America. This was clearly stated in the speech wherein hundreds of thousands of people were able to serve as audience. In this speech, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. talks of manufactured and institutionalized oppression, I mean oppression which involves the mechanisms of law and power relations the basis of which is against the ‘natural law’. The speech purpose is made evident here as its intention was made clear: that racism should be abolished. Furthermore, Luther King’s striking delivery made it more of just an expression of freedom but of a struggle against an intangible foe: his fellow American’s mentality. Natural law theorists, following the thoughts of St. Augustine that â€Å"an unjust law is not a law at all† and Aquinas’ notion of â€Å"law as an ordinance of reason†, view morality as essentially tied up with the very essence of law. How does King figure in all of this? How can we explain the evolution of King’s ideological perspective? The point is clear: Oppression and unfair treatment of individuals is not morally valid nor is it morally permissible most especially if the basis of such is the individual’s ethnicity or race. As the Kantians believed, each person has a capacity for rational deliberation and choice and as such, an autonomous being with dignity and therefore, ought to be respected by virtue of being human persons. The evolution of King’s ideological perspective may therefore be construed in such way that it is a product, both of his experiences as a black living in a white-dominated society and his philosophical and political development and this may be inferred from Fairclough’s book, â€Å"Martin Luther King, Jr. †, 1995. King’s speeches very clearly communicate his views: â€Å"I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality†¦. I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality, and freedom for their spirits[†¦] (as cited by Carson, 1998). Three important points about King and his political thrusts, philosophical orientation and as to why he may be called a â€Å"radical democrat† may be inferred from the aforementioned quotation in his speech. First, as a leading figure in â€Å"civil rights movement† King believed in the tenets of democracy and liberalism in the sense that he believed that both white and black Americans must have fair treatment in the realm of the law, for the purpose of law itself is the administration of social justice. Second, he believed in the â€Å"non-necessity of violence†. Influenced by Mahatma Gandhi’s â€Å"civil disobedience†, he believed that there are peaceful ways in and through which the problem of political and economic injustice may be resolved. It may further be inferred that for him, political, economic and social change can best be achieved not through violence [and that the government should not keep itself busy from going to war, as in the case of the Vietnam War] nor by transforming a portion or a sector of society but what is needed is a restructuring of the society as a whole. King believed that a â€Å"revolution of values† is a matter of strict necessity. King’s views may be identified as â€Å"radical† in this sense. He emphasized the need to restructure even how we think about black Americans or African Americans. It may be inferred that racism, the feeling of being superior over another race or ethnic group or nationality is grounded on the wrong premises; wrong modes of thinking and reasoning. It is by transforming our psyche and by appealing through reason and conscience that society as a whole may chart its rightful path towards genuine social change. Third, he believed and fought not only for civil rights but also for economic changes especially labor rights and lobbied for law reforms to be enacted to protect Negroes from exploitation and oppressive schemes adopted by employers. These include fair treatment and equal work opportunity, just compensation, etc. This is how he carried out his beliefs in the Memphis Strike and the Poor People’s Campaign. King served as a voice crying for the emancipation not only of black Americans but also of other human beings from the chains of oppression. Based on the above discussion, we can see why King believed that the problems and conflicts brought about by war, racism and economic injustice are all intertwined. What we can infer from his views is the interweaving and interconnecting patterns brought about by racism itself. Furthermore, the speech was made memorable as it was delivered at the Lincoln Memorial. Abraham Lincoln was the first to abolish the slave trade in the southern states during his term which was considered as a significant step towards racial equality in the United States. But racism is not in itself the root of the problem; it is merely an effect of a traceable cause. This cause, this root of racism, is none other than a distorted value system, a wrong frame of mind resulting to feelings of superiority and even contempt and hate which further results to taking an unfair advantage of other human beings, plus a very materialistic market essentially driven by capital. The fault is, at bottom, deeply embedded with the minds of persons and a wrong value system, a wrong sense of pride and nationality, for it fails, in the Kantian sense, to respect persons for the sake of being human persons, not as mere means and tools that another person or race may use but as ends-in-themselves, possessing the capacity for rational thought, capable of making rational choices and thereby, beings that are autonomous and dignified and for the aforementioned reasons, deserve to be respected. References: Carson, C. A Call to Conscience: The Landmark Speeches of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. : Warner Books; Reprint edition (2002). Fairclough, A. Martin Luther King, Jr. : University of Georgia Press, c. 1995.

Drug Trafficing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Drug Trafficing - Essay Example es a Violent Street Gang/Drug Enterprise as a criminal enterprise having an organizational structure, acting as a continuing criminal conspiracy, which employs violence and any other criminal activity to sustain the enterprise (Wiley, 1997). There are at least 21,500 gangs and more than 731,000 active gang members in the United States alone. These gangs are known to conduct criminal activity in all states and U.S. territories. Earlier, it was believed that the problem of gangs and drug trafficking was mainly concentrated in major urban areas, however recent data show that gangs also are proliferating in rural and suburban areas. Increasing law enforcement pressure in urban areas of the country forced the gang members to flee or seek more lucrative drug markets is one of the reasons. This proliferation in non-urban areas increasingly is accompanied by violence and is threatening society in general (NDIC, 2005). Questions such as why has youth gang involvement in drug trafficking increased in the past decade has still not being answered completely. The popular image of youth gangs ties them directly to drugs and violent crime (Klein, 1995). Research conducted in the 1980’s and 1990’s has documented extensive youth and adult gang member involvement in drug use and generally higher levels of use compared with non-gang members. According to Fagan (19–54) there are basically two reasons: (1) the dramatic expansion of cocaine markets in the 1980’s, accompanied by sharp price reductions, and (2) socioeconomic changes in American society that disrupted traditional social controls (Curry and Spergel, 381–405). Drug use, drug trafficking, and violence overlap considerably in gangs (Howell and Decker, in press). Moreover, gang involvement appears to increase individual involvement in drug use, drug trafficking, gun carrying, and violence and, perhaps, to prolong involvement in drug sales (Youth Gangs and Violence, 1998). There is no doubt that with the increase

Teaching Strategies Article Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Teaching Strategies - Article Example The content knowledge in this strategy is the encouragement of peer to peer communication and interaction. This strategy enables learners to interact with students who speak English as the primary language s that they are enabled to clarify the essential concepts. The instructor uses various activities which helps the learners to go through he guided interaction successfully by grasping key language skills and concepts. This strategy helps learners to practice their pre-reading and also pre-writing skills so that they could have a meta-cognition of English language. This strategy helps the learners to express their thinking processes in verbal and written language. The assessment activities that teachers use in this strategy include think aloud and guides for complete chapter readings (Tissington and LaCour, 2010). Explicit instruction involves teaching the essential language concepts with an aim of building the background knowledge of the learners. At this stage, learners are given tasks which require cognitive skills of English reading. The teacher employs tools and activities which enable learners to classify, analyze, compare, interpret and synthesize the language concepts. This strategy aims at introducing learners to concepts which emanate from familiar themes, prompts and resources. The instructor aims at motivating the learners to link various ideas from their linguistic and social cultural backgrounds so that the interest of the student in learning English is determined. The motivation of the teacher will enable students to overcome the learning challenges (Tissington and LaCour,

Nurse Community Building Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Nurse Community Building - Research Paper Example In this paper, I will describe the following traits of an effective nursing community; cultural awareness, able and noteworthy leadership skills, sense of community, cultural aptitude, partnership and practice integration. In order to develop a successful nursing organization, it is necessary to apply these principles. A great sense of cultural awareness Any organization needs to have a sense of cultural awareness. A nurse needs to demonstrate cultural understanding that aids them to practice better healthcare and develop a stable public health policy. Awareness will help nurses in the community acknowledge that external factors like language barriers and inaccessibility of services and resources will often attract a negative history. By understanding a community’s culture and the barriers to service delivery, public nurses understand how to face these challenges and strive to better their cultural competence with the community (Caroline p 65). Able Leadership Able and notewor thy leadership is a characteristic of a strong nursing community. Able leadership enables nurses take up responsibilities and enables them to guide the community effectively. They are the proponents of health equitability and the social justice in the community. ... This strength ensures that the resources within a community are involved in helping the community strive towards humanizing the eminence of the health care conditions. For this reason, there should be an aspect of community in a nursing organization. Nursing in the community ensures that the community has the capacity to resolve problems, and properly utilizes its resources to enhance proper health management and health safety. Community health actions motivate community members by their actions of self-determination, and their understanding of the local needs and cultural aspects that link individuals with the business community. The nurses, thus, play a crucial role in guaranteeing that communal health is available in individuals in the community and in empowering the community to erect a burly affiliation in the society that will cater for the needs of the health care system. The health nurses primarily improve the health of the families and outfit for the needs of the public by r esponding to outbreaks of illness and the emergence of health risks. Nurses recognize that strong partnerships determine better health and collaboration of both the public and the private sector is important in ensuring that noteworthy healthcare is provided to all. In order to improve these partnerships, the nursing community involves using systematic approaches that strengthen the bond between them and the community (Donna et al p 50). This approach significantly reduces the cost of social and personal health program and strengthens the community. The systematic approaches that the nursing community adapts are: Assessing and monitoring the health care requirement of all members of the community who are likely to benefit from