hook for mlk essay

Martin Luther King Jr declaring the Freedom Rides will continue at a press conference in Montgomery, Alabama, June 1961. Photo by Bruce Davidson/Magnum

All that we are

The philosophy of personalism inspired martin luther king’s dream of a better world. we still need its hopeful ideas today.

by Bennett Gilbert   + BIO

On 25 March 1965, the planes out of Montgomery, Alabama were delayed. Thousands waited in the terminal, exhausted and impassioned by the march they had undertaken from Selma in demand of equal rights for Black people. Their leader, Martin Luther King, Jr, waited with them. He later reflected upon what he’d witnessed in that airport in Alabama:

As I stood with them and saw white and Negro, nuns and priests, ministers and rabbis, labor organizers, lawyers, doctors, housemaids and shopworkers brimming with vitality and enjoying a rare comradeship, I knew I was seeing a microcosm of the mankind of the future in this moment of luminous and genuine brotherhood.

In the faces of the exhausted marchers, King saw the hope that sustained their hard work against the violence and cruelty that they had faced. It is worth asking: why was King moved to try to create a better world? And what sustained his hope?

A clue can be found in the PhD dissertation he wrote at Boston University Divinity School in 1955:

Only a personal being can be good … Goodness in the true sense of the word is an attribute of personality.

The same is true of love. Outside of personality loves loses its meaning …

What we love deeply is persons – we love concrete objects, persistent realities, not mere interactions. A process may generate love, but the love is directed primarily not toward the process, but toward the continuing persons who generate that process.

King subordinates everything to the flourishing of human persons because goodness in this world has no home other than that of persons. Their wellbeing is what makes the events of our lives and of our collective history worthy of effort and care. In order to demonstrate that we are worth the struggle within and among ourselves, King sought to find love between the races and classes on the basis of philosophical claims about personhood. A decade after his dissertation, he was at the forefront of the Civil Rights movement, marching to Montgomery.

Can we still grasp and live the hope that King found? Capitalism, imperialism, nationalism, racism – like iron filings near a magnet, all these historical forces seem to be pulled together today into one fatal, immiserating direction. They teach us hateful ways to behave and promote heinous vices such as pride and greed. Desires flee beyond prudent limits and rush toward disaster. It seems we are not worth all that we used to think we are worth. Can we replace our narcissism with a virtuous self-regard? The philosophical tradition of personalism tells us that we can and do have hope for our future.

K ing’s hope came from his understanding of Christianity through the philosophy of personalism. He largely acquired this line of thought during his graduate studies at Boston. His advisors in Divinity School had been students of Borden Parker Bowne (1847-1910), the first philosophy professor at Boston University. Bowne founded Boston personalism, which, with William James’s pragmatism , was one of the two earliest American schools of philosophy. For Bowne, personhood is not the bundles of characteristics we call ‘personality’. Instead, it is the intelligence that makes reality coherent and meaningful. The core of his thought is that personhood is ‘the deepest thing in existence … [with] intellect as the concrete realisation and source’ of being and causality.

Bowne says that if we dismiss abstractions because they are static and have no force in the world, what is left is solely the ‘power of action’. Action for Bowne is intelligence understood as a force that activates the concrete reality of things. This reality is not static substance but the ceaseless business of the effect that entities have on other entities. Personhood is the non-material and non-biological power of relations among things, which activates all the processes of the world. Reality itself is thus deeply personal. Without personhood, it would be atomised and inactive – and therefore unintelligible. In Bowne’s view, only the concept of intelligent selves is adequate for explaining how things are constituted and inter-related. Being is nothing without causality; causality is nothing without intelligence. Reality is nothing without idea; idea is nothing without reality. This intimate connection of mind and the world means that nothing can be understood apart from the intelligence that perceives and understands it, replacing inert substances with the ever-flowing labours of our human need to find meaning in life as we encounter it.

Personalism always begins its analysis of reality with the person at the centre of consciousness

Bowne’s ideas had many predecessors, from Latin Christianity through Immanuel Kant, using many different theories and concepts, about what a human being is and about the personhood of God in its relation to our own personhood. His forceful argumentation influenced James, who helped found the American philosophical tradition of pragmatism shortly after Bowne’s first books were published and who drew increasingly close to personalism, as did the idealist philosopher Josiah Royce. Bowne was at the centre of this troika of canonical American philosophers at the turn of the 20th century. His teaching rippled out through personalist philosophers on the West Coast and through his students at Boston, notably Edgar S Brightman and Harold DeWulf, both of whom later became teachers of King.

Many other forms of personalism had been developed in Europe in the previous century: theistic and non-theistic, socialist or communitarian and libertarian, abstractly metaphysical and concretely ethical. It is more an approach to thinking than a method, doctrine or school. Personalism always begins its analysis of reality with the person at the centre of consciousness, to which it attaches the most profound worth. Some versions develop this through ontology or metaphysics; some, through theologies associated with most denominations of the Abrahamic religions; and some, through the intersubjective and communitarian nature of human life. My own version makes the structure of moral meaningfulness the first step and first philosophy, as I will explain below. All versions seek an integrated, ethically strong comprehension of personhood as the heart of the life of humankind.

Though personalism continues to be a field of robust philosophical research, in American academic philosophy after the Second World War it faded under the hegemony of analytic philosophy. But in King’s hands it became forceful as a practice for justice and other moral ends. Its resources have not been exhausted. Careful revision and updating can make it a source of illumination and hope in the circumstances we face a half-century after King.

W hy should we update personalism, and what useful purpose will this serve? Our ideas about the nature of human beings are today undergoing a severe challenge by the new philosophies of transhumanism. Through personalism, we can understand and appreciate our purposes and obligations, as well as the dangers posed by transhumanism.

The best known of these transhumanist philosophies is effective altruism (EA). The Centre for Effective Altruism was founded at the University of Oxford in 2012 by Toby Ord and William MacAskill; largely inspired by Peter Singer’s utilitarianism, EA has been an influential movement of our time. As MacAskill defines it in Doing Good Better (2015):

Effective altruism is about asking, ‘How can I make the biggest difference I can?’ And using evidence and careful reasoning to try to find an answer. It takes a scientific approach to doing good.

This is not as clear cut as it might seem, and it has often led to the uncomfortable conclusion that the accumulation of capital by the wealthy is morally necessary in order to affect the world for the better in the future, largely regardless of the consequences for living persons. Its proponents argue that society does not sufficiently plan for the distant future and fails to store up the wealth that our successors will need to solve social and existential challenges.

Other transhumanist theories include longtermism , the idea that we have a moral obligation to provide for the flourishing of successor bioforms and machinic entities in the very distant future, at times regardless of consequences for those now living and their proximate next generations. There is also a kind of rationalism that justifies the moral calculations on which provision for the future instead of for the living is based; cosmism , the vision for exploration and colonisation of other worlds; and transhumanism , which aspires to assemble technologies for the evolution of humankind into successor species or for our replacement by other entities as an inevitable and thereby moral duty. All of these, including the various versions, are sometimes named by the acronym TESCREAL (transhumanism, extropianism, singularitarianism, cosmism, rationalism, effective altruism, longtermism). Here I refer to these as ‘transhumanism’.

The core argument common to these lines of thinking, according to the philosopher Émile Torres writing in 2021, is that:

[W]hen one takes the cosmic view, it becomes clear that our civilisation could persist for an incredibly long time and there could come to be an unfathomably large number of people in the future. Longtermists thus reason that the far future could contain way more value than exists today, or has existed so far in human history, which stretches back some 300,000 years.

From this point of view, human suffering today matters little by the numbers. Nuclear war, environmental collapse, injustice and oppression, tyranny, and oppression by intelligent technology are mere ripples on the surface of the ocean of history.

This idea of the agency of the inorganic is one of the key arguments for decentring the human

Each element of these transhumanist ideologies regards human personhood as a thing that is expiring and therefore to be replaced. As the longtermist Richard Sutton told the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in 2023: ‘it behooves us [humans] … to bow out … We should not resist succession.’ Their proponents argue for the factual truth of their predictions as a way to try to ensure the realisations of their prophecies. According to the theorist Eliezer Yudkowsky, by ‘internalising the lessons of probability theory’ to become ‘perfect Bayesians’, we will have ‘reason in the face of uncertainty’. Such calculations will open a ‘vastly greater space of possibilities than does the term “Homo sapiens”.’

A personalist approach deflates these transhumanist claims. As the historian of science Jessica Riskin has argued, a close examination of the science of artificial intelligence demonstrates that the only intelligence in machines is what people put into them. It is really a sleight-of-hand; there is always a human behind the curtain turning the wizard wheels. As she put it in The New York Review of Books in 2023:

Turing’s literary dialogues seem to me to indicate what’s wrong with Turing’s science as an approach to intelligence. They suggest that an authentic humanlike intelligence resides in personhoo d, in an interlocutor within, not just the superficial appearance of an interlocutor without; that intelligence is a feature of the world and not a figment of the imagination.

Longtermists’ notions of future entities lack everything we know about conscious intelligence because they use consciousness or living beings as empty black-box words into which even meaningless notions will fit. Effective altruists dismiss the worth attributable to every human, squashing it by calculations that cannot prescribe moral value, whatever these proponents claim. As we can see in the theories of longtermists such as Nick Bostrom and effective altruists such as Sam Bankman-Fried, instead of working with human ethical values, they work with numerical values, ignoring the massive body of thought from anthropologists such as Webb Keane and from phenomenologists such as Rasmus Dyring, Cheryl Mattingly and Thomas Wentzer showing that values are neither empirical nor quantifiable but nonetheless real forces in human affairs. Transhumanism as a whole assigns agency to alien beings and electronic entities that do not exist – and perhaps are inconceivable.

This idea of the agency of the inorganic is one of the key arguments for decentring the human. Consider, for example, salt. Salt affords certain effects in certain conditions: it produces a specific taste, it corrodes other materials, it serves certain functions in organisms. But it is humans who organise these events under the concept of causality. What salt does, it does without consciousness. Consciousness neither starts nor halts its effects, broadly speaking. What sense is there, then, in saying that salt has agency when it is more illuminating to say that it is a cause of effects under some conditions?

In ordinary language, we frequently speak of machinery or ideas ‘doing’ things in our lives. But they do nothing. People – human persons – produce, operate and apply their creations. The problem with assigning agency, even informally, to the nonhuman is that this disguises the strength of human control, limited though it is in other respects. It leaves us unaware when a more toxic and cunning human drives to take control because we are busy trying to control the world rather than ourselves. Although some people think that machines or ideas are in control of them, it is really other humans. If we overlook this truth, we accept an untruth – an untruth that condemns us to the mercy of our worst drives and behaviours. When we devalue humanity, we unleash our self-destructive drives, thereby turning reason into destructive irrationality. In this way, we are in fact governed by our own human drive for self-destruction.

This drive seems to differentiate us from other animals as much as language or historicity do. If we provoke this drive too much, we shall have nowhere else to turn in our struggle to flourish in the natural world. We must, instead, search out our integrity and worth because the alternative is despair.

The great and encompassing thing that humans create is our story: human history, the sum of our behaviour and our deeds. We create it with and amid the world around us out of our need to make sense of the world. This need, which builds our moral life, is part of what drives everything we do. It drives the ways we pursue survival, for, without a sense of meaning, we have little will to survive. The pursuit of survival can lead us to meaningfulness but, if it fails to do so, the pursuit itself ceases. We guide ourselves by the stories we choose, for storytelling inhabits all ways of knowing and acting. If the meaning we seek as human persons is overtaken by the story that our self-destructive drive presents in the form of transhumanism, we shall not survive.

P ersons are worth more than even justice and goodness are, because it is for the sake of persons that we fight for justice and goodness. In the face of possible profound changes, it often seems we must choose between being good and just to ourselves, and being good and just toward nature. The possibility of these radical changes legitimately requires that we profoundly deflate our anthropocentrism, since overblown self-regard has served us poorly. But how do we do this while encouraging our fraught capabilities and appreciating the worth of our flawed species?

The kind of personalism that I have developed out of Bowne’s ideas as a response to this and other questions I call moral agency personalism. Moral agency is the activity of judging and choosing between good and evil, right and wrong, justice and injustice. In my view, every thing that has such moral agency is a person, and all persons are moral agents. (The evidence that some nonhuman species make moral choices , sometimes based on memory and history, has been accumulating.) Adding this possibility to personalism formally recognises worth in all persons, nonhuman as well as human. As a belief and a practice, it can ground a virtuous, as opposed to vicious, self-regard that human and nonhuman persons can exercise for themselves and for other persons. This kind of self-regard is distinct from self-importance.

We can develop a moral agency personalism that has some of the resources we need in facing the human future. We can find these by altering some fundamental concepts of personalism. These updates include: accepting the fact of nonhuman moral agents or persons; including the body in our understanding of individual lives and of interpersonal relations; and rethinking the idealist ontology in personalism in order to make it an ethics-as-first-philosophy approach, with less emphasis on ontology. The guiding idea of these changes is that, in making moral sense out of experience, personal moral agency enlarges our relations to the whole range of our lives and our care for all beings.

We need to respect ourselves as persons with the power to decide not to continue to harm

Personalism gives us robust resources for identifying our worth and for believing in it. It can encourage us to enhance our worth by our acts in seeking goodness, compassion and justice, and guide us to the richest possible moral life. Because our personhood is the home base of our point of view, there is no way forward other than to maintain our integrity while learning what we must in order to thrive.

The initial and most basic of these resources we should tap is the strength not to do more harm. We are the ones who deploy transhumanist projects into the only world that sustains us. We are the ones degrading the environment. And we are the only ones who can stop us from doing both. For this, we need to respect ourselves as persons with the power to decide not to continue to harm. This is the minimum we must do.

Respecting the moral worth of persons also ignites our capacity to care for others. We respond with aid to calls for help when we learn to recognise moral obligation pertaining to every person, including ourselves, and toward every other person. Furthermore, our humanitarian disposition is frequently a sure way to developing sympathy for the natural world and the life within it.

Understanding our personal moral agency enables a wise combination of the two general forces of moral action: power and compassion. Power is the logic by which we carry ideas and lines of thought to fulfilment in activity. Compassion is the potentially unbounded lovingkindness with which we temper power and extend love to widening spheres in our lives. So far as we know, we are the only living beings who can use these forces in moral decision-making. But even if other beings have moral personhood, nothing of the sort relieves us of the moral obligation that our possession of these two capabilities makes it possible to accept and to follow.

We possess our history, just as we make it – another resource that is unique to us, so far as we know. History is the engine of self-awareness. As the substance of all that we have done and the actual conditions for the possibility of all that is and will be, historical consciousness serves us as the indispensable locus of reflection and deliberation. No unchanging and antiquated images of ourselves restrain our understanding of history because we create the past anew whenever we study it and reflect on it. It is therefore the great endowment for a renewed humanistic extension of personhood to all humankind and to all life.

T here are two more resources, pointing to opposite ends of the spectrum of our concerns. The first is that the personalist grasp of what we are worth supports democracy. Democracy has depended on a powerful conception of personal agency and responsibility that cultural and political changes now challenge, in addition to the material issues of human life in the Anthropocene era. These social and natural developments closely reflect each other. Learning to live together is the worthy goal of democracy. But if we are to pursue concord and peace by that road, we must value ourselves, accept our moral nature with its obligations, submit our desires to what the moral worth of every living being requires of us, and work in response to present and patent human suffering and real human joy.

At the opposite end, on the cosmic scale, lies another possibility for virtuous human self-regard afforded us by personalism. Simply put, it is this: it might become clear to us that the universe is constitutively pervaded by consciousness, or is conscious in all its parts, or is inside of a super-consciousness. These are versions of the notion of cosmic consciousness called panpsychism. Panpsychism is not just about what we can know or do but about reality itself. This appeals to those who have for a moment felt the life of the universe in a small experience and do not want to dismiss what that feeling says and means to them just because it is not empirically verifiable. In our best moments, our lives feel epiphanous.

The moral agency of persons thrives when agents act in obligation to their individual and collective selves

At the same time, however, panpsychism can conflict with the empiricism that is so valuable because it is used to make things that work well for us. And yet other kinds of things, such as erotic love and spirituality, also work well for us and are not conducive to the usual demands of empiricism. For now, it is easy to think that a universal consciousness makes our consciousness unimportant, but there might be ways of getting the opposite outcome. Current advances in physics and biology are starting to support the belief that our consciousness affects reality by working with reality as a consciousness that includes ours. That is, our observing and predicting are inside, not outside, the phenomena we encounter. We are not the crown jewels of creation, but our self-referentiality, our critical awareness and our moral lives form personhood as an important part of a universe that is thereby less alien and cold.

If a suitable form of panpsychism is true, human personhood means more to reality than is usually thought. This kind of personalism puts us into a community or, rather, into many communities made up of conscious beings capable of moral responsibility. The moral agency of persons thrives when agents reflectively act in obligation to their individual and collective selves rather than in seeing themselves through the needs of imagined others in the undetermined future.

What King observed in Montgomery airport in 1965 was actual persons developing their moral purchase with each other. He saw this as the processes of goodness and love at work in their proper sphere: our common existence. King wanted us not only to recognise the unique and infinite value of every person, but to understand it so powerfully that we would feel ourselves obliged to take the action that this recognition requires. As he wrote, we need only look around us at the struggles for a decent and free life that others wage to sense the profundity of human worth and to see that we all depend on one another. That this has the power to inspire us to fight for change sustained his hopes.

We face an urgent present choice. We might prefer that algorithms or despots act for us because our own power of judgment is too explosive to manage. That would suit the purposes of infomaniacal hypercapitalism, which seeks to control consumers rather than to enrich persons. But turning over our judgment to machines does not lock away our power to destroy ourselves and others. We must govern ourselves even as we evolve. This requires an enduring connection to our humanity and a willingness to work hard with one another. This can be successful only if and when we hold fast to all that we are.

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Martin Luther King, Jr. Writing Prompts

Holy Moly, it’s been a loooong time since I did a post about writing! It’s so difficult to be torn between my two great loves: science (especially STEM challenges) & writing! There’s only so much time in a day! So, without further ado…

Martin Luther King, Jr. put together some of the most beautiful, powerful words the world has ever known. When I revisit some of this writings and quotes, I am struck by the wisdom and, unfortunately in many cases, how much those words still ring true today.

In my opinion, one of the best ways to teach students to hook readers into persuasive and expository essays is to start with a quote. It’s kind of like sanctioned cheating: we get to benefit from someone else’s awesome writing. A little of that person’s genius rubs off on us — genius by association!

Martin Luther King, Jr.’s works are a treasure trove of quotations that can make your students’ writing sparkle and shine. Beyond that, they are fantastic to inspire writing prompts and discussions on their own.

I used to give my 7th students a big printed packet of MLK quotes in January along with an essay assignment related to a topic like peace, education, social justice, equality, poverty, etc. It was their job to go through and select 1 – 3 quotes that they wanted to use in the essay. As they would read through the quotes, many were shocked that the wisdom, brilliance, and beautiful words came from just one man. One student even told me she had known the facts and history, but after reading so many of his quotes, she felt like she understood who he actually was. It was one of those magical teacher moments I continue to cherish.

Quick Writes Inspired by Quotes

In order for students to use quotes effectively to hook readers, they’ll need practice reading and responding to quotes throughout the school year. January is a perfect time to start (or continue), using MLK quotes! A simple approach is to select one quote a day for a quick write prompt or class discussion. You can do a search for MLK quotes online, and you’ll get plenty of results!  Here’s one site where you can find quotes .

I usually give students an optional prompt along with the quote in case they “can’t think of anything to write.” (Don’t you just hate that!) I also allow them to ignore the prompt (when the writing purpose is quick writes and/or practicing responding and connecting with quotes). Over time, many will choose to do a free, quick-write as they become more comfortable connecting authentically with the quotes. As long as their responses are related to, or inspired by, the quote, I’m happy.

Then, every 1 – 2 weeks, you can have students look at their quick writes over that period and turn one into a final draft for grading, if you like. This gives students choice, and it’s so much nicer to for you to grade essays that are on varied prompts!

For the last two years (at least), I have told myself I would put together a resource with writing prompts inspired by MLK quotes. Finally, in 2017, I made it happen! So, if you’re looking to save yourself a little time in the weeds, check it out:

Each prompt comes in 3 versions: lined paper (Print & Go), Writers’ Notebook Inserts, and Projection Slides. You can click on the image above if you’d like more details.

GET YOUR FREE SAMPLE!

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• Social Justice

This is why King’s life, legacy, and hope still matter

Martin luther king jr. was instrumental in moving us forward, but much work remains to be done. i am hopeful for the future, because i believe there is more good than bad..

• Maya Dena Hairston

Maya Dena Hairston is a senior at The Baldwin School in Bryn Mawr, Pa. (Courtesy of Maya Hairston)

“I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”

Being one of the few girls of color at my historically white high school, my personal experience includes constantly having to prove that I’m smart enough.

King was instrumental in moving us forward, but there is still so much more work to be done.

The act of violence that ended King’s life did not halt the revolution for freedom. It marches on today in the form of the Black Lives Matter movement, which campaigns for an end to violence against African-Americans. Although such violence is not as prevalent today as in the 1960s, police brutality has become its main, recurring form.

A misinterpretation of the meaning of “Black Lives Matter” has influenced the All Lives Matter campaign. In reality, Black Lives Matter highlights black lives because those are the ones in danger. It in no way says that only black lives matter. Many in the Black Lives Matter movement view their efforts for positive change on a continuum that traces back to King. However, the fact that people still have to protest against violence toward black people shows that King’s dream still matters today.

King was instrumental in moving us forward, but there is still so much more work to be done. I am hopeful for the future, because I believe there is more good than bad in the world. I recognize the immense hatred toward people who don’t fit into society’s stereotype of normal . I am a poet, and I also enjoy public speaking. The opinions in my speeches and the passion in my poetry are fueled by the desire to counter that hatred with love.

I am hopeful for the future, because I believe in my heart that the world can create change if we simply focus on love. And maybe then we can accomplish King’s dream of a nation that judges people on the content of their hearts, instead of the color of their skin.

NewCORE and its partners are presenting 80 days of conversation events throughout Philadelphia, from Jan. 14, in remembrance of King’s birth, through April 4, in remembrance of his death. Join the official kickoff discussion, “ Does Dr. King’s Life, Legacy, and Hope for America Matter? ” on Jan. 15 at Philadelphia Media Network, 801 Market St., Philadelphia. The event is free, but registration is required .

Maya Dena Hairston is a senior at The Baldwin School in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. Her father is African-American and her mother is Afghani and Pakistani. “Throughout my life, I have been told that I appear more African-American than Middle Eastern, resulting in my self-identification as solely black,” she says. “This naïve perception has haunted me throughout adolescence. Today, embracing my many identities has become my chief goal.”

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Martin Luther King Jr’s “I Have a Dream” Speech Critique Essay

• To find inspiration for your paper and overcome writer’s block
• As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
• As a template for you assignment

On 28th August 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. held a speech that was attended by over 250,000 civil rights fans. His speech which lasted for 18 minutes was given at the moment when blacks were cruelly discriminated against. The speech “I Have a Dream” is always regarded as being among the greatest and famous speeches in history. This speech was a defining period of the Civil Rights Movement in America. Martin Luther King’s background as a first rank leader of the Negro and a member of the civil rights greatly helped him in this speech. He was American blacks’ symbolic leader and a world-image American Rhetoric (2005).

The purpose of the king’s speech was to motivate the endorsement of change within the Americans, and the state, in relation to Americans’ inappropriate views towards unlike races or tribal groups in America. King stresses on the American blacks being victimized, Talking about his fellow blacks from both expert and personal levels. King’s objective was to put important pressure on the state and its citizen, by identifying the mistakes of their habits and the promises which have never happened through history. He asks for change and gives out solutions, by so doing he intended to influence the state to unite, thereby ending the historical division among the American citizen. The important information in king’s speech is that everyone is equally created although that was not the case in America at the moment, he had a strong feeling that this will change in the future.

There is no doubt that the king’s speech was perfectly researched. In his homework, he seriously read the Bible, The Gettysburg Address, and the declaration of United States of America independence and he indirectly refers to all these in his talk. The style of the speech has been explained as a political treatise, poetry work and improvised and a masterfully delivered talk, coming up with language and imagery from the bible plus rhythm and recurrences.

The bigger part of the king’s achievement as an orator was because of his utilization of rhetoric in his communication. He was able to determine the mood and tone of the listeners, and intermingle with them properly. The utilization of metaphors gave him a chance to outline his point to convey an excellent speech. In most cases, he was calm and composed, when needed he was capable to be loud and integrate anyone’s movement. He stopped for applauses often, this permitted the listeners to display their enthusiasm and create them feel included instead of them having a feeling that they are just sitting listening to somebody speech American Rhetoric (2005).

King directed his encouragement to white and blank individuals joining hands to attain racial peace and agreement. He specifically wanted to educate the blanks that sameness could be achieved through the application of non-violence. He also encourages blanks to never forget their dreams and urged that in God’s eyes, blacks should be equally treated because they are important as any race in America. The speech was effective in that it inspired the majority of black and white addressees who attended in Washington and those who were viewing on T.V. The best aspect of this speech is that everybody was equally created. King passionately needed it to be the future case. Apart from this main idea, subsequent thoughts are involved to back up and stress it.

American Rhetoric (2005). Top ten Speeches: I have a Dream by Martin Luther King Jr . delivered 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C.

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IvyPanda. (2022, January 1). Martin Luther King Jr’s “I Have a Dream” Speech Critique. https://ivypanda.com/essays/martin-luther-king-jrs-i-have-a-dream-speech-critique/

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How to Write the MLK Scholars Program NYU Essay

This article was written based on the information and opinions presented by Moriah Adeghe in a CollegeVine livestream. You can watch the full livestream for more info. 

What’s Covered:

Approaching the prompt.

• Why You Should Do Your Research

Example Essay

The Martin Luther King, Jr. (MLK) Scholars Program at New York University (NYU) has an extra essay with a 200-word limit. The prompt asks:

“In what ways have you enacted change in your community and what has been your motivation for doing so? This can include enacting change globally, locally, or within your family (200 words, optional).”

In this article, we go over the best ways to approach this essay and how to make yours unique. For more information on NYU’s other application essays, check out our post on how to write the NYU supplemental admissions essays .

The MLK Scholars Program is an NYU program dedicated to educating and empowering students to build an inclusive and civically engaged community of leaders. The prompt for the MLK Scholars’ essay is completely optional, so you only have to write this essay if you want to be a part of the program. 

This prompt is a generic, open-ended question that enables you to respond in many different ways.

As a general tip, your response to this prompt should not only express your interest in the program but also reflect the values that led you to apply. These should align with those of the MLK Scholars Program and how you’re committed to contributing to social justice both inside and outside your community. 

Why You Should Do Your Research  

Before you begin writing your response, you need to research Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., his work, and his message thoroughly. This will help you understand which of your values are relevant, what you should highlight, and how you can align your essay with the values that he embodied. You want to prove to admissions officers that your values and characteristics align with the mission and spirit of the program. By doing your research, you can strategically position the experiences that you write about to show that you are the type of student the program is seeking. 

The ideal response to this prompt would include the following information: an experience that sparked your interest in social justice, an issue that you want to tackle, and how being an MLK Scholar will help you reach your future goals and how these goals align with the program’s mission. Including these three topics in your essay will demonstrate why you are a good candidate for the program.

A good way to brainstorm how you want your essay to sound is by reading other students’ essays for inspiration. The following essay was written by an MLK Scholars applicant who was accepted into the program.

“‘No! Por favor!’ I checked the clock. 10:30 a.m. and already the fourth time I’ve heard someone scream from Mr. Wilson’s office. When I accepted a summer internship as a law clerk, I never anticipated 90% of the cases would be deportation based. 

“Nearly every hopeful face I greeted with a smile on the way in, walked out with their head down and their cheek stained with tears. How foolish it was to think that I could make a positive impact on the world this summer when all I do is file paperwork as people’s lives are torn to pieces. While nowhere near the despair the deported clients felt, my personal frustration toward my helplessness manifested into resolve to fix this country’s immigration policies. Instead of working within the restraints of unjust laws, I plan to be leading discussions and writing the language that will help aspiring citizens, not punish them. 

“As an MLK Scholar, my ambitions will be fostered and hopefully blossomed into a reality. I’m eager to work with faculty that will aid my research on immigration policies and other nations during the first-year research seminar. Not only will I have the opportunity to gain hands-on experience with immigration lawyers in the heart of New York City, but the program’s travel colloquia will perfectly allow me to get an up-close look at the immigration policies of the countries I researched. While my journey with immigration law had a disheartening beginning, the MLK Scholars Program will turn my dream of justice into a reality.”

The student established an emotional connection to the topic of social justice with their anecdote; they then explained what they hope to change about the world and what they plan to do at NYU to achieve this. This student’s drive and passion for social justice are exactly what admissions officers are looking for. They want students who will be leaders both on campus and beyond. This essay shows the student’s drive, passions, and how they believe that they will be able to make a difference and impact the problems that they are passionate about.

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• Essay Editor

How to Write a Hook: Powerful Openers for Your Essay

Have you ever thought about how to grab your readers' attention right from the start of your essay? A good hook can really make a difference. It can pull your readers in and set the stage for an interesting piece of writing. This guide will help you understand what is a hook in an essay and give you ways to create strong openings that will keep your readers interested until the end.

What Is a Hook in an Essay?

A hook is the opening sentence or group of sentences that serves as an attention-grabbing introduction to your essay. Its primary purpose is to pique the reader's interest and create a specific tone for your writing. Good hooks are essential for academic papers, as they set the stage for your argument and encourage readers to continue exploring your ideas.

Some hook examples for essays are:

• Anecdotes or personal stories
• Thought-provoking questions
• Surprising statistics or facts
• Relevant quotations
• Vivid descriptions or imagery
• Bold statements or declarations

These hook examples can be tailored to suit various essay types and subjects, making them versatile tools for writers.

Placing Hooks in Your Essay Introductions and Conclusions

While hooks are typically associated with introductions, they can also be effectively used in conclusions to bring your essay full circle and leave a lasting impression on your readers.

Introduction Hooks

In the introduction, your hook should:

• Grab attention immediately
• Provide context for your topic
• Lead smoothly into your thesis statement

Hook sentence examples for introductions:

"In the time it takes you to read this sentence, about 100 stars will have died in our universe."

"What if I told you that the most dangerous animal in the world isn't a shark, a lion, or even a human—but something so tiny, you can't even see it?"

Conclusion Hook

Hook ideas for conclusions:

• Revisit the opening hook with new insight
• Pose a challenge or call to action
• End with a provocative question or statement

Hook sentence examples for conclusions:

"As we close this chapter on climate change, the question remains: will our grandchildren inherit a planet of possibilities or a world of what-ifs?"

"As we stand on the brink of AI-powered breakthroughs, one can't help but wonder: will machines dream of electric sheep, or will they dream of us?"

Loving these hooks? Aithor can write many more just like them for your next essay. 

Tips to Write Good Hooks for Essays

Writing good hooks for essays needs creativity and an understanding of who will read your work. Here are some tips to help you write strong openings:

• Make your hook appeal to the specific people who will read your essay.
• Make sure your hook fits with the overall feel of your essay, whether it's formal, funny, or serious.
• A hook should be short and clear, usually no more than one or two sentences.
• Using an active voice in your hook makes your writing more engaging and direct.
• Stay away from common sayings or ideas that might bore your readers.
• Your hook should connect directly to your essay's main topic or main idea.
• Don't be afraid to rewrite your hook several times to make it better.

Remember, the goal is to create an opening that naturally leads into your essay's main content while piquing the reader's curiosity.

Step-by-Step Hook Creation Process

Follow these steps to come up with hook ideas that work:

• Different kinds of essays (like argumentative, narrative, and descriptive) might benefit from different types of hooks.
• Come up with several hook ideas based on your topic and essay type.
• Definitions
• Metaphors or similes
• Write a few versions of your chosen hook type.
• Look over your drafts, thinking about how well they fit with your essay's purpose and tone.
• Share your hook with others to see how effective it is.
• Make sure your hook flows naturally into the rest of your introduction.

Remember, the key to how to write a good hook is practice and improvement. Don't be afraid to change and make your hook better as you write your essay.

Types of Hooks

There are several types of hooks you can use to begin your essay. Here are some popular options:

Question Hook 

"Ever wondered why your dog tilts its head when you speak? The answer might surprise you – and reveal more about human-canine communication than you'd expect."

Anecdotal Hook 

"The first time I tasted durian, I thought I'd accidentally eaten something that had gone bad in the tropical heat. Little did I know, this pungent fruit would become my obsession and lead me on a culinary adventure across Southeast Asia."

Statistic Hook 

"In the time it takes you to read this sentence, over 700 hours of video will have been uploaded to YouTube. The digital content explosion is reshaping how we consume information, and it's happening faster than you might think."

Quotation Hook 

"'The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.' Dorothy Parker's words ring truer than ever in our age of endless information — but is our curiosity leading us to knowledge, or just more distraction?"

Description Hook 

"The air shimmers like a mirage, heat radiating from the cracked earth. In the distance, a lone tree stands defiant against the barren landscape. This is the face of climate change — stark, unforgiving, and impossible to ignore."

Metaphor or Simile Hook 

"Learning a new language is like trying to navigate a foreign city without a map. At first, every street corner looks the same, every sign is indecipherable. But slowly, patterns emerge, landmarks become familiar, and suddenly you're no longer lost — you're on an adventure."

Each of these hook examples for essays can be effective when used appropriately. The key is to choose a hook that aligns with your essay's tone and purpose.

Wrapping Up: The Impact of a Strong Essay Hook

A well-written hook can make the difference between an essay that keeps readers interested and one that doesn't. By understanding what a hook in an essay is and how to create one effectively, you can improve your writing and leave a lasting impression on your readers.

Remember, the best hooks not only grab attention but also fit well with your essay's main ideas. They should give a taste of what's to come, encouraging readers to keep reading your work.

For those looking to further enhance their essay-writing skills, try writing tools like Aithor . Aithor can give extra insights and suggestions to help you write even more engaging hooks and essays. By combining your own creativity with advanced writing help, you can make your essays even better and really connect with your readers.

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Martin Luther King Essay | Essay on Martin Luther King for Students and Children in English

February 12, 2024 by Prasanna

Martin Luther King Essay: Martin Luther King Jr. was one of the pioneers who fought for the black people’s civil rights movement in America. He was a national figure and a brilliant orator who knew what to say to make any person understand his heart.

He stayed true to his morals and values throughout his activism. King set the foundation for racial equality from the 1950s till his death in 1968 that continues even today. His leadership and work were the reason for the end of legal segregation across America. In all that he did, he followed non-violence as his fundamental base. This was something that was an influence of Mahatma Gandhi and his role in the independence of India. He is well known for his speech ‘I have a dream,’ and a year after this speech, the law prohibiting racial discrimination was passed by President Johnson in 1964.

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Long and Short Essays on Martin Luther King for Students and Kids in English

We provide children and students with essay samples on a long essay of 500 words and a short essay of 150 words on the topic “Martin Luther King” for reference.

Short Essay on Martin Luther King 250 Words in English

Short Essay on Martin Luther King is usually given to classes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.

Martin Luther King Jr. made a statement about how sometimes people must make decisions because it is right, regardless of whether it is safe. This is a testament to the work that he did and the legacy he left behind. He was born Michael King Jr. on the 15th of January 1929, in Georgia to Reverend Michael King Sr. and Alberta King. He began his activism in the 1950s after his education and marriage.

The incident that launched him as a national figure and spokesman for the civil rights movement was the Montgomery bus boycott that lasted for 385 days. He followed the Gandhian principles of non-violence in his work and leadership of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. In 1964, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work for the rights of the Afro-American population.

Martin Luther King Jr. was an activist that fought for the rights of the Afro-American population. He was also a Baptist minister, an influence that came from his father, Reverend Michael King Sr. He fought for an America where all peoples, regardless of color and race, would live together in harmony.

He took part in and organized various non-violent protests, sit-ins, marches for the sake of his cause. He challenged people to think and fight for equality instead of submitting to the racial discrimination and humiliation that was legal. His work was rewarded with the legal revoking of the segregation and racial discrimination prevalent across the country. He was also the President of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

But while King’s work saw the fruit, he was also met with strong and intense opposition, not only from those that were racist but from the government itself. He was accused of being a communist and was placed under the constant surveillance of the FBI. He lost the President’s favor due to his stance on what was happening in Vietnam. He worked fiercely for 13 years until his assassination in 1968. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Peace Prize in 1964.

Introduction

Martin Luther King is the first person that comes to mind when we talk about the fight for racial equality in America. He lived from 1929-1968 and spent 13 years fighting against racial segregation and discrimination. His father was the source of his Baptist ideals, and his activism as Reverend Michal King Sr. was also a civil rights activist.

King grew up facing racial discrimination, and instead of swallowing his anger, he set about to make a change in a system that legally made space for segregation. He urged people to do the same and led movements, protests, marches, and sit-ins to this effect. He led the Montgomery bus boycott that ended racial segregation in Montgomery. He continued his work and leadership, and while he saw success, there were consequences. He was often imprisoned for his work and even survived a knife attack. None of these things could stop him and continued working, keeping the non-violent principles as the basis for his work. He found inspiration in the lives and work of leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela. His famous speech ‘I have a dream,’ was at a march to the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. The very next year, the law prohibiting racial discrimination was passed by President Johnson in 1964.

King’s work ended prematurely in 1968 as James Earl Ray assassinated him. The Civil Rights Act of 1968 was passed soon after King’s assassination, and his legacy lives on even today.

Martin Luther King Essay 400 Words in English

Martin Luther King Jr. made a statement about how sometimes people must make decisions because it is right, regardless of if it is safe or not. This is a testament to the work that he did and the legacy he left behind. He was born Michael King Jr. on the 15th of January 1929, in Georgia. He was one of the three children that Reverend Michael King Sr. and Alberta King had. He grew up with a strong Christian influence as a child from his family. He was also co-pastor with his father until his death at the Ebenezer Baptist Church.

Childhood and Education

King spent all his childhood in a segregated neighborhood in Atlanta, Georgia, that was the south. But when he came to Morehouse for his freshman year and had an opportunity to see equality and something radically different from home – the lack of segregation. He graduated in 1948 with a Bachelor of Arts from Morehouse.

Life and Activism

Martin Luther King is well known for his leadership and participation in fighting for black people’s right to vote, and desegregation among other fundamental rights. King was a leader of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference till his death and came to the forefront with the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

In 1955, Claudette Corvin and Rosa Parks refused to give up their seats for white people on the bus in separate incidents. This sparked off the Montgomery bus boycott that King led. It lasted for 385 days, and this incident resulted in removing segregation on public buses in Montgomery. This boycott launched King into a national figure and spokesman for the movement against racial discrimination.

Death and Memorial

In 1968, King was in Tennessee in support of sanitation workers on strike. He was assassinated before he was able to complete what he had planned for this rally. James Earl Ray shot him on the 4th of April, causing a wound that turned to be fatal. Over time memorials were made in his honor in America and across the world, recognizing his work.

King is today known as a pioneer for civil rights, and the fight that he began is a fight that continues to date. While his dream has yet to come true, many are working tirelessly and carrying the mantle he left behind.

Long Essay on Martin Luther King 500 Words in English

Long Essay on Martin Luther King is usually given to classes 7, 8, 9, and 10.

Martin Luther King Jr. in one of his letters from Birmingham prison said that through painful experience alone we can know that freedom is not something that is freely given. The ones who do not have it, must demand it. It shows his grit and perseverance even in the face of opposition. King was a civil rights activist for the Afro-American people. Never forgetting his ideals and principles of non-violence, he fought for the freedom of his people. His leadership was pivotal in legally putting an end to racial segregation in America.

Racism was something that he was acutely aware of as he grew up. Right from the age of six, his friendship with a white boy was taken away when his parents decided that they did not want their son to associate with a black boy. His father played a significant role in educating King about the long history of oppression and racism that his people had faced in America for years. His father was also someone who took a stand against segregation and discrimination when he could. Something that King watched that left a deep impression upon him.

Adolescence

Growing older, King began to hate the whites for the racism he had seen and gone through. He also began to stray from what he had learned in his Baptist upbringing. The oratory skills that King would later be famous for began to bloom around his adolescence. The very first speech that he gave was in his junior year. He said that the black Americans still wear chains, though slavery was abolished years ago. Even a highly esteemed black man is still inferior to the cruelest white man. On his ride home with his teacher on the bus, he was ordered by the driver to stand to let the white passengers sit down. He refused to until his teacher said that he should do what was told, as he would be breaking the law otherwise. When he wrote of the bus ride, he recorded that it was the angriest he had ever been.

King spent all his childhood in a segregated neighborhood and had a chance to see the opposite in Connecticut. He came to Morehouse here for his freshman year and had an opportunity to see things from a new perspective. Here was also where King reconciled with his Baptist upbringing. He graduated in 1948 with a Bachelor of Arts from Morehouse.

Marriage and Ministry

In 1953, he married Coretta Scott and were parents to four children, Yolanda King, Martin Luther King III, Dexter Scott King, and Bernice King. It was also in the 1950s that his activism began, which he continued till his death.

King became the pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Alabama in 1954. He was also a member of the executive committee of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People.

In 1955, Claudette Corvin and Rosa Parks refused to give up their seats for white people on the bus in separate incidents. This sparked off the Montgomery bus boycott that King led. It lasted for 385, during which King’s house was bombed. He was arrested as well, but this incident resulted in removing segregation on public buses in Montgomery. This boycott launched King into a national figure and spokesman for the movement against racial discrimination.

With other civil rights activists, King came together and founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957. Among other purposes, this group was to organize non-violent protests and movements in their pursuit of ensuring civil rights for all, regardless of race. King was a leader of the SCLC till his death.

Governmental Opposition

While he found favor in some officials’ eyes, he put himself squarely in opposition to the President when he spoke against the war in Vietnam. King not only fought for his people but spoke out against all injustice whenever he could. He was also branded a communist by the FBI and was under constant surveillance. So much so that when he was assassinated, it was speculated whether it was the work of just one man or King’s death was a part of a bigger conspiracy.

James Earl Ray was the man who ended King’s long fight against racial discrimination. King was fatally shot, and not even surgery could save him. His death caused nationwide rioting, which took great effort to put an end to.

Essay on Martin Luther King Conclusion

King was one of a kind. He refused to watch oppression take place and do nothing about it. He did his best to change the system to bring about equality and justice to all. His words and ideas are still today held as significant and radical. He changed not only his nation but the whole world.

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The Best Books of 2024 (So Far)

This list is updated monthly with new “best of the year” worthy titles.

We’re only halfway through 2024, but we’re already having trouble keeping up with the pace of exciting new releases. It’s been a particularly strong year for sophomore novels, with several emerging writers using the buzz around their debuts to launch worthy follow-ups. We’ve read multiple collections of poetry that speak to our current moment, while the varied world of nonfiction has given us plenty to linger on, from essays about the climate crisis to a vibrant oral history of The Village Voice . And we’d be remiss not to mention a brilliant debut novel that deftly brings humanity and humor to existential dread. Here’s the best of what Vulture’s contributors have read.

Titles are listed by U.S. release date, with the newest books up top.

Creation Lake , by Rachel Kushner

Fresh off a botched assignment for the U.S. government, a newly freelance spy makes her way to a small town in France to meet the charismatic figurehead of an anarchist commune. The group may have plans to disrupt a government project, and Sadie Smith has been hired by an unknown client to figure out its intentions — or, perhaps, to stir up trouble from within. Compared to scheming, keen-eyed Sadie, everyone she meets seems hopelessly naïve: the bickering anarchists, the comically resentful commune dropout, the man Sadie married to gain access to the group. Her only true equal seems to be Bruno Lacombe, a much older intellectual who has chosen to live an isolated life in a network of caves nearby. Kushner’s new novel, after 2018’s The Mars Room , is the kind of highly satisfying literary thriller that always seems in short supply. —Emma Alpern

Bear , by Julia Phillips

Off the coast of Seattle exists an archipelago where Sam and her elder sister Elena have spent their entire lives. Their days on San Juan consist mainly of catering to wealthy tourists in order to make ends meet and caring for their terminally ill mother, and Sam copes by dreaming of the day she and Elena can finally leave the island and start anew. So passes the first two-thirds of Bear : an unhurried, intimate portrait of sisterhood, inherited trauma, and the monotony of poverty in a society emerging from a pandemic. But a glimpse of a new life (and a not-so-subtle representation of the threats that lie beyond the islands) arrives on San Juan in an unexpected form: a wild grizzly bear in transit. Elena, captivated, and Sam, terrified, must now contend with the new presence. A rapid escalation of events ensues as the sisters’ drastically different yet equally ill-advised approaches to the unexpected visitor lead to devastating consequences. Bear may be a slow burn, but by the final chapter, Sam’s whole world is engulfed in flames. — Anusha Praturu

Parade , by Rachel Cusk

In an interview with The New Yorker , Rachel Cusk said she believes character no longer exists. That a person — an author or their fictional creation — should be constrained by their name, their past, and their habits is an old conception that’s wearing away, and good riddance. This view governed her Outline trilogy, which shows its narrator in relief, standing apart from the people she talks with, both peers and strangers. In her latest novel, Parade , Cusk takes her belief in the death of character even further as a cast of voices, many of them named G, wax philosophical about their spouses, avant-garde painting, and a random act of violence. Formally frenetic and sharp line by line, Parade doesn’t mimic decades-old experimental modes. (Renata Adler’s Speedboat comes to mind at times, though.) Instead, Cusk has written something genuinely new — again. And whether Parade is a character-driven story in spite of itself is an open question as exciting as its mutable storyline. — Maddie Crum

➽ Read Andrea Long Chu’s review of Parade.

Sex Goblin , Lauren Cook

When Lauren Cook publishes a new book, it is like a minor holiday to me. Cook is a trans naturalist and writer who came up on the Tumblr-era internet; his previous book, I Love Shopping (2019), is sold out and impossible to find — if you have my copy, please give it back. His latest, Sex Goblin , is a collection of poetry and short prose that read like posts on a porn sub-Reddit until you realize your guts are on the floor. In a sparse, direct, half-naïve first-person idiom, there’s an emotional acuity that sneaks up on you, making the mundane (waiting in a drive-through at Starbucks) and the surreal (a witch who turns an offending man into underwear) feel unpredictable and immediate, like the rumbling before an earthquake, when the ground might crack open. — Erin Schwartz

Wait , by Gabriella Burnham

After the success of her debut novel, It Is Wood, It Is Stone , Gabriella Burnham returns with an emotionally grounded political novel. When out dancing with friends, Elise learns from her younger sister that their mother has disappeared. Elise returns home to Nantucket Island, where she soon discovers that her mother was arrested and deported to São Paulo, after more than two decades away from Brazil. As Elise struggles to bring her mother back, she falls in with her wealthy best friend, who has recently inherited her grandfather’s mansion. No matter how close the two friends may have been, there remains an unbridgeable class divide. Burnham is a skilled observer of the hypocrisies coursing beneath our desire to do good and be good. This is especially clear when she writes about wealth. Wait is an empathetic and clear-eyed exploration of the everyday injustices that slowly erode friendships, families, and lives in America. — Isle McElroy

All Fours , by Miranda July

An artist of niche celebrity plans to celebrate her 45th birthday by driving alone across the country, from L.A., where she lives with her husband and child, to New York. But when it comes time to hit the road, she finds herself stopping in a nearby suburb, meeting a younger man who works for Hertz, and spending the entirety of her vacation in a motel, which she renovates to Paris-inspired perfection for the cool sum of $20,000. It’s not just that Miranda July’s latest novel is so propulsive you might have to cancel plans or set aside PTO just to scarf it down. It’s that her dazzlingly horny intelligence wrestles with marriage, queerness, and desire in ways sweet and hilarious, making even the smallest sizzle. — Jasmine Vojdani

➽ Read Christine Smallwood’s review of All Fours .

Ghostroots , ’Pemi Aguda

The 12 stories in ’Pemi Aguda’s mesmerizing and unsettling debut collection, Ghostroots , revolve around life in Lagos, the author’s home city. Aguda is a precise and exciting prose stylist, and her stories offer vivid insights into tradition, family, and trauma. Throughout the collection, the past invades the present, in the form of unwanted lineages and regretted decisions. A woman who cannot produce milk for her newborn blames herself for this ailment. The child was conceived the evening she forgave her husband for having an affair — she believes she’s being punished for being so forgiving. In “Manifest,” a young woman who resembles her grandmother — an evil woman, she is told — begins to adopt her grandmother’s most terrible traits, leading to an act of violence she cannot take back. The horror in Aguda’s stories are borne out of a sense of inevitability. Her characters, unable to change the past, are forced to confront futures they find terrifying and dangerous. This is a smart, playful, and compassionate collection worthy of repeated reads. — I.M.

The Husbands , by Holly Gramazio

Holly Gramazio’s debut novel has a killer hook: What if you had a magic attic supplying you with an endless cycle of husbands? It’s the best kind of high-concept question, one that opens up plenty of space for a writer to play in. And Gramazio (whose background is in game design), has lots of fun exploring every corner of her husband-filled world. The protagonist, Lauren — single and loving it, until she comes home to find a husband she doesn’t remember, who keeps turning into a different spouse whenever he goes into the attic — has the unique opportunity to examine the little ways we all soften at the edges to fit the people in our lives. Lauren, it turns out, learns a lot more about herself and what she values (or doesn’t!) than she does about any individual husband. — Emily Heller

James , by Percival Everett

A re-imagining of a classic work of art has become a time-honored — if sometimes spotty — pursuit, and with James Percival Everett creates an original masterpiece that both complements and rivals one of the most iconic American novels, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn . Written from the perspective of Huck’s loyal companion, the runaway slave Jim (James), the titular adventures of Mark Twain’s book are instead experienced here as the life-or-death trials James faces while he evades capture and strategizes a way to free his enslaved family. There are plenty of references to the earlier novel — and there’s still humor to be found despite the constant danger — but Everett grounds the narrative in James’s rich interior life and a larger historical context that brings a new depth to the familiar characters. This book will linger with you. — Tolly Wright

➽ Read James Yeh’s review of James.

Headshot , by Rita Bullwinkel

In a shabby gym in Reno, Nevada, teenage girls face off in a youth boxing tournament under a shifting ray of daylight that “fills the whole space with a dull, dusty brightness” and surrounded by a sparse crowd of mostly uninterested coaches and parents. The novel enters deep into the girls’ minds as they assess one another’s weaknesses and coax themselves through the rounds, which are described in brutal, bloody detail. Each fighter has her own source of competitive energy, but they’re all realistically ambivalent, too — unsure about why, exactly, they’re drawn to a sport that gives them so little for their trouble. Rita Bullwinkel’s debut novel is as tense and disciplined as its characters, and she has a gift for capturing the way their minds wander far from the ring and back again: One girl counts off the digits of pi, while another obsesses over a death she witnessed as a lifeguard. There’s a mesmerizing sense of limitlessness to the narrative, which roams far into the future of these fighters even as they’re absorbing hits in the ring. — E.A.

Lessons for Survival , by Emily Raboteau

Raboteau emerged on the scene some two decades ago as a writer of sharp, incisive fiction that mapped the contours of identity and race. In recent years, she has become a literary voice of consciousness about the ongoing climate crisis. Across a series of essays, book reviews, and conversations, Raboteau has charted the progression of the crisis, our shared culpability, and our responsibility to develop practical solutions. Lessons for Survival is, in many ways, a culmination and continuation of this work. Raboteau travels locally and abroad to capture stories about the impact of the environmental crisis, and the resilience of communities that find themselves on the front lines. She also writes authentically — her prose seamlessly melds slang and heightened language — about her own experiences as a Black mother, whose identity has shaped her understanding of these issues. This is scintillating work, an essential primer for our times. — Tope Folarin

The grand irony of this juncture in history is that at the very moment when the problems we’re facing — climate change, economic inequality, cross-border violence — require global solutions, our societies have become more atomized than ever. This is the case both within various societies, in which individual concerns increasingly trump collective interests, and between societies, whereby individual countries pursue their objectives at the expense of global cooperation. In their new book, Solidarity: The Past, Present and Future of a World-Changing Idea , Leah Hunt-Hendrix and Astra Taylor offer an essential antidote: a renewed commitment to solidarity. Their book is ambitious and comprehensive. It traces the evolving meaning of solidarity from ancient Rome through the Black Lives Matter movement and identifies different kinds of solidarity, how they arise, and how effective they are in forming and maintaining social bonds. They persuasively argue that in order to create a more “egalitarian world,” we must learn to cultivate and practice the kind of solidarity that “chang[es] the social order toward one that is both freer and more just.” — T.F.

Help Wanted , by Adelle Waldman

Set at a big-box store in upstate New York, Help Wanted recalls Mike White’s Enlightened in its textured portrayal of how small humiliations and injustices at work inevitably boil over into righteous rage. It’s a novel that lingers in the imagination, by which I mean, after you read it you’ll think of it every time you shop at Target, forever. — Emily Gould

➽ Read Emily Gould’s interview with Help Wanted author Adelle Waldman on The Cut .

Stranger , by Emily Hunt

Emily Hunt’s second book of poems considers real intimacy mediated by apps. In “Company,” a long poem originally published as a chapbook, the speaker works for a flower delivery startup, gently pulling roots from soil, culling, clipping, and handing off arrangements. These moments are sensorily rich, slotted into 15-minute assembly-line shifts, and short lines. In “Emily,” Hunt uses messages from Tinder as her source material, not to mock (or not only to mock) the senders or the stilted situation of meeting online, but to construct a self in relief, as seen and spoken to by strangers. A funny and surprising interaction with dailiness, including our phones — the hardware and the relationships maintained through them — and whatever else is still tactile. — M.C.

Dead Weight: Essays on Hunger and Harm, by Emmeline Clein

Emmeline Clein’s Dead Weight seems destined to fundamentally reshape how we think and write about the subject of eating disorders. What separates Clein’s book from others on the topic is her commitment to treating the sufferers of eating disorders with the kind of dignity that clinicians tend to withhold. She writes as an insider, telling both her personal story and sharing the stories of her “sisters,” which range from Tumblr accounts to clinical studies co-authored by their subjects. Throughout, she refrains from including the graphic details that have historically plagued books about the subject. “Too many people I love have misread a memoir as a manual,” she writes. The book she writes instead confronts the complicated entanglement between eating disorders, race, capitalism, and the ongoing erosion of social safety nets. Stereotypes about eating disorders commonly portray the illness as one rooted in control. Dead Weight not only exposes how little control patients have had over their own narratives and bodies, it returns the narrative to those who have suffered from the disease. This is a moving, brilliant, and important book. — Isle McElroy

The Freaks Came Out to Write , by Tricia Romano

If you were reading The Village Voice in the 1990s, as I was, it wasn’t as good as it used to be. That was also true ten years later, and 20 years before, and frankly it was probably what people started saying upon reading issue No. 2 in 1955. What the Voice was, inarguably, was shaggy, sometimes under-edited, alternately vigorous and undisciplined and brilliant and exhausting and fun. The infighting in its pages and in its newsroom was relentless, amped up by the very aggressiveness that made its reporters and editors able to do what they did. You’ll encounter more than one office fistfight in The Freaks Came Out to Write , this oral history by Tricia Romano, who worked there at the very end of its life. She got a huge number of Voice survivors to talk, including almost every living person who played a major role in this beloved, irritating paper’s life, and good archival interviews fill in the gaps. If you read the Voice in its glory days (whenever those were!) you’ll miss it terribly by the end of this book; if you weren’t there, you will be amazed that such a thing not only existed but, for a while, flourished. — Christopher Bonanos

Wandering Stars , by Tommy Orange

Orange’s Pulitzer-finalist debut, 2018’s There There , is a tightly constructed, polyphonic book that ends with a gunshot at a powwow. His follow-up, which shares the first one’s perspective-hopping structure (and several of its characters), is a different beast, an introspective novel about addiction and adolescence. The story begins in the 1860s, when a young Cheyenne man becomes an early subject in the U.S. government’s attempts to assimilate Native Americans. The consequences of this flurry of violence and imprisonment will reverberate through generations of his family, eventually landing in present-day Oakland, California, where three young brothers live with their grandmother and her sister. The oldest brother, Orvil, was shot at There There ’s powwow, and even though he survived, the heaviness of that day is weighing on him and his family. Prescribed opioids for the pain, he finds that — like several of his ancestors, though he has no way of knowing that — he likes the sense of removal they give him. Orange’s novel is unusually curious and gentle in its treatment of addiction; he lets his characters puzzle out why they’re drawn to intoxication, managing to balance a lack of judgment with an understanding of the danger they’re in. — E.A.

➽ Read Emma Alpern’s full review of Wandering Stars .

Come and Get It , by Kiley Reid

In Come and Get It , the second novel from the breakout author of Such a Fun Age , the University of Arkansas serves as the backdrop for Kylie Reid’s assessment of race, class, and social hierarchy on a college campus. Over the course of a semester that shifts between the perspectives of Millie, a meek yet dutiful R.A., Kennedy, a shy transfer student with a traumatic secret, and Agatha, a visiting professor out of her depths, the primary characters are forced to grapple with the heady concepts of desire, privilege, and the rules of social conduct in an environment where the the game is rigged and fairness is reserved for a select few. Light on plot and heavy on character development and social commentary, Come and Get It is the kind of book you put down and immediately want to discuss . But fair warning: If you ever lived in a college dorm in the U.S., this book might inflict a non-negligible amount of PTSD. — A.P.

Martyr! , by Kaveh Akbar

In Poet Kaveh Akbar’s debut novel, Cyrus Shams is a nexus of dissonant identities: He’s a 20-something Iranian-American, a straight-passing queer, a recovering addict, a depressive insomniac, and a writer who’s recently gotten some unflattering feedback. He’s also grieving his parents, who he considers to have died meaninglessly, his mother on a passenger flight out of Tehran that was accidentally shot down by the U.S. military (a real event that occurred in 1988), his father “anonymous[ly] after spending decades cleaning chicken shit on some corporate farm.” Martyr! traces Cyrus’s obsession with the idea of dying with a purpose, disrupting linear time and moving miraculously between worlds and perspectives. Sometimes, the dead speak for themselves; we hear from Cyrus’s mother and his uncle, who recounts his life as a soldier in the Iran-Iraq war. The book also shines with humor, including an imagined conversation between Cyrus’s mother and Lisa Simpson. Akbar’s prose courses with lyrical intelligence and offers an interrogation of whose pain matters — and what it means to live and die meaningfully — that is as politically urgent as it is deeply alive. — J.V.

The Rebel’s Clinic , by Adam Shatz

In these chaotic times, Franz Fanon’s work is constantly and enthusiastically referenced. A new generation of activists — as many before them — has repurposed Fanon’s words to describe our current travails, and to propose how we might move forward. Fanon persists in the activist imagination as a kind of radical soothsayer, an intellectual who can speak authoritatively about our moment because of his identity as a Black man and colonial subject who personally experienced the barbarity of a colonizing power. In The Rebel’s Clinic , Adam Shatz complicates our understanding of Fanon’s life and work, and persuasively conjures the human being who wrote the words that have inspired so many. Among Shatz’s most important interventions is to highlight Fanon’s vocation as a doctor who “treated the torturers by day and the tortured at night.” Shatz’s book is a chronicle of a man who, because of his identity and gifts, was obliged to constantly reconcile opposing ideas and ways of being. — T.F.

I Survived Capitalism and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt , by Madeline Pendleton

Finally, a book about money that knows money is evil. TikTok’s favorite Marxist small-business owner wrote a book on financial literacy, and it delivers on its promise. Half memoir, half how-to, the book explores Pendleton’s journey to fiscal solvency while also including handy tutorials on things like buying a car and enduring financial stress. (Pendleton starts the book with the death by suicide of her partner, primarily motivated by looming bankruptcy, so that how-to hits especially hard.) Pendleton’s personal story brings pathos and relatability to her finance guidance. Every hardship someone of her generation could fall prey to, she does — predatory loans, for-profit college, go-nowhere internships, not realizing couch-surfing is the same as homelessness and therefore taking longer to embrace class solidarity. But for every setback, she notes a resource for resilience. Everything from the kindness of the punk scene to good grifts to pull on the phone company, this book gives you the tools to create a sustainable life in late capitalism. — Bethy Squires

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Home — Essay Samples — Social Issues — Martin Luther King — Martin Luther King Jr’s Biography

Martin Luther King Jr: Biography and Impact

• Categories: Martin Luther King

About this sample

Words: 496 |

Published: Jan 4, 2019

Words: 496 | Page: 1 | 3 min read

Hook Examples for Essay about Martin Luther King Jr.

• A Beacon of Hope: In a turbulent era marked by racial strife and inequality, one man’s voice resonated above the clamor, offering hope, inspiration, and the promise of a brighter future. Martin Luther King Jr., a name etched into the annals of history, stood as a symbol of unwavering dedication to civil rights and justice.
• The Dreamer Who Changed a Nation: “I have a dream…” These iconic words, spoken by Martin Luther King Jr. during the March on Washington, echoed across the nation and transformed the course of history. Let’s delve into the life and legacy of the man behind the dream.
• A Man of Faith and Conviction: Beyond the civil rights leader, Martin Luther King Jr. was a Baptist minister whose Christian beliefs profoundly influenced his commitment to nonviolence and equality. Explore the intersection of faith and activism in his remarkable journey.
• Montgomery to Memphis: From the Montgomery bus boycott to the iconic March on Washington and the tragic events in Memphis, Martin Luther King Jr.’s life was a tumultuous odyssey. Join us as we trace his steps and examine the milestones that defined his mission.
• A Legacy of Progress: Martin Luther King Jr.’s impact endures not only in the annals of history but in the principles and values that continue to shape our society today. Explore how his vision for a just and equal America still resonates in the ongoing fight for civil rights.

Works Cited

• Carson, Clayborne. (2001). Martin Luther King, Jr.: A Biography. 1st ed., Greenwood Press.
• Fairclough, Adam. (1995). Martin Luther King Jr. and the Quest for Nonviolent Social Change. New York University Press.
• Garrow, David J. (1986). Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. 1st ed., William Morrow.
• King Jr., Martin Luther. (2013). Letter from Birmingham Jail. The Atlantic. Retrieved from www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/08/letter-from-birmingham-jail/309062/.
• King Jr., Martin Luther. (2021). I Have a Dream. National Archives. Retrieved from www.archives.gov/files/press/exhibits/dream-speech.pdf.
• Kotz, Nick. (2005). Judgment Days: Lyndon Baines Johnson, Martin Luther King Jr., and the Laws That Changed America. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
• Loevy, Robert D. (1990). To End All Segregation: The Politics of the Passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. University of North Carolina Press.
• Sitkoff, Harvard. (2008). The Struggle for Black Equality: 1954-1980. Hill and Wang.
• Theoharis, Jeanne. (2018). A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History. Beacon Press.
• Woloch, Nancy. (1985). Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. American Historical Review, 90(5), 1239-1240.

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