




Civil Rights was one of the biggest issues floating around in America during the 1960s. Martin Luther King worked his hardest to try and build an America that people would live in together and love each other. During the 60s there were problems going on in the country with people being racist and that is when Martin Luther King came out with his story “The World House”. His story was written to an audience that was not just African American, but the United States as a whole because a lot of what King points out in his story is that it cannot be done solely by the black community. The story can also be used in any context where two sides of a population, whether it be Muslim or Hindu, can look at King’s writing and apply it to their daily lives. It is clearly thought out and the ideas are backed up by ways the King thinks the people of any population, race or religion can fix their tensions with the other side. As King states, “But today our very survival depends on our ability to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas, to remain vigilant and to face the challenge of change. The large house in which we live demands that we transform this world-wide neighborhood into a world-wide brotherhood.” There are four main points in that statement from King and all of them have to be met in order for his goal to be accomplished. Even today, in 2016, there are problems that could be solved using those four points. The Civil Rights Movement has a big effect of King’s writing because it turns the story into a dream, rather than just being a story.

In “The World House” Martin Luther King addresses a couple of different ideas or problems in the world that he believes can be fixed with simple yet thought out plans. The idea of poverty, which he says can be minimized and ultimately erased if the rich countries, such as the United States, would create a plan similar to that of the Marshall Plan. Where the rich countries would take a small portion of their national product and send it off to those countries in Africa, Asia, and South America that really need it. During the time when this story came out there was a lot of poverty throughout the world, the rich countries were getting richer and the poor countries were getting more and more poor. There wasn’t anyone looking out for the poor countries either, they were on their own and their economies were suffering from it. But the most important part of poverty that King hinted on a little bit is that there are so many people suffering in America. King wishes the government would use the resources, which he knows they have, to help those who are less fortunate and find them homes if they don’t have them and places to eat. One aspect of poverty that is very overlooked is that “The agony of the poor impoverishes the rich; the betterment of the poor enriches the rich. We are inevitably our brother’s keepers because we are our brother’s brother (King).” There has been a lot more community outreach in today’s world then there was in 1960. People are constantly volunteering to help countries that need help and donations are almost always flowing in for every need imaginable for the countries in South America and Africa. But back in the 1960’s the necessary supplies were there to start the process of trying to end poverty, but nothing was truly put into fruition. In the end, having all the poor people suffer will only make the world a worse place, so King is absolutely right when he talks about how the rich suffer more and more the longer the poor people get more poor. King also believes that one-day racism will be whipped from the face of this earth because everyone needs to become part of the greater world.

The Civil Rights Movement was driven by King’s desire for the African Americans to have the same fundamental privileges as the white population. He knew that the blacks deserved to have the same opportunity as the whites in school, the job market, and in every other aspect of life in the United States. King also wanted these rights to register throughout the entire world, exemplified by this quote from “The World House”: “Equality with whites will not solve the problems of either whites or Negroes if it means equality in a world society stricken by poverty and a universe doomed to extinction by war.” Michael Honey also provides an excellent example of how the racism in the South was affecting these men. He states, “he city classified sanitation workers, all of whom were black, as hourly employees with no guarantee of income or hours, a classification that excluded them from city benefits and the state's workmen's compensation program.” This is not where the world should be in King’s eyes and that is why he was hoping this story, which turns out to be more of a dream in his eyes, would make a great impact on the United States and the World as a whole. In the story King mentions the idea of every person being someone’s neighbor. If you treat your neighbor with disrespect, then your neighbor is likely to treat you with the same disrespect and that this could lead to more of the fighting and racism that King talks about in his story. He would rather every neighbor love and welcome their neighbor as if they were their brother. This idea would definitely make a difference in the world as well as help create peace throughout America.

Martin Luther King was a man who had some large visions, but he was also a man who acted on these visions. He didn’t sit around waiting patiently for his visions to come into fruition, he would use his nonviolent methods to try and get his message across even when he was faced with brutal violence from his opposition. In today’s world nonviolent protesting is still treated the same way, with brutal force from the authorities if the protests get too close to something or too large. Martin Luther King’s protesting was no different, the authorities used everything from hoses to dogs to try and get him to go away and stop delivering his message. The time period has a large effect on King’s writing because the writing itself pertains to that exact time period. King writes about what he hopes will happen, but at the same time he is working towards it. He isn’t a writer that is sitting back and watching all of these riots and protests happen. King leads most if not all of riots in the South during this time so he knows exactly what is going on and how to write about it. Yes, he doesn’t write about his experience leading these riots, but it is obvious that he has learned from it and uses that to effectively write down good solutions to the problems he address in this story. 