More than Altruism: An Examination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Involvement in the Chicago Campaign and Protest of the Vietnam War

Poiroux, Stephanie (2019) More than Altruism: An Examination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Involvement in the Chicago Campaign and Protest of the Vietnam War. Undergraduate thesis, under the direction of Willa Johnson from Sociology & Anthropology, University of Mississippi.

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Abstract

This mix-method study examines whether Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s writing reflects altruism. Utilizing content analysis, I examined 60 of King’s sermons, speeches, letters, newspaper statements, and telegrams about the Chicago Campaign and the Vietnam War over two separate two-year periods starting from January 1, 1965 to December 31, 1967. King’s documents were scored based on the Altruistic Personality Scale for Leaders and Protest, which was created based on the characteristics of both passive and active bystanders derived from studies written by scholars of psychology. After analyzing the range, complexity, and density of King’s altruism, this study shows that all but seven of King’s writings expressed altruism with his writings concerning his involvement in the Chicago Campaign and protest of the Vietnam War being moderately altruistic. A pattern emerged within the documents indicating that King envisioned the formation of an entirely new social movement that sought to change the social structure of the northern cities by addressing three major social problems that he saw as paralyzing progress: education, employment, and housing. The effects of such a movement when considered within the range of events such as the Poor People’s Campaign portend change for people of color and for the country as a whole.

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