Comparing The Speeches Of Malala And Martin Luther King Jr.

Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his speech “I Have a Dream” on August 28, 1963. Malala Yousafzai delivered her Nobel Peace Prize speech on October 10, 2014. Though their speeches may have been given 51 years apart, their goal of equality and rights of all people remain constant. Both influential people have faced discrimination and abuse of power, then which has resulted in risks for the people their defending, but still have hope and goals to restore the inequality they are fighting against.
Malala and Martin Luther King Jr. are significant figures in history due to their influential actions during a troubling time. They both felt strongly about the discrimination they were facing and decided to take a stand about it. Within the Swat Valley
in Pakistan, during this time, militants used their power of terrorization and abuse to put a stop to girl’s education. “Education went from being a right to being a crime. Girls were stopped from going to school” (Nobel Lecture). The militants took away the right to learn and be involved in school for the girls in the area.
Militants believed that girls shouldn’t be allowed to receive an education and were intimidated by the possibility of the people they would become if they did. Every person should have the opportunity for education, and it isn’t ethically right for anyone to be scared into abandoning that right. For children to be the ones fighting this injustice is unfair for people who are so young. “It is for those forgotten children who want education. It is for those frightened children who want peace. It is for those voiceless children who want change. I am here to stand up for their right, to raise their voice” (Nobel Lecture). It is known that it’s difficult for children to be heard. A child is never taken seriously because of their innocent and immature nature. Now that Malala has the publicity and the story, she can use her power to bring up the subject of children’s education being taken from them, and be the voice of the thousands of children who are not receiving education. Martin Luther King Jr. faced a different type of injustice, instead of education, he, and the African American community faced racial injustice. Slavery may have been banned in 1865, African Americans still face prejudice. “But one hundred years
later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination” (Martin Luther King). During this time in history people were still very suspicious about the idea of anyone who wasn’t white. The majority group felt as if the minority’s still didn’t belong, and shouldn’t be treated as a human being. There was a lot of distrust between the two groups of people, which usually ended with violence. African Americans were not at this time only facing unjust treatment but they treated as enemies of the country, that they didn’t belong in America because of their skin color. “One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself in exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize an shameful condition” (Martin Luther King). There was an idea within society that if you were anything but white that you didn’t belong. This led to segregation weather that included bathrooms, restaurants, or public transport. The distrust between the majority and minority led to a very divided society and country. Whites and African Americans could all be living in the same city, but they never interacted willingly.
A stand in something that is important is influential, but in doing that it may result in strong opposed opinions about the issue.
Because Malala stood up for education, she had to face what the militants would consider a consequence. “The terrorists tried to stop us and attacked me and my friends who are here today, on our school bus in 2012, but neither their ideas no their bullets could win” (Nobel Lecture). Because she voiced her opinion and wanted to continue her education, the militants wanted to make an example out of her. They hoped that this would put a stop to the ideas of giving education to girls. Though, Malala, and the other two girls survived they will always be left with those memories. They were shooting children just because they believed in idea of education for themselves. Education gives people a future, and because of the ban on her city during this time, Malala had to watch one of friends suffer the damage of not being able to participate in school. “One of my very good school friends, the same age as me, who had always been a bold and confident girl, dreamed of becoming a doctor. But her dream remained a dream. At the age of 12, she was forced to get married. And then soon she had a son, she had a child when she herself was still a child-only 14. I know that she could have been a very good doctor. But she couldn’t…because she was a girl” (Nobel Lecture). At the age of 12, her whole future was given away. Forced to be married, and have a child. Because
her education stopped, she only had the option of having to rely on a husband, because that is customary within her country. She could have been a doctor who discovered the cure for a thought “incurable disease”, but now no one will ever know. This injustice towards children, especially violence relates to what the African Americans faced during the time of Martin Luther King Jr. “We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating “for whites only”” (Martin Luther King). “Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred” (Martin Luther King). Martin Luther King Jr. never intended for there to be violence when fighting for justice for African Americans, though again because they did speak up it resulted in violence in hope that they would learn from other people’s mistake in speaking up. Even though Martin Luther King Jr. was never someone to promote or participate in violence, in the end was shot right in front of his own home, because people were upset by the truth of what he was saying and had conflicting opinions about it.