Martin Luther King Jr. (1929 - 1968)

Martin Luther King was U.S. civil-rights leader who helped end legal segregation of African- Americans in the South and other parts of the United States.

Although King, the son and grandson of baptist preachers, had a comfortable middle-class upbringing, he experienced the racial prejudice then common in the South. He became acquainted with Mohandas Ghandi's philosophy of nonviolence while studying at Crozer Theological Semi­nary in Chester, Pa. Ordained a Baptist minister in 1954, he became pastor of a church in Montgomery, Ala., the following year he received a doctorate in theology from Boston University. He was selected to head the Montgomery Im­provement Association after Rosa Parks, an African-Ameri­can woman, was arrested for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white passenger; the association's boycott eventually ended the city's policy of racial segregation on public transportation. In 1957 he formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and began lecturing nationwide, urging nonviolent protest to achieve civil rights for African-Americans. In 1960 he returned to Atlanta to become copastor, with his father, of Ebenezer Baptist Church. He received national attention after he was jailed for protesting segregation at a local lunch counter; he was released only after presidential candidate John F. Kennedy inter­ceded on his behalf. In 1963 he helped organise the March on Washington, at which he delivered his famous "I have a dream" speech to an assembly of more than 200,000. The march influenced the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In December 1964 King was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace. In 1965 he was criticised by civil-rights activists for yielding to state troopers at a march in Selma, Ala., and for failing to change Chicago's policy of racially segregated housing. Thereafter he began to address the plight of the poor of all races, and he joined those who opposed U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. King was assassinated by James Earl Ray, a petty criminal, on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tenn.,- the murder sparked disturbances in more than 100 cities across the country. A U.S. national holiday is celebrated in King's honor on the third Monday in January.

John Locke (1632 - 1704)

John Locke was the first of the empiricist opponents of Descartes to achieve comparable authority among his European contemporaries.

Known as the founder of modern liberalism, political philosopher John Locke was born in Somerset, England. His greatest contributions were in the fields of political philosophy, as articulated in the initially anonymous work The Two Treatises of Government and in epistemology as presented in Essay Concerning Human Understanding, both published in 1690. In response to the tumultuous nature of British politics of the period, Locke rejected the theory of divine right and offered a radical reevaluation of the individual's role in governance. He contended that rational individuals have a God-given right to initiate a contract of governance and retain the right to rebel if the government ceases to honor the terms of the contract.

In Two Treatises, Locke rejects English political theorist Robert Filmer's philosophy of divine right and patriarchy. Locke believed that each individual owns the result of his labor. This notion, radical for its time, was embraced by Enlightenment theorists and is inherent in the development of classical liberalism and modern political thought.

Locke's Essays on the Laws of Nature was published in 1663, the year before he was named as Censor of Moral Philosophy at Oxford University. In 1664 Locke enrolled in medical school at Oxford. Although Locke trained to be a doctor, in 1666, he met Lord Ashley, an important politician, and became his secretary. When Ashley was appointed the lord chancellor of England in 1672, Locke became secretary to the Council of Trade and Plantations. In 1675, he moved to France for several years, where he met important philosophers including Pierre Gassendi. During Locke's time abroad, Ashley, now long fallen from power, had been plotting against the succession of the Catholic James II to the throne, and when Ashley was arrested, Locke fled to Holland. He did not return to England until 1689, after James II had been replaced in a bloodless revolution by the Protestant king of Holland, William of Orange. During his five years of exile in Holland, Locke completed his Essay Concerning Human Understanding, A Letter Concerning Toleration, and worked on Two Treatises on Civil Government. In 1689, Locke was appointed the commissioner of appeals, but from then until his death in 1704, he spent most of his time in philosophical study, staying with his friends, the philosopher Lady Masham and her husband.

An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, considered by many scholars to be Locke's most significant work, proved to be a watershed in English philosophy and launched the school of British empiricism. Locke used this work to express his support for King William, who had succeeded to the English throne with his wife Mary after the Glorious Revolution of 1688. William and Mary introduced religious toleration in England, a notion heartily endorsed by Locke. In order to avoid expected controversy, Locke's Letter Concerning Toleration was published anonymously in 1689.

Locke's interest in a wide range of disciplines was evident by some of his other works, including Some Considerations of the Consequences of the Lowering of Interest (1691), The Raising of the Value of Money (1692), and Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693). During the year before his death in 1704, Locke worked on Some Thoughts Concerning Reading and Study for a Gentleman.