This article is divided into seven sections: The first part deals with Martin Luther King Jr. 's experiences in his early years; the second with the Montgomery bus boycott led by King ,the action lasted one year and a few weeks and finally the city's buses were desegregated; the third with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference built by King and his other black leaders ,aiming at promoting the successful Montgomery action; the fourth with the letter from the Birmingham jail,this section fully demonstrated King's strong will and persistence for Black Civil Movement ;the fifth with Challenges of the final years,during which King had to meet the challenges from inside and outside for his business; the sixth with Posthumous reputation and legacy,this part records the reputation King owned after his death in honor of his outstanding contribution for Black Civil Movement and the controversy; the seventh with assessment,it mainly focuses on great influence King had on human being ,especially American politics and economics.
Martin Luther King Jr.(1929-1968) Translation(1) Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968) （Translation）
Abstract This article is divided into seven sections: The first part deals with Martin Luther King Jr. 's experiences in his early years; the second with the Montgomery bus boycott led by King ,the action lasted one year and a few weeks and finally the city's buses were desegregated; the third with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference built by King and his other black leaders ,aiming at promoting the successful Montgomery action; the fourth with the letter from the Birmingham jail,this section fully demonstrated King's strong will and persistence for Black Civil Movement ;the fifth with Challenges of the final years,during which King had to meet the challenges from inside and outside for his business; the sixth with Posthumous reputation and legacy,this part records the reputation King owned after his death in honor of his outstanding contribution for Black Civil Movement and the controversy; the seventh with assessment,it mainly focuses on great influence King had on human being ,especially American politics and economics.
马丁·路德·金，原名：迈克儿·路德·金，1929年1月15日，生于美国佐（乔）治亚州的亚特兰大，1968年（4月4日）死于田纳西州的孟菲斯。他曾是（亚拉巴马州蒙哥马利的德克斯特大街浸信会教堂Dexter Avenue Baptist Church的）一位牧师，后来成为美国历史上著名的社会活动家，从20世纪50年代中期起，他一直致力于美国的黑人民权运动，直到1968年（4月4日），（他前往孟菲斯市领导工人罢工，下榻洛林汽车旅馆）被种族分子开枪打死。马丁·路德·金对美国民权运动的领导为后来结束美国长期以来存在的对南方的非裔美国人和其他地区的黑人实施的种族隔离合法化政策奠定了坚实的基础。金和其他的南部黑人领袖（于 1957 年）建立了南方基督教领袖会议（ Southern Christian Leadership Conference, SCLC ）。 并进一步发展了甘地的非暴力策略，1963年成功组织了为黑人争取民权（工作机会和自由权）的华盛顿游行，为此金因为其领导地位和领导才能而声名大震。1964年 ，马丁·路德·金被授予诺贝尔和平奖。 ● 早年 金出生在南方的一个舒适的中产阶级黑人牧师家庭。他的父亲和外祖父都是浸信（礼）会牧师。 他的父母受过（良好的）大学教育， 金的父亲继承外祖父成了亚特兰大埃比尼泽教堂的牧师。金的家族发源于非洲裔美国人的浸信会。金一家生活在奥本大街，这儿在民权运动兴起之前，有全国最大最繁华的黑人商业区和教堂，享有“甜蜜的奥本”， 繁华的“黑人华尔街”的美誉。 （也是在这儿）年轻的马丁获得了坚实的教育和成长在一个充满爱的大家庭。 然而，这种舒适的生活并没有使他逃脱当时南方普遍存在的种族偏见。他永远也无法忘记，那是在他六岁的时候，一天，他的一个白人小伙伴郑重的对他说：“我们以后不能再在一起了，因为我的父母不允许我和你在一起玩了，我要去白人学校上学” 。1941年他的外祖母的去世在他幼小的心灵中留下了深深的创伤。当时年仅12岁的马丁未经父母允许去参加游行，不幸的是他的外祖母听说这件事情之后，心脏病突发而死。祖母的死让他心里很是不安，曾一度想从二楼的窗口跳搂自杀。 1944年，年满15岁的金进入了亚特兰大莫尔豪斯学院（Morehouse College in Atlanta ），这是一所根据战时特别计划旨在推动象金这样有前途的中学生接受高等教育的学校。然而入学前，金的整个暑假是在康涅狄格的一个烟草农场度过的。这是他第一次远离家人，同时也是他第一次远离种族歧视严重的南方真正感受到北方和谐的种族关系并为此而感到震惊。他在给父母的信中说：“在这儿，黑人和白人可以去同一个教堂，我从来没有想到象我一样肤色的黑人可以随处吃东西”。 这个暑假马丁在北方的亲身经历在他幼小的心灵中埋下了对南方种族隔离政策的极度仇视。 在莫尔豪斯学院，金对医学和法律饶有兴趣，但这些并没有削弱他长大以后象他父亲一样做一名牧师的愿望。金的导师本杰明梅斯（Benjamin Mays）是莫尔豪斯学院院长、著名的社会活动家。其雄辩的演说和进步的思想给金留下了不可磨灭的印象。杰明梅斯一生致力于消除种族不平等，（在演说中）严厉指责了黑人社区面对压迫的麻木（不觉醒），极力呼吁今后黑人和白人一样，享有随便进入教堂的权利。 而这也是金在幼年时立下的夙愿。1948年，马丁·路德·金毕业于莫尔豪斯学院。 在接下来的3年里，金又在宾夕法尼亚州切斯特(Chester, Pennsylvania ）的克劳泽神学院（ Crozer Theological Seminary ）就读，在那儿，他加深了对神学的认识并探究圣雄甘地（ Mahatma Gandhi ）在社会改革方面的非暴力策略。1951金获得柯罗泽神学院学士学位。 由于金雄辩的演说技巧，被当选为克劳泽神学院的学生会负责人（主席），这是一个几乎完全由黑人学生组成的群体。期间，克劳泽神学院一名教授在给金的一封建议信中写道 ：“由于我们的学生大多数是来自南方的黑人，因而有必要选举一名黑人学生会负责人（主席），而你被当选是一件责任极其重大的事情。”为此，从克劳泽神学院（Crozer Theological Seminary ）毕业以后，金去美国波士顿大学深造。在那里，为使自己的神学理论和道德的倾向有一个坚实基础，他探究了人和神的关系。1955年他成功的完成了他的论文《比较研究中的上帝观思考和亨利保罗蒂利希纳尔逊维曼》（A Comparison of the Conceptions of God in the Thinking of Paul Tillich and Henry Nelson Wieman），获得了系统神学的博士学位。
● 蒙哥马利罢车运动 在波士顿期间，金结识了（他后来的妻子）正在新英格兰音乐学院（the New England Conservatory of Music）学习的阿尔巴尼亚人柯瑞塔·斯科特·金（Coretta Scott）， 他们于1953年结婚，并生育了4个孩子。随后（1954年），马丁·路德·金成为亚拉巴马州蒙哥马利的德克斯特大街浸信会教堂（Dexter Avenue Baptist Church）的一位牧师。大约一年后，该市一部分黑人民权分子为抗议在公交车上实行种族隔离.，号召所有黑人拒乘公交车。（事故的缘由是：）1955年12月1日， 一位名叫罗莎•帕克斯（ Rosa Parks ）的黑人妇女拒绝在公交车上为白人让座，因而违背了该市的种族隔离法被警察逮捕。金遂同几位黑人积极分子组织起“蒙哥马利市政改进协会（the Montgomery Improvement Association） ”，（号召全市近5万名黑人）对（公共法与）公交车公司进行（长达1年的）抵制，（活动中）金被推举为领导人。因为金风华正茂，受过良好的教育，又刚来这个城市，树敌较少，再加之他特有的家庭因素和职业优势等缘故使得这次活动很快取得了成功（1956 年12 月，美国最高法院宣布阿拉巴马州的种族隔离法律违反宪法，蒙哥马利市公交车上的种族隔离规定也被废除），为此，金也受到人们的普遍尊重。 作为活动的领导人，在他的第一次演讲中，金郑重的告戒大家：“我们没有别的选择，只有抗争。 多年来，我们一直表现出惊人的耐心。我们给了白人兄弟们宽厚和任爱，我们希望能够从他们那儿得到应有的回报。我们的活动要取得成功要看我们有没有足够的耐心，正是这种耐心可以让我们不仅仅获得自由和正义”。这些话迅速传遍全国，贴心、雄辩、鼓舞人心，并及时成为黑人争取民权极富战斗力的学说。期间，尽管金的家遭到了种族分子的轰炸，家人的安全受到很大的威胁，但他仍继续领导黑人对公交车公司的抵制活动，直到一年又几个星期后，法院不得不判决取消该市公交车公司在公交车上进行座位隔离的种族歧视政策。 ● 南方基督教领导会议 为了寻求蒙哥马利（Montgomery）胜利后的进一步发展，金（和其他的南部黑人领袖于 1957 年）建立了南方基督教领袖会议（ Southern Christian Leadership Conference, SCLC ）， 这为他以后的事业（为黑人争取民权）在南方建立了大本营，同时也是他向全国发表演说的平台。金除了到全国各地发表演说，还经常同国内外的民权活动家和宗教人士讨论有关种族方面的问题。1959年2月，金和其他的南部黑人领袖到印度游历，受到了印度总理尼赫鲁（Jawaharlal Nehru）的热烈欢迎。在讨论了圣雄甘地的（Gandhi）“非暴力不合作”思想之后，金越来越深信：“非暴力抵抗”策略是他们为被压迫人民（南方黑人）争取自由的最有力的武器。金还到非洲游历为他的事业寻找灵感。他在（日志中）写到：“ 非洲的民族解放斗争为美国的黑人学生运动有着重要的国际影响”。他还进一步写道：“我常听说，如果非洲的黑人兄弟们可以打破殖民主义的奴役，美国的黑人就一定能够打破吉姆·劳克（Jim Crow）。 ” 1960年，金（辞去了德克斯特的职务并）返回他的故土亚特兰大，和他的父亲一道成为一名埃比尼泽浸信会牧师。期间，他把大部分精力都花在了南方基督教领袖会议（SCLC）和民权运动中。同时指出：“只要我们团结一致反对社会的不公（种族歧视和种族偏见），就一定能够取得巨大，现实的成就。我相信这个新的时刻一定会到来。”他的这一论断随着他对当地黑人大学生“入座抗议活动”的支持，得到了有力的应证。10月下旬，因为抗议美国南方的种族隔离政策，他和其他33名年轻领导人在亚特兰大百货公司的午餐柜台前被警察逮捕。 虽然证据不充分，但最终法院还是借口他违反了几个月前他涉及的那桩轻微交通违法案被判缓刑的有关规定而判处到Reidsville 州立监狱农场。很快这一案件成为了全国的焦点问题，金的安全引起了社会的广泛关注，民众对格鲁吉亚藐视法律的做法非常愤慨，以至于总统德怀特艾森豪威尔（Dwight Eisenhower）出面干预也未能平息民怨。后来， 由于民主党总统候选人约翰肯尼迪（John F. Kennedy）出面调停，金被无罪释放，肯尼迪的做法引起了社会的广泛关注，这对他以后在长达八天的总统选举中获胜起到了推波助澜的作用。在1960至1965年金的个人威望达到了顶峰。由于他英俊潇洒、言辞雄辩以及顽强的毅力，很快成为新闻媒体，尤其是那些电视中涉及社会变革等话题的节目主持人的焦点人物。他深知电视可以帮助他向全国和世界介绍、宣传他所进行的民权斗争，推广他的“非暴力策略”（如静坐，示威游行等），从而唤醒全国更多黑人和白人的觉悟为民权运动作出贡献，同时争取赢得总统肯尼迪（Kennedy）和林登约翰逊（Lyndon B. Johnson）的支持。但是金的活动也有明显失败的时候，如1961-1962年在格鲁吉亚的奥尔巴尼（ Albany, Georgia） 游行，他和他的同伴们要求在公园和其它一些公共设施取消种族隔离，最后未能取得成功。 ● 来自伯明翰监狱的信 1963 年春天，金和南方基督教领袖会议领导人在阿拉巴马州的伯明翰（ Birmingham ）领导群众示威，呼吁政府结束在餐馆就餐和就业中实施种族隔离的做法。这次活动引起了全国的普遍关注。（此地以白人警方强烈反对种族融合而著称），警方使用警犬和消防水枪驱赶示威人群。金和大批追随者，其中包括数百名学生遭到监禁。然而，伯明翰的所有黑人牧师没有参加这次活动，同时他还遭到一些白人牧师的反对，他们还发表声明，敦促非裔美国人不支持示威活动。在伯明翰监狱里，金（给他的战友和追随者们）写了一封信，非常雄辩地阐述了他的非暴力哲学.他在信中写道：你可能会问， “为什么要采取直接的行动？为什么要静坐，游行等等？ 难道谈判不是更好的途径吗？” 事实上，这次活动的最终目的就是要求（和他们）谈判。非暴力直接行动，旨在创造出一个这样的局面，并促进这种紧张局面，迫使他们（政府）从回避到最终正视面对的社会问题（种族歧视和种族隔离）。 当伯明翰群众示威活动接近尾声的时候，为了汇集多方力量争取和谐的种族关系，同时也为了向全国和世界说明美国解决种族问题的重要性，金和其他民权运动的领导人一起组织了具有历史意义的华盛顿（工作与自由）游行。1963 年 8 月 28 日 ， 约二十多万不同种族的抗议者聚集在华盛顿特区的林肯纪念馆，示威群众强烈要求法律下的种族平等。在这儿，群情激昂，活动被推向高潮。（借此契机，在林肯纪念馆的台阶上，）金发表了“我有一个梦想”（ I Have a Dream ）的著名演讲。在演讲中他坚信：总有一天所有的人，（不分种族）都会成为兄弟姐妹。 随着活动高潮的到来，正如金所预料的那样，总统肯尼迪（ President Kennedy ）对伯明翰的抗议迅速做出了回应，他向国会提出放宽民权立法的要求，这促成了 1964 年民权法案（ Civil Rights Act of 1964 ）的通过。联邦政府被迫接受取消在就业以及在公共住宿和一些公用设施实施种族隔离的法律。由此，金的声望倍增，1964 年12月，在挪威的奥斯陆获得了诺贝尔和平奖（ Nobel Peace Prize ）。.金在受勋演讲中说：“我今天怀着对美国社会以及人类的将来无比坚定和大胆的信念接受这个奖项，我坚决否认那些认为因为人性的弱点，而难以唤起民众的觉悟，进而使我的事业无法继续下去，最后达到顶峰。” ● 最后几年面临的挑战 第一个反对金在民权运动中提出的“非暴力”策略的来自他领导的民权活动内部，那是1965年3月在阿拉巴马州的威塞尔马（Selma, Alabama）游行中发生的事情，这次活动的目的是要求联邦政府通过一项选举权法案，以为南方的非裔美国人（黑人）享有选举权提供法律保证。金最初为从塞尔马到蒙哥马利的国会大厦的这次游行制定了详细的计划，但是由于他没有亲自领导这次游行，结果示威者们被军警用警棍和催泪弹给驱散了。随后，金又组织了第二次游行，尽管这次游行一开始就受到联邦法院法令的禁止，同时华盛顿政府也派人对他进行说服，希望他能取消这次游行，但他仍坚持率领有1500名示威者（黑人和白人）组成的游行队伍，从塞尔马外的Pettus大桥开始游行。游行中，由于政府派出大批军警进行阻拦，.为了避免与军警发生直接的冲突，金遂取消了继续前进，带领他的追随者们跪地祈祷，向政府请愿，意想不到的是最后带领队伍原路返回，游行宣告结束。 这次游行，金的做法激起了许多年轻的激进分子的不满，他们纷纷指责他过于谨慎，甚至有人怀疑他与联邦和地方当局有过“接触”， 涉嫌塞尔马内政（共同欺骗示威者），但由于缺乏证据被否定了。不过，金的做法，还是引起了政府的关注，1965年，制定并通过了选举权法案 。 在全国各地，由于活动还没有取得实质性进展而暴露出的轻率、急躁等不良倾向滋生了黑人的好战情绪。尤其是在北方城市的贫民窟，金的非暴力宗教哲学，日益受到人们的质疑。1965年8月，落杉机的Watts 特区游行引发的骚乱表明黑人中存在的轻率、急躁等不良倾向日益暴露。为了解决在贫民区存在的问题，金 和他的追随者们于次年（19666年）年初在芝加哥（Chicago）组织了一次反对种族歧视的活动。这次活动的主要目标是反对在住房方面实施种族隔离，通过春、夏两季的集会、游行、示威等行动，最后迫使政府签署了一项涉及城市（白人）和非裔美国人、自由职业者以及劳动组织等有关住房方面的协议。该协议要求采取各种措施，强有力的执行现有有关维护黑人住房权利方面的的法律和规定。 但是这个协议收效甚微，留给人们的影象是金领导的芝加哥游行很大程度上是失败的，这一方面是由于遭到该市市长理查德J戴利的反对，另一方面由于北方种族问题的严峻性。在伊利诺伊州（Illinois） 和密西西比州（Mississippi）一样，金也面临来自各方面的挑战，甚至连一些年轻的激进派黑人领导者们也公开向他提出非议。 （因为）金主张忍耐，（赢得）中产阶级的支持和通过渐进的方法以达到改良社会的目的，而那些言辞犀利，身着兰色牛仔，年青的城市激进派分子主张通过（直接的）对抗和立杆见影的方法改造社会。在后者眼里，那些身穿西服，言辞有分寸，（象金一样的）民权领袖处于不负责任的被动局面，已经跟不上时代需要了，尽管他才30多岁。总之，在越来越多的年青激进派领导人眼里，金的革命领袖地位在日益暗淡下去。激进派分子马尔科姆 • 爱克斯（ Malcolm X ）竟然称金的斗争策略是“犯罪”，他严厉的指出：“金的非暴力策略无异于告诫那些不断遭受野蛮攻击的牺牲者学会忍耐，是犯罪”。 面对越来越多的批评，金不仅没作出让步，而是把他的理论拓展到种族问题以外的很多方面。1967年4月4日，在纽约市的河滨教堂 （Riverside Church） 和15日在该市举行的一次盛大的和平集会上，，他亲口承诺将坚定地反对美国卷入越南战争。在1966年1月初的一次集会上，他对美国发动战争给予了谴责，引起了华盛顿政府的极度不满，同时也遭到来自黑人社区的强烈反对，这使得他在随后的斗争中有所缓和。 接下来，为了推进革命事业，他还组建了包括不同种族在内的穷人联盟，试图努力解决他们存在的诸如贫穷和失业等方面的问题。这是一个带有民粹主义性质的组织，它和学生中的进步分子，爱好和平的知识分子一道寻求让穷人们加入校工，医院工人，季节性工人以及解救穷困的阿巴拉契亚等问题的解决办法。然而，金在这些方面作出的努力并没有取得多大的实效。与此同时，民权运动的局势对金越来越不利，尤其是在他生命的最后几个月里。1968年，他曾说：“坦率地讲，我已厌倦了游行，厌倦了监狱生活，每天在死亡的威胁下生活，我常常感到很沮丧，感到我的工作是徒劳的，但随后圣雄甘地（ Mahatma Gandhi ）的思想使我的精神再度振作起来。”1968年春天,为了穷人的权益，金领导了华盛顿游行，但后来因为支持田纳西州孟菲斯（Memphis, Tennessee）的环卫工人罢工而不得不终止了这次游行。 在他的许多追随者和传记作家看来，金似乎意识到他的事业和生命即将结束。1968年4月3日，即他去世的前一天晚上，在孟菲斯的梅森寺教堂，金对他的追随者们预言道：“我已经看到了乐土。我可能不会和你们一块儿去了。但今晚我想让大家相信，作为一个民族，我们一定会到达那块乐土的。” 第二天，金和他的伙伴（其它黑人领袖）住在洛林汽车旅馆，当他出现在二楼阳台上的时候，被种族分子开枪大死。金的被害的在全国近100多个城市引发了不同程度的暴乱和动荡局面。1969年3月10日，白人刺客James Earl Ray，对此次暗杀供认有罪，后被判处99年监禁。但后来，这个案子出现了让人意想不到的情况，金的家人最后居然站到了“凶手”James Earl Ray的一边。1997年3月，金的儿子德克斯特（Dexter）会见了所谓的刺客，后公开站到Ray的一边，要求重审这个案子。1998年4月23日，当 Ray 死去的时候，Coretta King对外宣称：“美国将永远不会对Ray 的案子再作出重审，因为如果那样的话，虽然可以澄清Ray的无罪，但整个案件将披露出（许多意想不到的）新情况。”虽然美国政府对此次案件先后进行了几次调查，但每次得出的结论都是：Ray是唯一的凶手。至此，金遇害的案情真相仍然是一个迷。 ● 追授声誉和遗产 金是美国历史上最值得后世去探究的人物。正如乔治华盛顿，托马斯杰斐逊，林肯等伟人一样，他有着极其独特的个性，为后世留下了极宝贵的思想财富。他虽然死去几十年了，但他非凡的影响力至今没有丝毫减弱，他的生活、思想和性格远比那些传记作家笔下的马丁·路德·金要复杂得多。他在美国历史上发挥的作用深刻的表明：英雄是不朽的，他们将永远活在集体和个人的记忆中，他们为人类留下的宝贵的思想财富将永远引领着后人的生活。金不仅在美国而且在世界上也是一个倍受敬仰的伟人。他死后的70，80年代，美国各地很多学校，道路和建筑物都用他的名字来命名。为了纪念他，美国国会还投票通过了每年一月的第三个星期一为法定的马丁•路德•金全国纪念日.该节日始于1986年。1991年，当年金遇难的洛林汽车旅馆（the Lorraine hotel）被改建为国家民权博物馆。 1998年7月,金的雕塑顺利完工，并安放在伦敦威斯敏斯特大教堂（Westminster Abbey）的西门，这个地方是专门用来缅怀那些在20世纪的“为争取人权而作出牺牲的英雄们”的 。1999年12月，美国联邦经济规划委员会批准在华盛顿特区的潮汐地（the Tidal Basin），为马丁·路德·金修建纪念馆，这是美国历史上第一次给予个人如此伟大的殊荣。 然而，正因为金享有如此殊荣，所以对此引发了很多争论，有时甚至非常激烈。无论在他生前，还是死后，有许多评论家指责他曾窝藏共产党并给予同情，和他们站在一起，并破坏美国在越南战争中所作出的努力。这些指控，连同对金的婚姻的真实性的一些主观臆断，在他有生之年，曾一度时期引起了联邦调查局主管埃德加胡佛（J. Edgar Hoover）的注意并对他进行监视。在1989-1990年，当公众听说金的大部分学术著作，包括他的博士论文都是剽窃的时候，对此他的个人生活和性格有待进一步考证。金死后享有的殊荣，无论它是有益还是具有讽刺意味的有损于金的声誉和他一生从事的民权事业，引起了人们的广泛讨论。譬如，1986年，金的挚友拉尔夫阿伯纳希（Ralph Abernathy） 在他的文章《墙轰然崩塌》（And the Walls Came Tumbling Down）中郑重指出： 对金的私生活的讨论是必要的，至少可以避免将他神化。文章还说：“让大家知道， ...... 他的民权思想并不是来自神奇的传说（而是源于现实），这样对人们来说他的思想更加可信。”同样，一些学者和社会活动们在《我们一定会取得胜利：马丁·路德·金和黑人争取自由的斗争（1993出版）》（We Shall Overcome：Martin Luther King，and the Black Freedom Struggle (1993)）一书中指出：对马丁·路德·金的神话会使他致力于改造社会的民权运动失去群众基础，从而把金神话为一个超人，一个像耶酥一样的救世主。还认为：这样势必削弱非裔美国人（黑人）的进取心和自立精神，使他们心存幻想还会有另一个伟人来拯救他们。 宗教学教授埃里克戴森 （Michael Eric Dyson）认为：金死后获得的殊荣掩盖了他真实的信息，淡化了他鲜明的个性，把他神话成了“黑人的安全使者。”他在《我也许和你们的看法不一样：真正的马丁·路德·金（2000年出版）》（I May Not Get There With You: The True Martin Luther King, Jr. (2000)）一书中写道：“ 今天，如果孩子们仅仅了解那些和平使者的英雄事迹，而不去洞察现实经济生活中的不公（种族歧视和种族偏见），他们长大以后，（进入社会，可能会失去清醒的头脑，甚至可能落后，保守，面对社会进步活动，可能会和）右翼保守派（一样）引用金的话来无端加以指责它们。总之，不管金死后引发了多少争论，或褒或贬，但他留给后世宝贵的精神和思想财富并没有减弱对社会进步和政治改革的借鉴意义。 ● 后世评价 马丁·路德·金，是美国历史上那个动荡的年代孕育出的一位具有开创性的历史人物。他对美国民权运动的巨大贡献在于他是一位卓越的民权运动的领袖。他能够将民众（黑人）为争取民权作出的抗争神奇的转化为一场争取民权的圣战，并把当地（因为种族隔离和种族歧视而产生的黑人和白人之间）的冲突问题转化为全国，甚至全球关注的道德问题。由于个人坚定的信念和巨大的人格魅力，他成功地唤醒了非裔美国人（黑人 ）的觉悟并激励他们加入到为争取民权的活动中来。 他通过呼吁来唤起美国白人的良知，从而最大限度的争取美国的政治力量，进而影响华盛顿联邦政府作出有利于维护黑人民权的政策和法律，使他领导的民权运动取得巨大成功。他在民权运动方面的“非暴力策略”虽然一度废除了美国南方存在的种族隔离方面的法律，但是不足以解决在其他地方存在的更复杂的种族问题。 金去世的时候，年仅39岁。这位伟大的民权运动的领袖他一生中始终坚信“非暴力策略”迟早有一天会指引美国的民权运动取得巨大成就，在那里，黑人可以和白人一样实现种族和经济上（就业）的平等。也许他个人（的功过）有待后人去争议，但他的雄辩、自我牺牲、以及作为一名社会活动家所具有的大无畏的英雄气概必将使他载入史册，成为后人敬仰的伟人之一。
原英文文章 Source: http://www.biography.com/articles/Martin-Luther-King-Jr.-9365086&part=0#3915 Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968)
Table Of Contents ● Early years ● The Montgomery bus boycott ● The Southern Christian Leadership Conference ● The letter from the Birmingham jail ● Challenges of the final years ● Posthumous reputation and legacy ● Assessment Martin Luther King Jr.，Original name Michael Luther King, Jr. （Born January 15, 1929, Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.—died April 4, 1968, Memphis, Tennessee) Baptist minister and social activist who led the civil rights movement in the United States from the mid-1950s until his death by assassination in 1968. His leadership was fundamental to that movement's success in ending the legal segregation of African Americans in the South and other parts of the United States. King rose to national prominence through the organization of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, promoting nonviolent tactics such as the massive March on Washington (1963) to achieve civil rights. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1964. ● Early years King came from a comfortable middle-class family steeped in the tradition of the Southern black ministry: both his father and maternal grandfather were Baptist preachers. His parents were college-educated, and King's father had succeeded his father-in-law as pastor of the prestigious Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. The family lived on Auburn Avenue, otherwise known as “Sweet Auburn,” the bustling “black Wall Street,” home to some of the country's largest and most prosperous black businesses and black churches in the years before the civil rights movement. Young Martin received a solid education and grew up in a loving extended family. This secure upbringing, however, did not prevent King from experiencing the prejudices then common in the South. He never forgot the time, at about age six, when one of his white playmates announced that his parents would no longer allow him to play with King, because the children were now attending segregated schools. Dearest to King in these early years was his maternal grandmother, whose death in 1941 left him shaken and unstable. Upset because he had learned of her fatal heart attack while attending a parade without his parents' permission, the 12-year-old Martin attempted suicide by jumping from a second-story window. In 1944, at age 15, King entered Morehouse College in Atlanta under a special wartime program intended to boost enrollment by admitting promising high-school students like King. Before beginning college, however, King spent the summer on a tobacco farm in Connecticut; it was his first extended stay away from home and his first substantial experience of race relations outside the segregated South. He was shocked by how peacefully the races mixed in the North. “Negroes and whites go [to] the same church,” he noted in a letter to his parents. “I never [thought] that a person of my race could eat anywhere.” This summer experience in the North only deepened young Martin's growing hatred of racial segregation.
At Morehouse, King favoured studies in medicine and law, but these were eclipsed in his senior year by a decision to enter the ministry, as his father had urged. King's mentor at Morehouse was the college president, Benjamin Mays, a social gospel activist whose rich oratory and progressive ideas had left an indelible imprint on King, Sr. Committed to fighting racial inequality, Mays accused the black community of complacency in the face of oppression, and he prodded the black church into social action by criticizing its emphasis on the hereafter instead of the here and now; it was a call to service that was not lost on the teenage Martin. King graduated from Morehouse in 1948. King spent the next three years at Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania, where he became acquainted with Mohandas Gandhi's philosophy of nonviolence as well as with the thought of contemporary Protestant theologians and earned a bachelor of divinity degree in 1951. Renowned for his oratorical skills, King was elected president of Crozer's student body, which was composed almost exclusively of white students. As a professor at Crozer wrote in a letter of recommendation for King, “The fact that with our student body largely Southern in constitution a colored man should be elected to and be popular [in] such a position is in itself no mean recommendation.” From Crozer, King went to Boston University, where, in seeking a firm foundation for his own theological and ethical inclinations, he studied man's relationship to God and received a doctorate (1955) for a dissertation titled “A Comparison of the Conceptions of God in the Thinking of Paul Tillich and Henry Nelson Wieman.” ● The Montgomery bus boycott While in Boston, King met Coretta Scott, a native Alabamian who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. They were married in 1953 and had four children. King had been pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, slightly more than a year when the city's small group of civil rights advocates decided to contest racial segregation on that city's public bus system. On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, an African American woman, refused to surrender her bus seat to a white passenger, and as a consequence was arrested for violating the city's segregation law. Activists formed the Montgomery Improvement Association to boycott the transit system and chose King as their leader. He had the advantage of being a young, well-trained man who was too new in town to have made enemies; he was generally respected, and his family connections and professional standing would enable him to find another pastorate should the boycott fail. In his first speech to the group as its president, King declared: We have no alternative but to protest. For many years we have shown an amazing patience. We have sometimes given our white brothers the feeling that we liked the way we were being treated. But we come here tonight to be saved from that patience that makes us patient with anything less than freedom and justice. These words introduced to the nation a fresh voice, a skillful rhetoric, an inspiring personality, and in time a dynamic new doctrine of civil struggle. Although King's home was dynamited and his family's safety threatened, he continued to lead the boycott until, one year and a few weeks later, the city's buses were desegregated. ● The Southern Christian Leadership Conference Recognizing the need for a mass movement to capitalize on the successful Montgomery action, King set about organizing the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), which gave him a base of operation throughout the South, as well as a national platform from which to speak. King lectured in all parts of the country and discussed race-related issues with civil-rights and religious leaders at home and abroad. In February 1959 he and his party were warmly received by India's prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru; as the result of a brief discussion with followers of Gandhi about the Gandhian concepts of peaceful noncompliance (satyagraha), King became increasingly convinced that nonviolent resistance was the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom. King also looked to Africa for inspiration. “The liberation struggle in Africa has been the greatest single international influence on American Negro students,” he wrote. “Frequently I hear them say that if their African brothers can break the bonds of colonialism, surely the American Negro can break Jim Crow.” In 1960 King moved to his native city of Atlanta, where he became co-pastor with his father of the Ebenezer Baptist Church. At this post he devoted most of his time to the SCLC and the civil rights movement, declaring that the “psychological moment has come when a concentrated drive against injustice can bring great, tangible gains.” His thesis was soon tested as he agreed to support the sit-in demonstrations undertaken by local black college students. In late October he was arrested with 33 young people protesting segregation at the lunch counter in an Atlanta department store. Charges were dropped, but King was sentenced to Reidsville State Prison Farm on the pretext that he had violated his probation on a minor traffic offense committed several months earlier. The case assumed national proportions, with widespread concern over his safety, outrage at Georgia's flouting of legal forms, and the failure of President Dwight Eisenhower to intervene. King was released only upon the intercession of Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kennedy—an action so widely publicized that it was felt to have contributed substantially to Kennedy's slender election victory eight days later.论文关键字：Martin,Luther,King,Jr.1.Martin Luther King Jr.(1929-1968) Translation(1) 2.Martin Luther King Jr.(1929-1968) Translation(2)
共2页 97[1][2]8:> This article is divided into seven sections: The first part deals with Martin Luther King Jr. 's experiences in his early years; the second with the Montgomery bus boycott led by King ,the action lasted one year and a few weeks and finally the city's buses were desegregated; the third with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference built by King and his other black leaders ,aiming at promoting the successful Montgomery action; the fourth with the letter from the Birmingham jail,this section fully demonstrated King's strong will and persistence for Black Civil Movement ;the fifth with Challenges of the final years,during which King had to meet the challenges from inside and outside for his business; the sixth with Posthumous reputation and legacy,this part records the reputation King owned after his death in honor of his outstanding contribution for Black Civil Movement and the controversy; the seventh with assessment,it mainly focuses on great influence King had on human being ,especially American politics and economics.
Martin Luther King Jr.(1929-1968) Translation(2)In the years from 1960 to 1965 King's influence reached its zenith. Handsome, eloquent, and doggedly determined, King quickly caught the attention of the news media, particularly of the producers of that budding medium of social change—television. He understood the power of television to nationalize and internationalize the struggle for civil rights, and his well-publicized tactics of active nonviolence (sit-ins, protest marches) aroused the devoted allegiance of many blacks and liberal whites in all parts of the country, as well as support from the administrations of Presidents Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. But there were also notable failures, as at Albany, Georgia (1961–62), when King and his colleagues failed to achieve their desegregation goals for public parks and other facilities. ● The letter from the Birmingham jail In Birmingham, Alabama, in the spring of 1963, King's campaign to end segregation at lunch counters and in hiring practices drew nationwide attention when police turned dogs and fire hoses on the demonstrators. King was jailed along with large numbers of his supporters, including hundreds of schoolchildren. His supporters did not, however, include all the black clergy of Birmingham, and he was strongly opposed by some of the white clergy who had issued a statement urging African Americans not to support the demonstrations. From the Birmingham jail King wrote a letter of great eloquence in which he spelled out his philosophy of nonviolence: You may well ask: “Why direct action? Why sit-ins, marches and so forth? Isn't negotiation a better path?” You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. Near the end of the Birmingham campaign, in an effort to draw together the multiple forces for peaceful change and to dramatize to the nation and to the world the importance of solving the U.S. racial problem, King joined other civil rights leaders in organizing the historic March on Washington. On August 28, 1963, an interracial assembly of more than 200,000 gathered peaceably in the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial to demand equal justice for all citizens under the law. Here the crowds were uplifted by the emotional strength and prophetic quality of King's famous “I Have A Dream” speech, in which he emphasized his faith that all men, someday, would be brothers. The rising tide of civil rights agitation produced, as King had hoped, a strong effect on national opinion and resulted in the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, authorizing the federal government to enforce desegregation of public accommodations and outlawing discrimination in publicly owned facilities, as well as in employment. That eventful year was climaxed by the award to King of the Nobel Prize for Peace in Oslo, Norway, in December. “I accept this award today with an abiding faith in America and an audacious faith in the future of mankind,” said King in his acceptance speech. “I refuse to accept the idea that the ‘isness' of man's present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal ‘oughtness' that forever confronts him.” ● Challenges of the final years The first signs of opposition to King's tactics from within the civil rights movement surfaced during the March 1965 demonstrations at Selma, Alabama, which were aimed at dramatizing the need for a federal voting-rights law that would provide legal support for the enfranchisement of African Americans in the South. King organized an initial march from Selma to the state capitol building in Montgomery but did not lead it himself; the marchers were turned back by state troopers with nightsticks and tear gas. He was determined to lead a second march, despite an injunction by a federal court and efforts from Washington to persuade him to cancel it. Heading a procession of 1,500 marchers, black and white, he set out across Pettus Bridge outside Selma until the group came to a barricade of state troopers. But, instead of going on and forcing a confrontation, he led his followers in kneeling in prayer and then unexpectedly turned back. This decision cost King the support of many young radicals who were already faulting him for being too cautious. The suspicion of an “arrangement” with federal and local authorities—vigorously but not entirely convincingly denied—clung to the Selma affair. The country was nevertheless aroused, resulting in the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Throughout the nation, impatience with the lack of greater substantive progress encouraged the growth of black militancy. Especially in the slums of the large Northern cities, King's religious philosophy of nonviolence was increasingly questioned. The rioting in the Watts district of Los Angeles (August 1965) demonstrated the depth of unrest among urban African Americans. In an effort to meet the challenge of the ghetto, King and his forces initiated a drive against racial discrimination in Chicago at the beginning of the following year. The chief target was to be segregation in housing. After a spring and summer of rallies, marches, and demonstrations, an agreement was signed between the city and a coalition of African Americans, liberals, and labour organizations, calling for various measures to enforce the existing laws and regulations with respect to housing. But this agreement was to have little effect; the impression remained that King's Chicago campaign was nullified partly because of the opposition of that city's Illinois and Mississippi alike, King was now being challenged and even publicly derided by young black-power enthusiasts. Whereas King stood for patience, middle-class respectability, and a measured approach to social change, the sharp-tongued, blue jean–clad young urban radicals stood for confrontation and immediate change. In the latter's eyes, the suit-wearing, calm-spoken civil rights leader was irresponsibly passive and old beyond his years (though King was only in his 30s): more a member of the other side of the generation gap than their revolutionary leader. Malcolm X went so far as to call King's tactics “criminal”: “Concerning nonviolence, it is criminal to teach a man not to defend himself when he is the constant victim of brutal attacks.” In the face of mounting criticism, King broadened his approach to include concerns other than racism. On April 4, 1967, at Riverside Church in New York City and again on the 15th at a mammoth peace rally in that city, he committed himself irrevocably to opposing U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. Once before, in early January 1966, he had condemned the war, but official outrage from Washington and strenuous opposition within the black community itself had caused him to relent. He next sought to widen his base by forming a coalition of the poor of all races that would address itself to such economic problems as poverty and unemployment. It was a version of populism, seeking to enroll janitors, hospital workers, seasonal labourers, and the destitute of Appalachia, along with the student militants and pacifist intellectuals. His endeavours along these lines, however, did not engender much support in any segment of the population. Meanwhile, the strain and changing dynamics of the civil rights movement had taken a toll on King, especially in the final months of his life. “I'm frankly tired of marching. I'm tired of going to jail,” he admitted in 1968. “Living every day under the threat of death, I feel discouraged every now and then and feel my work's in vain, but then the Holy Spirit revives my soul again.” King's plans for a Poor People's March to Washington were interrupted in the spring of 1968 by a trip to Memphis, Tennessee, in support of a strike by that city's sanitation workers. In the opinion of many of his followers and biographers, King seemed to sense his end was near. As King prophetically told a crowd at the Mason Temple Church in Memphis on April 3, on the night before he died, “I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight that we, as a people, will get to the promised land.” The next day, while standing on the second-story balcony of the Lorraine Motel where he and his associates were staying, King was killed by a sniper's bullet; the killing sparked riots and disturbances in over 100 cities across the country. On March 10, 1969, the accused white assassin, James Earl Ray, pleaded guilty to the murder and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. owerful mayor, Richard J. Daley, and partly because of the unexpected complexities of Northern racism. Ray later recanted his confession, claiming lawyers had coerced him into confessing and that he was the victim of a conspiracy. In a surprising turn of events, members of the King family eventually came to Ray's defense. King's son Dexter met with the reputed assassin in March 1997 and then publicly joined Ray's plea for a reopening of his case. When Ray died on April 23, 1998, Coretta King declared, “America will never have the benefit of Mr. Ray's trial, which would have produced new revelations about the assassination…as well as establish the facts concerning Mr. Ray's innocence.” Although the U.S. government conducted several investigations into the murder of King and each time concluded that Ray was the sole assassin, the killing remains a matter of controversy. ● Posthumous reputation and legacy King ranks among the most analyzed men in American history. As with the study of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln, there is an exhaustive range of perspectives on the man and his legacy, many of them still evolving as new information about his life becomes available. What is clear today, decades after his death, is that King's extraordinary influence has hardly waned and that his life, thought, and character were more complex than biographers initially realized or portrayed. His chapter in history is further proof of the maxim that martyred heroes never really die—they live on in memories, collectively and individually, and their legacies take on a life of their own. King became an object of international homage after his death. Schools, roads, and buildings throughout the United States were named after him in the 1970s and '80s, and the U.S. Congress voted to observe a national holiday in his honour, beginning in 1986, on the third Monday of January. In 1991 the Lorraine Motel where King was shot became the National Civil Rights Museum. In July 1998 a sculpture of King was unveiled over the door to the west front of Westminster Abbey in London, an area of honour reserved for 20th-century “victims of the struggle for human rights.” And in December 1999 the U.S. National Capital Planning Commission approved a site in the Tidal Basin of Washington, D.C., for a Martin Luther King, Jr., memorial, the first time in American history that a private individual has been accorded such distinction. With many of these tributes, however, came controversy and sometimes heated debate. Many critics, during King's lifetime and after, accused him of harboring communist sympathies, associating with known communists, and undermining the American war effort in Vietnam. These charges, along with allegations of King's marital infidelities, attracted the attention and surveillance of J. Edgar Hoover's Federal Bureau of Investigation during King's lifetime, and they resurfaced in the 1970s and '80s during debate in the U.S. Congress over the King holiday. King's personal life and character were scrutinized further when the public learned in 1989–90 that King had plagiarized much of his academic work, including his doctoral dissertation The posthumous reverence of King, and whether it has helped or ironically harmed King's reputation and the cause of civil rights, has been widely discussed. King's longtime confidant Ralph Abernathy, for example, claimed in And the Walls Came Tumbling Down (1986) that his controversial discussion of King's private life was necessary to stem the deification of his friend, “to let everyone know that …[King's] humanity did not detract from the legend but only made it more believable for other human beings.” Similarly, scholars and social activists who contributed to We Shall Overcome: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Black Freedom Struggle (1993) argued that the lionization of King had actually caused the civil rights movement to lose sight of the grassroots efforts critical to social change; the perception of King as a superman, a saviour, a Christ-like Messiah, they argued, discouraged initiative and self-reliance and left African Americans dependent on the appearance of yet another Great Man to save them. According to religious studies professor Michael Eric Dyson, the canonization of King has also diluted King's message, smoothed out its sharp edge, and transformed King into “a Safe Negro.” “Today right-wing conservatives can quote King's speeches in order to criticize affirmative action,” he wrote in I May Not Get There With You: The True Martin Luther King, Jr. (2000), “while schoolchildren grow up learning only about the great pacifist, not the hard-nosed critic of economic injustice.” As these posthumous debates and tributes make plain, King's legacy has not waned in social and political relevance. ● Assessment Martin Luther King, Jr., was the seminal voice during one of the most turbulent periods in American history. His contribution to the civil rights movement was that of a leader who was able to turn protests into a crusade and to translate local conflicts into moral issues of nationwide, ultimately worldwide, concern. By force of will and a charismatic personality, he successfully awakened African Americans and galvanized them into action. He won his greatest victories by appealing to the consciences of white Americans and thus bringing political leverage to bear on the federal government in Washington. The strategy that broke the segregation laws of the South, however, proved inadequate to solve more complex racial problems elsewhere. King was only 39 at the time of his death—a leader in midpassage who never wavered in his insistence that nonviolence must remain the essential tactic of the movement nor in his faith that all Americans would some day attain racial and economic justice. Though he likely will remain a subject of controversy, his eloquence, self-sacrifice, and courageous role as a social leader have secured his ranking among the most influential men of recent history. 论文关键字：Martin,Luther,King,Jr.1.Martin Luther King Jr.(1929-1968) Translation(1) 2.Martin Luther King Jr.(1929-1968) Translation(2)
