Topics in Cultural Studies Modern Cultural Artifact Is the Dr. Martin Luther King Memorial

Abstract

In this final project of Topics in Cultural studies; I hope to expound on the creation of an artifact that is in its very infancy as artifacts are dated. This is one of Dr. Martin Luther King Father, Husband, Minster, Civil Rights Leader and overall Good Man and the Roman type of granite monument that had been built in his honor in Washington D.C this nation Capital.

I will talk about The Monument where it's located and what it looks like, "The Cultural Background" by which all things started from the gathering of slaves and the effects on a descendant of Africa after European influences more than 400, to their freedom from slavery, to the civil rights movement of which Dr. King emerges. From here I will move to "The Man" Dr. Martian Luther King? Here we have "The Legacy" who was this civil rights leader and what did he do to advance this new metamorphoses in culture after the assimilation of Western cultures within the United States of people of African lineage.

The Monument

My modern cultural artifact is the Dr. Martin Luther King Memorial located on the National Mall near the Tidal Basin and the Roosevelt memorial. It has an iconic address of 1964 Independence Ave, SW Washington, DC 20024. The street number represents the Civil Rights Act of 1964 of which Dr. King played a large role in the legislation being passed and put into place. Here stands a 3 piece artifact of Dr. King, this statue is 30-foot tall and is carved from a piece of granite that symbolizes the "stone of hope." Two additional pieces of granite depict the "mountain of despair which reflects that victory can be borne from disappointment from his I have dream speech. It is inscribed with all around it the quotes of Dr. King from different times and speeches throughout his life. (Jia,2011)

Cultural Background

This man's life and the fight he put up, only amplifies how decentralization of one culture and then the assimilation to Western cultures can and has caused these cultures to go through metamorphoses into a whole new culture. It was not hard for me to pick Dr. King's memorial because it shows the effects on a descendant of Africa after European influences more than 400 years later. We can start by first looking at the first signs of European influence on the slave ships that drew a larger proportion of its slaves from Senegambia south to Liberia and a people of Non-Western culture placed into slavery. (EllisD,RichardsonD,2011) This metamorphoses evolved and thereby lead us to "The Emancipation Proclamation" in 1863(Americans Originals, n.d.) and the freedom of slaves with "with the promise that all men were created equal" under the Declaration of Independence (Americans Originals, n.d.); even if it was proven not to be true. When laws like Jim Crow were passed so that the practices of racial segregation in the Southern States of America during the periods of the end of the formal Reconstruction 1877 and the infancy of a civil rights movement in the 1950s could be enforced.( Jim Crow,n.d.) We can see more proof that this whole new culture of people were and are still being looked down upon and viewed as somewhat of a primitive lifestyle under basic European based ideologies and control. There has been and still is to a lesser degree, a culture of racial bigotry, prejudices and intolerance towards a group of people of African lineage to the point that many of these people believed and still believe that about themselves as well.

The Man

Dr. King is best known for his profound use of the English vernacular as an eloquent orator with speeches that have and will change the cultural landscape of this nation forever such as his speech "I Have a Dream". When Dr. King spoke wither it was from the pulpit of his or others church or on the steps of a Montgomery jail to the steps of the Lincoln memorial people had to stop and hear him, it didn't matter if they liked what he said or not they heard him; that was his greatest power of all. Dr. King put up the ultimate fight and paid the greatest price known to man to change this culturally accepted practice of racism, and inequality of all men with his own life. He brought about a feeling as well of a new way of thinking about and towards people of color and any other groups of people that were being treated unfairly and inhumanely. And "The Hope of the Future" to wrap it all up, what I hope the future