This article argues that President Ronald Reagan appropriated Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s words and memory to suggest equal opportunity in the United States had been largely achieved. Individuals—rather than the government—now had to take responsibility for any additional progress. By arguing that the dismantling of federal civil rights laws and social programs was actually consistent with Dr. King's words, President Reagan advanced his own agenda for civil rights in direct violation of Dr. King's intentions, while narrowing the purview of civil rights to eliminate government intervention in employment, education, and other arenas.
The communicative dimensions of career models have been insufficiently explored in contemporary career literature. Linear or bureaucratic career models dominate career research, metaphors, paradigms, and ideologies while maintaining career myths. These myths suggest the possibility of flexibility and individualized routes to “success” in organizational systems incapable of offering such versatility. Nonlinear career models offer suggestive metaphors for re-visioning careers and the promise of personalized definitions of success, control, and growth. Nonlinear approaches reconfigure career concepts to incorporate acceptance of individual needs and communal values consonant with demographic and structural societal changes.
The Civil Rights Act of 1968 was the result of a complex convergence of presidential public persuasion in a context of increasing domestic violence associated with a series of summer disturbances and the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Analysis of Lyndon Johnson's public discourse supporting the 1968 Civil Rights Act reveals that rhetorical transcendence was employed as a recurrent strategy in attempts to pass legislation.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.