As we all know, a very important part of our Eminent project is conducting an interview on a person who is an expert on our Notable Person or in his/her chosen field. I originally thought this was going to be an easy task.
Oh boy I was wrong.
Since I know that Dr. King is very well known for his contribution to this world, I thought finding a person to interview wouldn’t be as
much of a challenge compared to my other peers who have chosen people I haven’t heard from before. So being stupidly-confident, I only emailed two professors I managed to find on the world wide web. One professor dedicated his entire life to the works of Dr. King, while the other person I emailed was a professor in human rights. After a matter of days, one of the professors emailed me back saying that he wasn’t available for any interviews,. which was very unfortunate because he is highly respected in his chosen field. The other professor did not email me back at all. I started to worry. I’m was surrounded by people who were fully prepared, got their interviews, and were ready to take on the world. And while that was happening, I panicked quietly to myself, wondering if I would make it alive.
But instead of just sitting around and doing nothing, I told myself “Why don’t you actually email more people?” so I told myself “That’s a great idea!” So that’s what I did. I spent a couple of hours searching for professors and authors who would benefit my Eminent speech project. And at the end, I managed to email 10 individuals in total, hoping that at least one of them would respond and help me in completing this project. I mostly looked at universities who had professors that were respected in their chosen fields, authors that wrote books on Martin Luther King Jr. and his work, and people who contributed to the completion of the Wikipedia page about Dr. King. It seemed that no one would answer, and that I was totally screwed.
This was the email I specifically sent to the individual I interviewed. (All the other emails I sent had the same layout and structure)
Azaly Addam Rahman
Gleneagle Secondary School
1195 Lansdowne Dr Coquitlam, BC, V3B 7Y8
Nov 9th, 2013
Dr. John A. Kirk
Chair and Donaghey Professor of History
University of Arkansas at Little Rock
Sub : Social Studies – Martin Luther King Jr.
Dear Dr. Kirk,
My name is Azaly Addam and I am a grade 9 student at Gleneagle Secondary School in Coquitlam, British Columbia, Canada.
In the month of November, I have a project in which I must research and present the life of a notable individual for Social Studies. For this project, I have chosen Martin Luther King Jr. as my notable person, as his contributions deeply left his mark in world history. I admire King’s dedication and determination to create an equal society, something I believe is very important.
For further development of my project, I would like to interview you in any process (emails, phone call) for your expertise of Martin Luther King Jr. and your view of him and his contribution to this world. My request is asking a lot and you would be going beyond the call for your assistance in my project. All you must consent to is answering a few already-prepared questions done by myself that would benefit my interpretation of King. Any insight granted by you will be beneficial towards accomplishing my assignment and will be greatly appreciated.
Thank you very much for your consideration and your time,
Azaly Addam
125-aaddamrahman@sd43.bc.ca
And I was mostly right. 9/10 to be exact.
At the end, I managed to get an interview! There are no words that can portray the joy I have for receiving an email from a professor all the way from London! And the best part?! He emailed me back in a matter of hours!
Dear Azlay,
Happy to help in whatever way you think best.
John.
He spelled my name wrong, but it still counts! So I decided to ask him three questions with one follow up question that would end off our interview. So these are the three questions I asked him:
Dear Mr. Kirk,
thank you very much for your response. I greatly appreciate your time and efforts to helping complete my project. There are a few questions I would like to ask to further my understanding of Martin Luther King Jr. and what be believed in.
Firstly, was there anything Mr. King stood and fought for besides equality among African-Americans at the time?
Secondly, was Mr. King supported by his peers and friends for his thoughts of fighting for freedom?
And finally, was Mr. King influenced by anyone particular to achieve his goal of equality among the colored-people?
Thank you again for your time and help.
And because he was so amazing, he responded in a matter of hours again!
Dear Addam, Firstly, was there anything Mr. King stood and fought for besides equality among African-Americans at the time? Dr. King (he held a PhD in theology from Boston University) stood and fought for many things besides African American equality. He was a vocal opponent of the Vietnam War and his final campaign, the Poor Peoples Campaign, looked to build a coalition of economically marginalized groups including African Americans, Latinos, and poor white Appalachians. Secondly, was Mr. King supported by his peers and friends for his thoughts of fighting for freedom?
By some and not by others, and at different times in his civil rights career. A good deal of his personal support network, outside of his family, came through the organization he led, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).
And finally, was Mr. King influenced by anyone particular to achieve his goal of equality among the colored-people?
King had a number of influences. Personally, his father played a large role in his development, as did his mentor and president of Morehouse College Benjamin Mays. King had numerous intellectual influences, including theologian Reinhold Niebuhr.
Hope this helps.
Best, John.
And it did really help. His answers gave me a new perspective of Dr. King, that he did much more than what average citizens remember of him, and that he his inspirations and support like everyday people. I knew I shouldn’t waste more of his time, so I decided to send him my follow-up question:
Dear Mr. Kirk,
thank you very much for your answers. They are very helpful to the completion of my project. I would like to ask one follow-up question to your answer for my first question (Firstly, was there anything Mr. King stood and fought for besides equality among African-Americans at the time?) Why do you think Mr. King isn’t as memorable for his other campaigns, yet is strongly remembered for his role in fighting for African American equality?
Thank you very much for your answers and responds.
And in a matter of hours:
Dear Azaly,
Memory is often shaped by contemporary social and political agendas as much as (if not more so) than what happened in the past. It is convenient to remember Dr.King as a civil rights leader because his tactics and their outcomes in the area of civil rights are generally now accepted to have been justified. Dr. King’s antiwar stance and calls for greater economic equality are less politically expedient, and therefore we chose to forget them rather than to remember them.
Best, John.
And by the end, the interview was over. This man not only saved me, but he also saved my project.
So after conducting my interview, I’ve come to learn more from my interview itself than the information I received. For the future, I must remember that I should never-ever assume anything, and that assuming will only cause me more stress. I learned that interviews are quite difficult, and that you always need to be prepared, from the people you send the email to, to how well you layout your questions. I hope that I can learn from my mistakes and conduct a better interview in the future. But my interviewee helped me see that Dr. King has done more to the world that people unfortunately do not recognize. This information helped me see how Dr. King was not only very dedicated about equality among coloured people, but other topics he felt very passionate about.
I am very glad that I managed to find an interview, and now next time, when I have to do this again, I will remember this: email more than two people at one time!