Connecting the Dots

Each school year I task my students with an "Essay of the Week." It's good practice for the development of higher-order writing and thinking skills.

In mid-January the assignment asks students to "connect the dots" between slavery, the American civil war and it's aftermath, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

As usual, I received many excellent essays that reflect a strong knowledge base of the civil war and the relevance of Dr. King to the subsequent and lengthy struggle for civil rights. Here is my student Hudson's essay entitled: How Slavery, the Civil War, Reconstruction and Dr. King are related  

​"Slavery in the United States is defined as a form of legal, slave labor. Slavery started in 1619 in Virginia and spread to the other ten southern states. The practice was committed primarily against people of African descent. The Slaves were held by so-called whites: people of Western European descent.  

In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as president, the southern slave states separated from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America. Slavery was at the center of the controversy and ultimately the practice pitted northern states (“the Union”) that were against slavery and southern states (“the Confederacy”) that were for the practice in the Civil War. After four year of war the Southern States surrendered in 1865. 

Following the war President Lincoln intended to change the slave culture of the southern states through reconstruction, but sadly he was assassinated right after the war. President Johnson was able to change the South with the assistance of the Army and the Freedman’s Bureau, but the reforms were opposed and resisted in the South, and eventually the northern states grew tired of the struggle. Whites who were in favor of slavery regained political power in 1877 and the Freedmen became second class citizens.   

​Around one-hundred years following the reconstruction era, the nation again tried to bring equal rights to the descendants of slaves during the civil rights era of the 1950’s and 1960’s. Dr. Martin Luther was the most visible and prominent leader in the Civil Rights, Movement. He used nonviolent methods following the teachings of his mentor Mahatma Gandhi.   ​

Dr. King’s efforts led to the 1963 March on Washington, where de delivered his “I have a Dream” speech. In 1964, he became the youngest person to receive the Nobel Peace Price for his work to end racial discrimination. Dr. King was assassinated on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee."

As I tell my students, the struggle for civil rights in this country is at once one of our most sober stories and worthy challenges that each generation can take part in. Every citizen, not just the privileged few, should be able to enjoy "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." 

It is clear that poverty is just as much of a culprit as discrimination in slowing down the pursuit of happiness for many Americans. As Dr. King stated: "The curse of poverty has no justification in our age. The time has come for us to civilize ourselves by the total, direct and immediate abolition of poverty."