Martin Luther King.

Success:

In simple words success is defined as a state of prosperity or fame.

What is Success?

Many people set different goals for them during their life time and when these goals are completed we call it success. So we can say that it is an event that accomplishes its intended purpose.  In life people have many aims and goals which they want to achieve and sometimes they are successful but sometimes they fail. People who are successful turn out to be great one in the history.

My Choice of Personality:

The Successful Personality I have chosen is the famous American Leader, Martin Luther King.

Reason for my Choice:

I have chosen Martin Luther King because he was an iconic figure in the progress of civil rights in the US and around the world in the 1900’s. It was a time when the black people had no rights and were treated like slaves. He fought hard and later was able to convince the white Americans to consider blacks equal and give their rights.

Early Life and Influence:

Martin Luther King, Jr., was born on January 15, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia. His father Martin Luther King Sr. was a Baptist and an early civil rights leader himself. He got his early education from Atlanta’s Booker T. Washington High School. In 1948, he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in sociology.

At a very young age King was influenced by Civil rights leader and educator Howard Thurman, who was the classmate of his father. King was hugely influenced by Mahatma Gandhi and his success with non-violent activism. Later, his visit to India affected King in a thoughtful way, deepening his understanding of non-violent resistance and his commitment to America's struggle for civil rights.

The Beginning of Struggle:

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks a 42 year old woman was arrested for refusing to give up her seat for a white man. This forced king for the Montgomery Bus Boycott, The boycott lasted for 385 days and the situation became so tense that King's house was bombed and he was arrested. King, with other black leaders organized a March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, which took place on August 28, 1963. Although the march originally was conceived as an event to dramatize the desperate condition of blacks in the southern United States, it later turned out to be the final frontier.

On his way of struggle for civil rights Martin Luther king faced many troubles. He was arrested many times, The FBI began tapping his phone, He was offered huge money for quitting his demands, and several killing attempts were also made. But he never gave up and continued his fight against the unlawful and that was the reason for his success in providing the blacks with equal rights in America and elsewhere in the world.

King’s Philosophy:

King applied non-violent philosophy to the protests and these techniques were useful to King's campaign to change the civil rights laws implemented in Alabama. King believed that organizing, nonviolent protest against harsh laws for blacks would lead to extensive media coverage of the struggle for black equality and voting rights. He led many movements such as Albany movement, Birmingham campaign.

His Famous Speech:

It was on this very occasion that Martin Luther King gave his famous speech “I have a Dream”, seventeen minute public speech which changed everything. In his motivational speech he called for racial equality and an end to discrimination. It was only after that civil rights were put at the very top agenda in the United States and facilitated passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Noble Prize:

At the age of thirty-five, Martin Luther King, Jr., was the youngest man to have received the Nobel Peace Prize for his struggle in the Civil rights movement.

Assassination:

On April 4, 1968, while standing on the balcony of his motel room in Memphis, where he was to lead a protest march he was assassinated. He was just 39 at that time.

Lesson to be learned:

Keeping the life of Martin Luther King in mind and his efforts for the civil rights we come to know that success can only be achieved by working hard for our goals and by never giving up if we are on the right path. We might have to struggle and there will be many hurdles in between, but we should stay firm and one day we will be successful in what we want to achieve.