Thomas Jefferson was born in April 13, 1743 in Shadwell, Virginia. He is known as Author of the Declaration of Independence and 3rd president of the United States. He was a farmer and became a lawyer in 1776. He had served as president for two terms 1801-1809; served as vice president, secretary of state, congressman, governor of Virginia, and minister to France; he was the founder of the University of Virginia; he also served as president of the American Philosophical Society. Jefferson’s political career began in 1769 when he was elected for Virginia’s House of Burgesses.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was born in January 15th, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia. He is known as the civil rights leader who said “I have a dream”. Martin Luther King, Jr. was an African-American leader who supported social changes through nonviolent means. He had great spiritual strength and was a powerful speaker. As a student at Morehouse College in Atlanta, at Boston University and at Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania, he had deepened his understanding of theological scholarship and of Mahatma Gandhi’s nonviolent strategy for social change. He was pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama form 1954-1959. In 1963 he was helping organize the March on Washington, he had gathered more than 200,000 protestors at which he made his famous speech “I have a Dream”. After a nonviolent protest against racial discrimination he had addressed a “Letter from Birmingham Jail” to his fellow clergyman.
Thomas Jefferson and Martin Luther King Jr. are two American men that were key leaders during very controversial periods in U.S. history, and they were instrumental in movements that forever changed American society. Although their generations, cultures, backgrounds, and motives were quite different, their cause was relatively the same. It was a cause that stood against injustice, oppression, and sought the freedom of all men. Their