"What If...?" History Benchmark: Dr. King assassinated in 1958.

Screen Shot 2012-06-02 at 12.47
Screen Shot 2012-06-02 at 12.47
To view my project (which is a webpage), please click here.

Point of Divergence: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1958.

For my point of divergence, I focused on Dr. King getting assassinated in 1958. Historically, Dr. King was stabbed in 1958 by a woman named Izola Curry. In reality, he barely survived. However, for the sake of this project, the stabbing was fatal. As a result of the incident, America was altered. The Civil Rights movement became far more violent, as Dr. King was a supporter of nonviolent protests. Malcolm X stepped up and led the movement after Dr. King passed away, making him more distinguished in it.

As a result of the POD, the future America would continue to be segregated. After Dr. King passed in 1958, Jim Crow laws were once again enforced because the Civil Rights movement became violent. This forced the country to enforce segregation so that another violent casualty could not occur. Since the laws were enforced, African Americans eventually became more tolerant of them. The reason is because the supporters of nonviolence would never find another leader like Dr. King to bring them together.

I liked the fact that this project allowed me to think deeply about an outcome of a different situation. I have always found myself wondering questions like "What if this happened instead". This project gave me the opportunity to explore this thought for a lasting topic that I find very compelling, the fight for equality. It was however difficult finding primary sources that would support my point of divergence, as there were not many available. For example, it took me a while to find the psychiatric examination records of Izola Curry (the woman that stabbed MLK). There were not many primary sources about her out there, most were secondary. Luckily, I eventually found what I was looking for when going on a website about his life.

A very interesting fact that I learned was that changing the date of a small event could greatly change the world as we know it. At first, I didn't think that my point of divergence would have changed the world today by much because Dr. King was actually assassinated. However, by changing the date that it happened, the future turned out very different. There were so many differences as a result of my POD that I could only focus on one change. Otherwise, I would have been writing an entire book.

Systemic changes impart history because most historic evens occur that a group of people come together. As individuals, we are puny. But together, we are a force to be reckoned with. Anyway, I could have improved my project my going through a checklist. If I had made one early on, I could have checked my progress throughout the entire process. At the end, I felt like I was unsure whether or not I was missing something.


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