Three Ways of Meeting Oppression
By
Martin Luther King
Martin Luther King Jr. was born January 15, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia. He was son of an
Atlantic pastor. King is well known as the symbol of freedom and peace. He was a graduate from
Morehouse as a Minister in 1948 and attended Crozer Theological seminary in Chester, PA. Here
he earned his divinity degree. Then in 1955 he graduated from Boston University earning his
doctorate in theology. In December of 1964 King did receive the Nobel Peace Prize.
Unfortunately on April 4, 1968 King was assassinated by James Earl Ray outside his motel
room. Martin Luther King Jr. is now known as a martyr of the civil rights movement.
In his speech of “Three Ways of Meeting Oppression” he has a strong purpose and that is to speak out loud for those oppressed people. Letting us know how the oppressed deal with their
oppression. Dr. King did come up with 3 characteristics explaining how the oppressed people
deal with their oppression. He also speaks of the method that he strongly supports.
The three ways of oppression that he expresses in his essay are acquiescence, resort to
owndefinition that it will be explained on the next paragraphs. They are oppressions that people
haveto go through sometimes or its part of their everyday lives.
The first oppression is acquiescence people actually adjust to this oppression. It is a way
that people resign and doom to themselves. There is a way of freedom to exhaustion that people
areso tired and upset that they give up on themselves or on hopes that they have. This is a type
ofnegative freedom and resign that is a fault of oppressed. This is not the way out to accept
passivelyunjust it is to cooperative. Acquiescence is interpreted as proof of inferiority.
The second oppression that is going to be explained is resort to physical violence.
Violence often happens to negative action. When there is violence not every time there is...