Man of Vision

The Man of Vision By Dwiki Febri Ristanto What do you want to be in the future?” this is a question most children in the world must have been asked. Their answer might vary: from becoming a teacher or a doctor until becoming an astronaut. They say what they want to be proudly, without hesitation at all. Unfortunately, as the time passes by, and as those children grow, they started to learn how life is actually and started to abandon the dream they once dreamed—they started to be afraid of dreaming. This is what I noticed happening in nowadays society. Talking about dream brings me to one particular inspiring person in mind. He is Martin Luther King Jr. His name was actually Michael Luther King when he was born on January 15, 1929, but he then changed his name into Martin after his father’s name. Both his grandfather and his father were pastors. It might be the reason of why Martin Luther King, eventually, became a pastor as well. Born in Atlanta, Georgia, US, he grew as a black-skinned person in USA when, at that time, everything was not this easy. Different treatment is applied for the black people and the white ones. This is what we call as apartheid. Apart from the hard time he and many other black-people in US had at that time, he was still keeping his strength to fight the civil right for people of his race. He was a member of the executive committee of National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, by which became a way of him to attain to achieve race equality in US. Furthermore, he then took leadership part in the first great Negro non-violent demonstration of contemporary times in the United States that once was known as the bus boycott. This indeed had never been easy. During these boycott days, King was arrested, his home was bombed and he was subjected to personal abuse. Nonetheless, his dream of having race-equality in US was slowly achieved. He didn’t stop there. He travelled to many places to bring justice wherever he could, he led several action and protest to bring a change, he wrote 5 books and numerous articles to inspire people, he directed people making a manifesto for good and he brought world to a great Negro revolution. Those all are what he did in only period of 11 years. Besides them all, the thing he did that I consider as the biggest one was his speech in front of 250,000 people in Washington, DC where he addressed his “I Have a Dream” passionately and inspiringly at that time. However, during the period, he was also arrested upwards of twenty times and assaulted at least four times. But they were never enough to stop King. King was even awarded 5 honorary degrees, named as Man of the Year by TIME magazine in 1963 and received Nobel Peace Prize at the age of 35 that gave him a title of youngest person to receive a Nobel Peace Prize. Personally, I see him as a man of vision. His vision was definitely smart, beneficial for many people and of course inspiring. He teaches me to not afraid to dream and that the pride and eager we want must be something unselfish and for the goods of many people own, not only ours. What matter the most are the action he did, the deeds he showed and the words he sounded that were a united things that produces the best example that was practically proved. He also involved God in everything he did. Moreover, he also shows me that no one is too young or too inexperienced to make a change. A leader, in my opinion, should be able to direct all components that he leads to achieve one or more goals or aim. It comes to my realization that the basic of this is the vision itself—the dream. To have a vision is very important. Realize it or not, everything in this world was once someone’s vision: fire, aeroplane, racketeer, electrical devices even you and me were the realization of someone’s dream. King has it all. He’s got that vision in his hand, and he got that power to realize his vision. That power came from the difficulties, some hard time, desperation, tiredness and even the boredom the life gave. In addition, to direct those all components, the leader must inspire all the people he led. Martin Luther King inspired the people of his race, and other Americans, and other people in other country, and even the world. He inspired many people, not only once, but now he is inspiring people and possibly will inspire more and more people. I remember King, that inspiring black Negro-American race equality activist, once said “Even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream,” in his speech on 1963. Then, 50 years later, Barrack Obama, the first Afro-American President of US said “Yes, We Can!” Can you see the power of the dream? Source: http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1964/king-bio.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King,_Jr. Agnes Monica’s Speech on Global Youth Forum 2012