I have a Dream

Martin Luther King Jr. Biography

King was born in Atlanta, Georgia, and was ordained as a Baptist minister at age 18. He graduated from Morehouse College in 1948 and from Crozer Theological Seminary in 1951. In 1955 he earned a doctoral degree in systematic theology from Boston University. While in Boston, King met Coretta Scott, whom he married in 1953.
In 1954 King accepted his first pastorate at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. Montgomery's black community had long-standing grievances about the mistreatment of blacks on city buses. Heading the year-long bus-boycott against segregation in buses, King soon became a national figure.
In 1957 King helped found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), an organization of black churches and ministers that aimed to challenge racial segregation. King and other SCLC leaders encouraged the use of nonviolent marches, demonstrations, and boycotts to protest discrimination.
King and other black leaders organized the 1963 March on Washington, a massive protest in Washington, D.C., for jobs and civil rights. King delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech to an audience of more than 200,000 civil rights supporters. The speech and the march created the political momentum that resulted in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibited segregation in public accommodations and discrimination in education and employment. As a result of King's effective leadership, he was awarded the 1964 Nobel Prize for peace.
Throughout 1966 and 1967 King increasingly turned the focus of his activism to the redistribution of the nation's economic wealth to overcome entrenched black poverty. In the spring of 1968 he went to Memphis, Tennessee, to support striking black garbage workers. King was assassinated in Memphis on April 4, 1968.

Martin Luther King Jr. goes down in history as one of the principal leader of the civil rights movement in the United States and a prominent advocate of nonviolent protest. King's challenges to segregation and racial discrimination helped convince many white Americans to support the cause of civil rights in the United States.

The Beauty of Patience

Patience rolls into the boy's mind

Thinking coldly in his ripped clothes

As he waits patiently under the falling sun.

In The Alchemist, Coelho reveals the value that the personal legend or destiny is not achieved over night, but through the long period of patience with a series of challenges. Sometimes we need to be more patient and wait longer than we think to get things done as Santiago has to wait for more than 11 months to be ready for his next adventurous journey working at the crystal shop. During 11 months he learned many things through conversation with the owner and dealing with the customers in many different ways. So patience is not just to spend time waiting for something, but to learn something valuable waiting for the time God allows. Regardless of time periods and cultures, Coelho is telling us that what eventually allows people to achieve their life goal is not time, but what people do during the time they wait. It’s painful for Fatima to say goodbye to Santiago as she loves Santiago so much. However, she does it willingly because she believes that Santiago will come back. Patience is painful, but as long as there is a belief and hope it’s valuable. This is the beauty of patience.

ESSAY AND TRAIT

“Am I going to find my treasure?”(Coelho pg 41) In the Novel, The Alchemist, there is a boy named Santiago, in Andalusia, Spain who works as a shepherd traveling with his herd of sheep. After having a dream about treasure, he decides to make a sacrifice to follow his dreams. He seeks out to find his destiny by going to Egypt. One the way to Egypt, Santiago meets many people who support him on his journey and also a lady called Fatima who he falls in love with. As Santiago goes on his destined journey, he has to overcome several challenges and pay for the wisdom he obtains. At the end of the journey, he achieves his own destiny with risk taking, courage, and open-mind.

On his journey to Pyramid, Santiago always takes risks when making decisions rather than stay in his comfort zone. First of all it’s not easy for a young boy to make up his mind to leave home to find his destiny which is finding a treasure. Even though he has his dream interpreted by a gypsy and encouragement from Melchizedek, a King of Salem, his success in finding treasures is not guaranteed. But Santiago decided to leave Andalusia by taking a big risk. Later, Santiago earns lots of money after working more than eleven months in the crystal shop. It is enough to buy himself a hundred and twenty sheep, a return ticket to Andalusia and a license to import products from Africa to his own country. He does not have to go to Egypt to find a treasure as it is obvious that he will be a rich merchant with what he has in hand. However, he decides to take risks and continue his challenging journey to pursue his personal legend. “I’m going away. And I want you to know that I’m coming back.”(Coelho pg. 121). Santiago has already found his treasure including a camel, money from the Crystal shop, and 50gold pieces. And he also has a treasure greater than anything else he has won according to him, which is Fatima, a woman of the desert. Even though he promises that he would come back, he knows he might not come back because crossing the desert is a dangerous journey in which he could lose his life. He decides to leave Al-Fayuom because he believes what he would have at the end of the journey is greater than all the risks he would take. The risk taking attitude he shows on his journey is critical to his success in achieving his own destiny and understanding new things around the world.

Courage is one of the qualities that Santiago shows to overcome several crises he faces during his journey. When a young Arab boy in the market place robs his money and runs away, Santiago lost everything. But the courage in him allows that he doesn’t give up the hope of finding his treasure. When he realizes that he has to choose between thinking of himself as the poor victim of a thief and as an adventurer in quest of his treasure, he tells himself that he is an adventurer looking for his own treasure and tries to find a job to get out of the crisis. Later, when a horseman in black asks who dares to read the signs of the hawks, Santiago answers “It is I who dared to do so.” (Coelho pg.109) Santiago doesn’t get scared of the horsemen yelling at him who gets mad at Santiago for reading his signs. Even though the horseman draws his sword out and points at Santiago’s forehead, Santiago is not afraid that he is going to die because he knows that it would save a lot of people’s lives including Fatima, the woman he loves. Another time when Santiago shows his courage is the night before Santiago leaves Al Fayuom. He walks out among the palms with Fatima even though he knows it is a violation of the tradition. His courage doesn’t care about the rule of the tribe because it’s more important for him to tell the woman he loves that he would leave to find his treasure and promise that he will come back to meet her again. The courage Santiago has is extremely important for him to make a sacrifice to follow his dream, overcome the most challenging situations he faces during the journey, and actually make those situations become opportunities.

Santiago’s open-mind allows him to be able to help other people and also get support from others when needed during his journey. First, Santiago listens to others with his open-mind set and learns something new from them which eventually help him in fulfilling his personal legend. He learns about destiny from Melchizedek, Soul of the World from an Englishman, and listening to his heart from the Alchemist. These three key learning guides him to the right direction to the final destiny. Second, Santiago’s open-mind helps him quickly adapt to a new environment or situation. When he is under the unfavorable condition which he never expects, almost everything is new and challenging to Santiago. He loses everything in the first place he reaches, he has to find a job in the crystal shop for eating, he is in danger when he tells his omen to save people in Al Fayuom, and he is beaten by two men in Egypt. However, he manages all these challenges with open-mind set. Third, “You brought a new feeling into my crystal shop” (Coelho pg.61) Santiago suggests many changes to the owner of the crystal shop not only to earn more money for him to buy sheep and ticket to return, but help the owner follow his dream or destiny. He cares the owner who is afraid of changing things as well as himself so that the owner has a chance to think of the way of his life vs. his dream. Santiago’s open-mind helps him meet various people and interact with them which are essential in his journey to fulfill his dream.

Pursuing own destiny, a young boy, Santiago begins his own journey to Pyramid in Egypt. Struggling with various challenging situations, the boy learns and understands more about the world and himself through the traits he already has and he gains from his journey. Risk taking, courage, and open-mind are some of those traits which allow Santiago to achieve this goal. In our daily school life, sometimes we have to take a risk to scarify one as we have to choose the other. As the difference makes value, we might need to be more courageous to choose one which most people do not choose. If we have open-mind we may listen to others to make a right decision which benefits both us and others.








The trait that I think I have is helpful because I try to help people whenever and where ever I can because my destiny is to become a teacher. My destiny is to become a teacher because this was my dad's destiny and he also wants me to achieve this because he thinks that I can be a good teacher by my trait. I think that my trait can help me achieve what my dad wants me to be, being a teacher.