Current Event:

On Aug. 28, 2013, the international community marked the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and the “I Have a Dream” speech given by civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. In 1963, more than 250,000 Americans, including whites as well as blacks, marched from the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial in the largest demonstration of the American civil rights movement. The high point of the rally was a stirring speech by King. King told the crowd that he had a vision of a United States that was not divided along racial lines. The nationally televised address became known as King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. For many people, it symbolizes the civil rights movement. The march and speech inspired U.S. legislators to pass new laws to improve racial equality. The Civil Rights Act, which bans discrimination because of a person’s color, race, national origin, religion, or sex, was passed in 1964. The Voting Rights Act, which states that “no voting qualification or prerequisite to voting … shall be imposed … to deny or abridge the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color,” was passed in 1965.

The civil rights march held on Aug. 28, 1963, known in full as the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, became a turning point in the movement to end racial discrimination in the United States.

Objective:

Martin Luther King, Jr., (1929-1968) was an African American Baptist minister and the main leader of the civil rights movement in the United States during the 1950′s and 1960′s. King was born on Jan. 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia. At the age of 15, he entered Morehouse College in Atlanta. King was ordained just before he graduated from Morehouse in 1948. In 1954, King became pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. King’s civil rights activities began when he helped lead the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955. In 1957, King and other ministers founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to expand the nonviolent struggle against racism and discrimination. In 1960, King moved from Montgomery to Atlanta to devote more effort to SCLC’s work. Early in 1963, King and his SCLC associates launched massive demonstrations to protest racial discrimination in Birmingham, Alabama, one of the South’s most segregated cities. Later that year, King gave his famous speech during the March on Washington for Jobs and Equality. King won the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize for leading nonviolent civil rights demonstrations. In 1965, King and a crowd that swelled to about 25,000 marched from Selma, Alabama, to Montgomery, the state capitol. At the capitol, King demanded that African Americans be given the right to vote without unjust restrictions. Despite King’s stress on nonviolence, he often became the target of violence. On April 4, 1968, King was shot and killed. In 1983, Congress established a federal holiday honoring King. In 2011, the Martin Luther King, Jr., National Memorial in Washington, D.C., opened. The Behind the Headlines news story and related World Book articles explore Martin Luther King, Jr., and the civil rights movement.

Words to know:

• Civil rights
• Civil Rights Act of 1964
• Civil rights movement
• Coretta Scott King
• Lincoln Memorial
• March on Washington
• Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Martin Luther King, Jr., National Historic Site
• Martin Luther King, Jr., National Memorial
• Montgomery bus boycott
• Selma marches
• Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)
• Voting Rights Act of 1965

Discussion Topics:

1. Ask your students to name other civil rights leaders. (Students might say Viola Desmond [Canada]; Mohandas Gandhi [India]; Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu [South Africa]; Ralph Abernathy, Julian Bond, Medgar Evers, Jesse Jackson, and Rosa Parks [United States].)

2. Most memorials and monuments in Washington, D.C., honor political or military figures. What other American “private citizen” do you think deserves a memorial or monument in D.C.? (If you live outside the United States, what person deserves to have a memorial or monument in your country’s capital city?)

3. Ask your students to debate: King’s dream that people would be judged on their character and not their skin color has been realized.

4. In the mid 1960′s, while some civil right leaders urged a more aggressive response to the violence done against civil rights workers, King repeated his commitment to nonviolence. Ask your students to debate: Nonviolent protests are more effective than violent protests.

5. Ask your students to use World Book’s Timelines feature to create a timeline of the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. (Students may wish to use World Book’s Martin Luther King, Jr. article for help.) Students can also use World Book’s Civil rights and Civil rights movement articles to make a timeline of the history of the civil rights movement.