Topic: Dr. Martin Luther King

Order Description
History often simplifies the truth, as anyone who reads Nicholas Lemann’s article on the complicated path to civil rights can attest. One of the figures prominently mentioned in Lemann’s article, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., is certainly larger from our current perspective than he seemed in 1963 because of his later role in the civil rights movement. But even with such giant figures as King, questions arise about his historical role which are less important than they deserve to be, or more important, depending on your individual view of history.

For example, long after his death in 1968, Dr. King was found to have plagiarized large parts of his doctoral dissertation. Many people are completely unaware of this accusation, many others believe it to be false, and still others think that even it’s true it shouldn’t matter because of Dr. King’s lifelong body of work.

To gain familiarity with Dr. King’s plagiarism, take a quick look at the Wikipedia entry on the subject, which seems neutral in its presentation of the facts and chronology of the case: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King,_Jr. Based on this article (which is only a superficial introduction to the many biographies, articles and history books), do you feel that it diminishes Dr. King’s reputation in any way? Do you feel, for example, that after Boston University’s board of trustees became aware of the plagiarism, they should have posthumously revoked the doctorate that they awarded him in 1955? What do you think that universities should do in general when they’ve discovered that any degree has been awarded on the basis of plagiarized work? Do you agree with Boston University‘s general policy of revoking such degrees and also their specific decision in this case of making an exception because of King’s contributions to society? Which part, if any, do you disagree with?

If you Google “Martin Luther King” and “plagiarism” you will find many websites which address this issue. Some of them are openly racist websites, which I strongly suspect are making a great deal about Dr. King’s plagiarism in an attempt to smear his overall reputation. Open some of these websites and see if you can figure out which ones have a racist agenda by reading some of their other articles and links. Are any websites extremely biased in Dr. King’s favor? How can you tell which websites have a pro-King bias, an anti-King bias, and which are reliably neutral? Using MLA-style documentation yourself, of course, show how your exploration of the websites yields information that is useful to you in appraising the quality, agenda, authors, of these websites, and how you would characterize these websites in a paper you were preparing on the subject of Dr. King’s plagiarism.

I expect you have been doing some of this research already, and will do much more of it in the weeks ahead. Some of this research may seem to you wasted, in that you will not be use it directly in your final paper but it will serve to inform you more generally of your subject, so it is not really wasted. This paper is due as an electronic attachment to an e-mail for full credit by May 7th. This attachment must be in WORD, and I must be able to open it in WORD. (See IT if you have any trouble putting it into this format.) I would like the documentation, and the essay itself, to be in MLA-style. Although I don’t like requiring essays to be of any particular length, and will be very critical of excessive wordiness, it may be helpful to realize that since this final essay is worth over 4 times as many points as any of your previous DBs (13 points) it will be hard to earn a decent grade at anything under four times the minimum length of your previous DBs. I’d imagine the most concise and professional writer could cover this topic adequately in an essay of about 2500 words, but I’d question whether most of you are economical and professional writers–so that may the range of the most minimal word-length many of you should be thinking of.

If you hand this essay in early (before May 7th) I will be able to mark it and grade it, and I will return it you this term. If you hand it in on the 7th, I will grade it this term and will have it marked by the beginning of next term (please make an appointment to pick it up.) If you hand it late, a point will be deducted from the 13, but I will mark it and be able to submit a final grade if you submit by the 10th. ANYTHING SUBMITTED AFTER THE 10th of May will not count in your final grade, so please make sure to submit all your work by the tenth of May as an WORD attachment in an email addressed from your Pace account to [email protected]

Ben Peck, who is a research librarian at Pace, has been added to this course and will be available to help you do the research necessary for this paper. See his thread directly above this one.

Please do NOT think of this as primarily an opinion paper. Your opinion is required, but it MUST be based on facts that can be supported and documentated only through extensive library research.