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the 2022 virtual beloved community global summit

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the 2022 virtual beloved community global summit tickets

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The 2022 Virtual Beloved Community Global Summit

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Eventbrite - The King Center presents The 2022 Virtual Beloved Community Global Summit - Thursday, January 13, 2022 - Find event and ticket information.

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Portland State University MLK, Jr. Tribute

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Portland State University MLK, Jr. Tribute

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Virtual events to honor MLK, Jr.

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DEFINING ABOLITION
Black People Liberate Themselves Virtual Racial Justice Teach-In
Saturday, January 22, 2022 | 10:00am - 3:30pm
This MLK Virtual Racial Justice Teach-in is presented by the Campus Collaborative -- a coalition that Portland State is a part of that seeks to create programming that centers the history and narratives of Portland's Black community during, and around, Martin Luther King Day, the only national holiday committed to a Black leader.

Rooted in Black/African Diasporic feminisms, abolition has defined anti-oppression, anti-colonial, and anti-racist organizing nationally and globally. In keeping with the abolitionist tradition, this event seeks to create a space where Black community activists can convene to envision a world liberated from white supremacy, colonialism, and racism.
Learn more and register ›

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Saturday, January 22, 2022 | 10:00am - 3:30pm This MLK Virtual Racial Justice Teach-in is presented by the Campus Collaborative -- a coalition that Portland State is a part of that seeks to create programming that centers the history and narratives of Portland's Black community during, and around, Martin Luther King Day, the only national holiday committed to a Black leader.

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Peniel Joseph and Sean Illing discuss the activism of MLK and Malcolm X.

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The best works of history are always the ones that illuminate the present as much as the past.

A new book by Peniel Joseph, a historian at the University of Texas, is the latest addition to this genre. It's called The Sword and the Shield, and it's a dual biography of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. A lot of books have been written on both of these men, but Joseph's book is different in that it's much more about the dynamic between Malcolm and Martin than it is about their individual stories.

And that complicated dynamic is worth revisiting in light of the social unrest after the killing of George Floyd. So I spoke with Joseph for Future Perfect's limited-series podcast, The Way Through, which is all about exploring the world's greatest philosophical and spiritual traditions for guidance during these difficult times.

This is a conversation about how these two figures defined and shaped the struggle for racial justice in America. In that sense, it's very much a conversation about the present told through the prism of the past.

But this is also an exploration of the political philosophies of Malcolm X and MLK and why they're not nearly as antithetical as we're made to believe. In the end, as Joseph explains, Malcolm and Martin speak to the eternal tension between reform and revolution, idealism and pragmatism. But their story also shows that the choice between these approaches isn't always so clear - and sometimes isn't really a choice at all.

You can hear our entire conversation in the podcast here. A transcript of our conversation, edited for length and clarity, follows.

Subscribe to Future Perfect: The Way Through on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Sean Illing

Your book is very much about debunking two-dimensional myths around Martin Luther King Jr. as a safe, comfortable insider and Malcolm X as the by-any-means-necessary renegade. There's obviously some truth in those caricatures, but what do they miss?

Peniel Joseph

I like that you said "safe," Sean. So I'll start with Dr. King, because Dr. King is anything but safe.

One of the pleasures of doing the research and writing the book was seeing and really being in awe of how bold Martin Luther King Jr. was and how much love he had for political underdogs of all stripes. One of the things that people miss is that Dr. King is a revolutionary, somebody who is really leading the whole United States of America and the whole world toward this moral and political reckoning that accelerates during the last three years of his life.

But what's also missed is the way in which Malcolm X, who is the boldest critic of white supremacy of his generation and really of the 20th century, becomes King's alter ego and absolutely impacts King's radicalism, King's ability to work with Black Power icons and revolutionaries like Stokely Carmichael.

I think the interesting part about doing this research was that I always imagined what if there was a book about King and Malcolm X that looked at each comparatively in their own time. So you get King and Malcolm in the early '50s alongside each other, and when you look at their public careers (for King it's 1955 to 1968 and for Malcolm it's 1952 to 1965), you see not just juxtapositions but real convergences.

Sean Illing

What's interesting to me, especially in this moment, is the tension between idealism and pragmatism, or between moderation and extremism, or between reform and revolution. These are never truly binary choices - it's always a question of maintaining the right balance and knowing what's needed and when.

Peniel Joseph

Absolutely. I think that Malcolm X is a great example of somebody who in a lot of ways is a radical pragmatist. He's somebody who wants to get free of colonialism, free of anti-Black racism. And when he says "by any means necessary," people take that as a threat, but really it's consonant with the Black freedom struggle. Because when we think about the Black freedom struggle as a multiple-choice test, the answer is always D, all of the above. The answer is people want self-determination and liberal integration.

People want protection from racism, but they also want the right to choose what tactics and strategies they're going to use. Some people are both self-defense advocates and advocates of nonviolence simultaneously. We had Black women, Black feminists join the Black Panthers and push back against the patriarchal and toxic masculinity that at times the Panthers embraced.

So people can hold competing thoughts in their own minds constantly. When we think about Malcolm and Martin, they are both revolutionaries, but along that evolution, at times they are very pragmatic, at times they are moderates.

One of the things I write about Malcolm is that Malcolm is Black America's prosecuting attorney, but he becomes the statesman. And Dr. King is the defense attorney who becomes this pillar of fire. He becomes this man on fire in the last several years of his life, and he's prosecuting and castigating in a way that we never think about King.

Sean Illing

That's one of the most fascinating things about MLK's legacy. There's so much more than the "I Have a Dream" speech. As you say, MLK is actually quite radical, but his radicalism is cloaked in a theory of moderate change, which I think speaks to his political genius in a lot of ways.

Peniel Joseph

I like the word you use, "cloaked," because in a lot of ways even the "I Have a Dream" speech is a radical speech. He starts that speech by saying, "Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy."

And this is August 28, 1963, he's speaking before a quarter of a million Americans, 90,000 of them are white. And in that speech, he says, "Today we come to cash a check, a check that has been stamped 'insufficient funds,' but we refuse to believe that the great vaults of opportunity in America are bankrupt." One of the things I argue is that both Malcolm and Martin had their own 1619 projects.

Sean Illing

Do you think that, perhaps because of the way Martin couched his radicalism, a lot of people who don't share his vision have exploited it or co-opted it in ways that portray it?

Peniel Joseph

Dr. King was assassinated Thursday, April 4, at 6 pm, Memphis time, in 1968. And the whole country is at a crossroads.

This is just two months after the Kerner Commission report is published. That commission is a bestseller with over 650,000 copies that year. And that commission says that the nation is turning into two separate nations - white, Black, separate, unequal, and hostile - and that the ghetto has been created and is a creation of white people and white supremacy, of white politicians, and the only way out of the racial maelstrom of the 1960s is for us to have a massive investment in Black communities and racial desegregation.

And instead, we choose law and order. And so when we think about what activists led by Coretta Scott King and people like Vincent Harding, people who were very close to Dr. King, faced a choice about how to institutionalize the memory of this activist and in so doing institutionalize the memory of the civil rights movement.

And they successfully did so. It took 15 years from the day of MLK's death to the day President Ronald Reagan signed the MLK holiday into law. That's extraordinary. That absolutely could not happen now. Reagan was not a friend of the Black freedom struggle, he was not a friend of the Black Panthers, he was not a friend of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He was compelled to sign that law.

But it happens because the movement successfully convinces enough white politicians that Dr. King's legacy is an example of the beauty of American exceptionalism. That's the choice. And so sometimes people say, "Well, what happened to King's legacy?" That was the choice. The only way to get King enshrined in the memory of Americans and American democracy was to say he exemplifies why we are so special.

Sean Illing

I want to ask about the relationship between Malcolm and Martin, which was deeply complicated and pretty ugly in the beginning. While preparing for this conversation, I went back and watched old interviews of Malcolm X, and I was surprised at how ruthlessly he attacked Martin. He called him a "religious Uncle Tom" and said he was "subsidized by the white man to keep Black people defenseless." These are strong words, and yet the dynamic between them continually evolved in a common direction.

Peniel Joseph

This is an important time to talk about Malcolm's and Martin's origins. Malcolm is born on May 19, 1925, in Omaha, Nebraska, to two Black activists, Louise and Earl Little. His mother is from the Caribbean from Grenada, his father is from Georgia.

And Malcolm X's parents are Garveyites. Marcus Garvey is the Black nationalist revolutionary pan-Africanist who organizes the Universal Negro Improvement Association, which is the largest mass Black freedom movement in world history. Malcolm is coming from that tradition, but it's also a tradition of racial trauma. His father is murdered by white supremacists when he's 6 years old in Lansing, Michigan. His mother is institutionalized in a psychiatric hospital for most of his adult life.

Malcolm Little, as he was called at birth, is a foster child until he moves to Boston at the age of 15. He's over 6 feet tall at the age of 15. He moves to Boston to live with his half-sister Ella Mae Collins. And for the next six years, Malcolm is operating at the lower frequencies of Black life in Roxbury, Boston, and in Harlem, selling marijuana. He's connected to all kinds of illegal activities. He's at times working as a day laborer, he's working as a cook, he's working as a Pullman car porter. Finally arrested in 1946, he spends 76 months in prison for theft, being part of an interracial theft ring in Massachusetts.

Martin Luther King Jr., who was born January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, is a young Black prince. He's the son of one of the most important preachers in Georgia, at Ebenezer Baptist Church. Martin King's father is coming from sharecroppers, Martin King's mother is coming from Black people who were very successful entrepreneurs and preachers. And so that's how he grows up. He goes to Morehouse College at 15. When he is in his sophomore year at Morehouse College, Malcolm, who is three and a half years older, is being called Satan because of his attitude in prison.

So these are two African American political leaders whose understanding of American democracy, whose understanding of race, is shaped by their own experiences. Malcolm in prison joins the Nation of Islam, has his epiphany in prison, and really becomes even more than just a political activist. He becomes an intellectual in prison, a scholar in prison, and uses that time to hone debate skills, to read about religion, African history, African American history, Du Bois, the whole range of the Black freedom struggle. King is getting this under the tutelage of people like Benjamin Mays, the president of Morehouse College.

So when we think about King, King's vision of American democracy, even as he imbibes, he's reading Gandhi, he's reading Howard Thurman, he's reading the theologian Paul Tillich, he's reading philosophers, he's reading Marx, his understanding of Black and racial oppression is at the abstract level, even though he's experienced some racism.

Sean Illing

One important thing they did agree on is that America had two systems of violence. White violence against Black bodies was necessary, legal, justified, and Black violence, even in defense of Black dignity was criminal, dangerous, subversive. And it's revealing and depressing that all these years later, despite all the progress that's been made, we're still having this conversation today.

Peniel Joseph

Yeah, and they both really do have meditations on violence and democracy, but Malcolm absolutely preaches this idea of self-defense and this idea that Black people have a right to defend their bodies. I think one of the mythologies about Malcolm X is that he's somehow preaching guerrilla warfare against white people. Even though at times he predicts race war, his predictions are based on anti-Black violence. They're actually based on white racial violence that is coming both from ordinary white citizens, but also from law enforcement and state-sanctioned violence against Black communities.

So Malcolm understood the history of Tulsa, Oklahoma, and the racial pogroms that had happened. His family had been victims of one such act of violence. Earl Little had been viciously murdered. And so when you think about Malcolm, Malcolm's notion of violence is that Black people absolutely have the right to defend themselves. And he's very critical of King for putting Black people in harm's way in Birmingham, Alabama, for putting Black people in harm's way where German shepherds are attacking them. Malcolm famously says that Black people have the right to defend themselves and kill two-legged or four-legged dogs that are attacking them.

And this is one of the interesting things about Malcolm with violence: He constantly leaves interviewers and debaters silent when he says that he's not against racial integration. Because they say, "Well, what do you mean? The Nation of Islam, racial separatism? What do you mean?" He says that, "If we didn't have to march, if we didn't have to protest, if we didn't have to sue for racial integration, I'd be fine with it."

He's actually right. There was no need. Without white supremacy being sort of this foundational part of the United States, there is really no need to have some kind of civil rights movement.

The Brown [v. Board of Education Supreme Court] decision after 1954 means that there should be no more protests about racially integrating schools, but there are, and Malcolm is saying, "If you live in that kind of society, you should choose separation. And separation means that Black people themselves are deciding what kind of lives they want to live." And he says separation is different from segregation because it's Black people realizing that the United States is what Dr. King said it was: a sick society suffering from the cancer of racism.

"Malcolm is Black America's prosecuting attorney, but he becomes the statesman. And Dr. King is the defense attorney who becomes this pillar of fire."

Sean Illing

The movement for racial equality today intersects with the legacy of Malcolm and Martin in important ways. As you say in the book, there are the large-scale acts of disobedience that echo MLK and the defiant rejections of America's systemic racism that echo Malcolm. If they were alive today, what do you think they'd say? What do you think they'd do?

Peniel Joseph

I think they would have a lot to learn from these current movements, especially the intersectional aspects of identity in terms of race, class, gender, sexuality, and how that has been so central to these movements in really beautiful ways. I think that they would both be supportive of the BLM movement and be trying to work at it in different ways.

When we look at Malcolm, he was really interested in the global stage. He was interested in setting up coalitions and alliances in Africa, the Middle East. He's at Oxford University in one of his last speeches where, very famously, he's taking the Barry Goldwater side for different reasons of extremism in defense of liberty is no vice. And he's saying at the end of that speech that he's willing to get together with anyone, no matter what color, who wants to change the miserable condition on the face of this earth. So I think Malcolm would really be interested in these global demonstrations, be interested in how can we transform Africa and the Middle East.

And I think King would be doing what he did in 1968. King was trying to lead a multiracial army of the poor. When you think about the Poor People's Campaign alongside of Marian Wright Edelman, the head of the Children's Defense Fund, he was getting together with Native American and Indigenous Latinx farm workers, whites from Appalachia, and other places alongside of Black people to get what we now call a universal basic income. King argued for guaranteed health care, and he talked about food justice and environmental health care, and so he was very interested in what we'd now call intersectional justice.

So when we think about where they would be, they'd be doing the whole notion of radical Black citizenship and dignity, but at the global scale. King was absolutely interested in how do we change democratic institutions from within. And I think Malcolm really wanted to apply pressure against American imperialism.

Sean Illing

Your book really does capture the wonderful complexity of this relationship. On the one hand, Malcolm's "sword," as you call it, is a means to mobilizing Black consciousness, and Martin's "shield" is a means of capturing the centers of American power and forcing it to bend to the demands of justice and to recognize Black citizenship.

Peniel Joseph

And they really both held it because King holds [the sword] at the end and Malcolm by '64 is taking that shield that he learned from King, and he's trying to bring that diplomatic shield to form coalitions with civil rights activists and also in the Middle East and the Third World and in Africa and Europe. Malcolm is planning to go to the United Nations and charge the United States with crimes and human rights violations against Black people.

And King, near the end of his life, is talking about militarism and materialism and racism, and he spends a whole year in Chicago and he's using both the political sword and the political shield. He even writes in 1965 beyond the Los Angeles riots that he's going to use nonviolent civil disobedience as a massive political shield in service of racial and economic justice.

In his final speech on April 3, 1968, King is beyond the "I Have a Dream" speech, and he's much more defiant. He says, "In Birmingham, we didn't let any German shepherds or fire hoses turn us around," and he says, "Tomorrow, we're going to march and we're not going to let any illegal injunction turn us around." King right there, that final evening, he's saying that nonviolent civil disobedience answers to a higher calling. He's saying we're going to march with these 1,100 striking sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee, for a living wage, no matter what courts tell us, no matter what police tell us.

This is Martin Luther King Jr. When you see this, you say, "Oh, my God. This is extraordinary. This is what Malcolm had been asking and demanding in '63 when Malcolm X said the March on Washington was a farce on Washington." Malcolm said they should have paralyzed the entire city. That we needed a reckoning. We didn't need to wait. And what King by the late '60s says is, "Yes. We're going to use nonviolent, political, civil disobedience as a political sword and a shield."

So it becomes clear when we read and we study King and we ask, "Why was he assassinated?" This is a man who represented global political mobilization, and he had the moral power of the entire world behind him. If King had stayed in Washington, DC, in the summer of '68, the election, this country would have been transformed - that I guarantee.

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The best works of history are always the ones that illuminate the present as much as the past. A new book by Peniel Joseph, a historian at the University of Texas, is the latest addition to this genre. It's called The Sword and the Shield , and it's a dual biography of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.

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From MLK to #BlackLivesMatter: A Throughline for Young Students

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From MLK to #BlackLivesMatter: A Throughline for Young Students

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Bret Turner offers some ways to help students find the throughlines between King's principles and today's social movements.

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History can seem nebulous and distant to anyone, let alone someone who's only been alive for six years. But the necessity of addressing the history of the civil rights movement with young kids is, on the whole, pretty uncontroversial. Due to his legacy of steadfast courage, peaceful organizing and nonviolent resistance, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is often used to introduce students to the movement. Children may be exposed to a sanitized version of his work, but they rightly understand that he shattered incredible barriers.

Yet, despite evident connections between the work of Dr. King and the work of today's civil rights activists, too often educators fail to trace throughlines for students. We need to stop avoiding this critical conversation with our young students and make space for them to draw those connections. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is a great opportunity to do so.

First-graders are excited to study through a lens of fairness; it is largely what drives them in their daily interactions. If they can understand why Dr. King marched, then they can certainly wrap their minds around the need for continued protest and action in the face of ongoing systemic injustice. When I teach the history of the civil rights movement, I tell my students that, yes, Dr. King was killed for what he believed, but his cause never truly ended. Working together, we identify Dr. King's principles and link them to the world we live in. Then students are ready to bear closer witness to the activism of focused, courageous black people and their allies today.

The children I teach are open-minded truth-seekers who love to question, probe, absorb and engage wholeheartedly with issues of inequity; tackling injustice fires them up and makes them excited to solve problems together. What tends to be tricky is making the cross-generational connection explicit and developmentally appropriate. This is what I've been exploring with my class since the Black Lives Matter (BLM) hashtag made its first appearance in 2013.

What I've found is that young students are not only capable of understanding why BLM is necessary through a historical lens, but also they are developmentally primed to ask difficult questions, generate thought-provoking insights and wrestle openly and unambiguously with difficult themes. There is much in the way of content and methodology that is accessible to young kids; resources are increasingly easy to find. In my class, we've made our own BLM posters, explored the Oakland roots of BLM co-founder Alicia Garza, read relevant children's literature, and observed and discussed the related work being done by our middle and high schoolers and the Black Student Union.

As with so much of our first-grade curriculum and practice, bringing these weighty discussions down to a hyper-local level has proven crucial. Last year around MLK Day, we compared the guiding principles of Black Lives Matter to our school's mission and, even closer to home, our classroom charter. We found much in common, particularly BLM's focus on diversity, empathy and loving engagement, and its overt ties to feminism and gender identity issues.

During the handful of years I've worked with kids on tying BLM to the civil rights movement, the responses from students have been thoughtful, incisive and challenging. To the guiding question "Why is a movement still needed today?" one child flatly answered: "Because people with black and brown skin are still treated badly." Another remarked that "things are better now, but we've only ever had one black president and now he's gone."

An entire discussion arose from a student's observation that "mattering" is the same thing as " just being loved for who you are," and together we came to the conclusion that realizing you may not matter is one of the worst feelings there is. Unencumbered by adult filters, kids ask the tough questions: "Why do the police hurt Black people?" "What good does it do to march?" "Why is skin color so important?" "Who decided that white people matter more than other people?"

By tying BLM to the civil rights movement, to the Black Panthers and to other grassroots causes centered in reversing injustice, we can proudly declare together that we fight on. We also show our students that race, gender and identity are not taboo classroom subjects; they are important elements of the human experience. Or, as one self-aware first-grader put it last year, "I'm four things: One, I'm Black. Two, I'm a girl. Three, I'm a scientist. And four, I'm proud."

Each time we stumble through a critical conversation together as a class, we show one another that we value all of our multiple identities, that we value each other. After all, the educator's version of the Hippocratic Oath ought to be to reaffirm to all children that they matter, in the classroom and in the world.

Turner is a first-grade teacher at an independent school in Oakland, California.

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From MLK to #BlackLivesMatter: A Throughline for Young Students

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History can seem nebulous and distant to anyone, let alone someone who's only been alive for six years. But the necessity of addressing the history of the civil rights movement with young kids is, on the whole, pretty uncontroversial. Due to his legacy of steadfast courage, peaceful organizing and nonviolent resistance, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Author Courtney Ahn offers a beautiful age appropriate book to discuss the activism of Dr. King.

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Take your first step toward activism!

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Quick Take Take your first step toward activism! For Ages 0-4 What's Inside A little book with a big goal! This book aims to give kids the building blocks to develop strong principles of care, empathy, and community. Because you're never too young to make a difference!

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Innosanto Nagara's picture book is packed with language to support students understanding social justice and the intentions of MLK, Jr.

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Animation Series: A is For Activist (#AtlantisBuild)

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Lessons From Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Lessons From Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Lindsay Hill offers some ideas about what we can learn from MLK, Jr.

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On Martin Luther King Jr. Day we celebrate the life of a Civil Rights hero who believed in ordinary people's ability to do extraordinary things. It's an important day to reflect on his legacy, but too often Martin Luther King Jr. Day is tokenized in schools. When we fail to engage students in meaningful conversations about Dr. King's legacy and the Civil Rights Movement, we fail to help students understand their own place in the ongoing struggle for racial justice.

Last week I gave a talk at Lakota Middle School's Martin Luther King Jr. Day assembly, and I asked students to consider five lessons from Dr. King. I also asked students to share their own ideas about how to bring people together to fight for racial justice, both in the world and in their own middle school.

Here are the five lessons from Dr. King that I asked students to consider.
Lesson one: The importance of recognizing our collective humanity "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly." - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from the Birmingham Jail
Perhaps the most enduring lesson from Dr. King is that achieving justice and liberation for all people depends on recognizing our shared humanity and destiny. The impacts of segregation, of injustice, are not limited to the oppressed, but extend to everyone in our society.

A case study from a professor at Stanford provides a useful analogy. The professor was asked to come to speak at a high school where students were being incredibly competitive and in some cases, not taking good care of each other.

He asked the students and their families to think about a lit candle. What happens when you share flame with another candle? You create light for another and maintain your entire flame. What does it do for the room? It brings more light to the world.

When we share our flames with others and see our health and happiness tied with others', we bring more health and happiness to everyone. When we hoard our resources, or try to protect what we have against others, we limit the amount of life and love in the world.
Lesson two: Understanding the different layers of racism and other forms of oppression
Sometimes we think about racism, sexism, and heterosexism only as blatantly egregious acts and language, but this narrow definition of oppression ignores the impact of systemic and structural oppression, as well as the impact of implicit bias and stereotypes.

In his letter from the Birmingham Jail, Dr. King wrote:
"I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: 'I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action'; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a 'more convenient season.'"
In his letter, Dr. King articulates a form of racism that is subtle, but just as egregious, as a blatantly racist statement. To understand racism, we have to unpack its different layers and manifestations: internalized racism, interpersonal racism, and systemic racism. (In this video, Jay Smooth helpfully outlines these different manifestations of racism.)

Dr. King understood well that unless we addressed the racism within ourselves, within our communities, and in the broader systems that govern everyday life, we would not achieve justice. That means addressing not only outright racism, but also the racialized outcomes of systems and the preference for order over justice.
Lesson three: The importance of evolving our ideas and strategies
Dr. King evolved his strategy throughout the Civil Rights Movement. He used strategies like organizing direct action (sit-ins) and civil disobedience, writing letters and giving speeches to those in positions of power, using the media to bring images of the Civil Rights Movement into people's homes, and mobilizing young people. Before his assassination, Dr. King was evolving his strategy to not just focus on race and racism, but to show how interconnected racism and classism are. He was building a multi-racial movement of folks that would advocate for human rights, as opposed to just civil rights.

Like Dr. King, it's important for us to use every tool at our disposal and to continue to evolve our strategies to advocate for racial justice as well. For example, I've used my position at the Raikes Foundation to push our staff and trustees to better understand and address structural racism embedded in the education system, and I've also traveled to Standing Rock and Ferguson with my family to participate in marches and protests. Progress takes all of us giving it everything we've got and using every available tool to create change.
Lesson four: Young people are powerful
Involving young people was a key part of Dr. King's and other civil rights leaders' strategy.

Young people knew how important this moment was and wanted to participate - they attended marches and protests and even boycotted school in certain places, to participate. And when people across the nation saw young people putting their lives and bodies on the line, it forever changed the way they saw the Civil Rights Movement.

Dr. King knew that young people have incredible power to change hearts and minds, as well as to come up with new, more innovative ideas to bring about racial justice. Today we continue to see that power with young people starting efforts like Standing Rock, using their voices on social media, and starting nonprofits that bring new ideas into the world.
Lesson five: Movements are made up of everyday people
Oftentimes we hear about leaders like Dr. King and think of them as extraordinary people, capable of things greater than "average" people. But Dr. King defined leadership as everyday acts, intentional actions, and leading through love in all that we do. He believed in ordinary people doing extraordinary things.

Today is a day to celebrate Dr. King, but he would want to celebrate all the incredible leaders who fought, and who are still fighting, for a more just world. From well-known figures, like Rosa Parks and Representative John Lewis, to student activist Clyde Kennard, legal trailblazer Dr. Pauli Murray, and the local leaders right in our own backyard, the movement for equality has innumerable examples of everyday people accomplishing incredible things.

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On Martin Luther King Jr. Day we celebrate the life of a Civil Rights hero who believed in ordinary people's ability to do extraordinary things. It's an important day to reflect on his legacy, but too often Martin Luther King Jr. Day is tokenized in schools.

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The first collection of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s essential writings for high school students and young people with eighteen selections including "I Have a Dream," "Letter from Birmingham Jail," and "What Is Your Life's Blueprint?"

Download the Teacher's Guide

"In your life's blueprint should be a deep belief in your own dignity, your own worth, and your own somebodiness. Don't allow anybody to make you feel that you are nobody. However young you are, you have a responsibility to seek to make your nation a better nation in which to live. You have a responsibility to seek to make life better for everybody. And so you must be involved in the struggle for freedom and justice." from "What Is Your Life's Blueprint?"

"[Students] are in reality standing up for the best in the American dream. One day historians will record this student movement as one of the most significant epics of our heritage." from "The Time for Freedom Has Come "

A Time to Break Silence presents the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s most important writings and speeches-carefully selected by teachers across a variety of disciplines in an accessible and user-friendly volume for students. Arranged thematically in six parts, the collection includes eighteen selections and is introduced by award-winning author Walter Dean Myers. Included are some of Dr. King's most well-known and frequently taught classic works, like "Letter from Birmingham Jail" and "I Have a Dream," as well as lesser-known pieces such as "The Sword that Heals" and "What Is Your Life's Blueprint?," which speak to issues young people face today.

A King Legacy Series Book

From "Black and White Together"

Faced with diminishing adult support for protests in Birmingham, in 1963 Dr. King turned to the city's young people. James Bevel of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) suggested recruiting local students to participate, reasoning that since they did not have jobs to lose, they would be more willing to risk arrest. After being trained in the principles of nonviolence, more than one thousand African American students skipped their classes on May 2 and gathered in downtown Birmingham, marching directly into police lines to demand desegregation of local businesses, public facilities and restaurants. While hundreds were arrested and jailed, many more young people returned the next day to take their places. In the ensuing confrontation, T. Eugene "Bull" Connor, Birmingham's commissioner of public safety, ordered fire hoses and police dogs to be unleashed on the unarmed protestors. Here, Dr. King recounts the "Children's Crusade" and other important events that led to the end of segregation in Birmingham.

After eight days of imprisonment, Ralph Abernathy and I accepted bond to come out of jail for two purposes. It was necessary for me to regain communication with the S.C.L.C. officers and our lawyers in order to map the strategy for the contempt cases that would be coming up shortly in the circuit court. Also, I had decided to put into operation a new phase of our campaign, which I felt would speed victory.

I called my staff together and repeated a conviction I had been voicing ever since the campaign began. If our drive was to be successful, we must involve the students of the community. In most of the recent direct-action crusades, it had been the young people who sparked the movement. But in Birmingham, of the first four or five hundred people who had submitted themselves to arrest, two-thirds had been adults. We had considered this a good thing at the time, for a really effective campaign incorporates a cross section of the community. But now it was time to enlist the young people in larger numbers. Even though we realized that involving teenagers and high-school students would bring down upon us a heavy fire of criticism, we felt that we needed this dramatic new dimension. Our people were demonstrating daily and going to jail in numbers, but we were still beating our heads against the brick wall of the city officials' stubborn resolve to maintain the status quo. Our fight, if won, would benefit people of all ages. But most of all we were inspired with a desire to give to our young a true sense of their own stake in freedom and justice. We believed they would have the courage to respond to our call.

James Bevel, Andy Young, Bernard Lee and Dorothy Cotton began visiting colleges and high schools in the area. They invited students to attend after-school meetings at churches. The word spread fast, and the response from Birmingham's youngsters exceeded our fondest dreams.

By the fifties and by the hundreds, these youngsters attended mass meetings and training sessions. They listened eagerly as we talked of bringing freedom to Birmingham, not in some distant time, but right now. We taught them the philosophy of nonviolence. We challenged them to bring their exuberance, their youthful creativity, into the disciplined dedication of the movement. We found them eager to belong, hungry for participation in a significant social effort. Looking back, it is clear that the introduction of Birmingham's children into the campaign was one of the wisest moves we made. It brought a new impact to the crusade, and the impetus that we needed to win the struggle.

Immediately, of course, a cry of protest went up. Although by the end of April the attitude of the national press had changed considerably, so that the major media were according us sympathetic coverage, yet many deplored our "using" our children in this fashion. Where had these writers been, we wondered, during the centuries when our segregated social system had been misusing and abusing Negro children? Where had they been with their protective words when, down through the years, Negro infants were born into ghettos, taking their first breath of life in a social atmosphere where the fresh air of freedom was crowded out by the stench of discrimination? The children themselves had the answer to the misguided sympathies of the press. One of the most ringing replies came from a child of no more than eight who walked with her mother one day in a demonstration. An amused policeman leaned down to her and said with mock gruffness: "What do you want"

The child looked into his eyes, unafraid, and gave her answer.

"F'eedom," she said.

She could not even pronounce the word, but no Gabriel trumpet could have sounded a truer note.

Even children too young to march requested and earned a place in our ranks. Once when we sent out a call for volunteers, six tiny youngsters responded. Andy Young told them that they were not old enough to go to jail but that they could go to the library. "You won't get arrested there," he said, "but you might learn something." So these six small children marched off to the building in the white district, where, up to two weeks before, they would have been turned away at the door. Shyly but doggedly, they went to the children's room and sat down, and soon they were lost in their books. In their own way, they had struck a blow, for freedom. The children understood the stakes they were fighting for. I think of one teenage boy whose father's devotion to the movement turned sour when he learned that his son had pledged himself to become a demonstrator. The father forbade his son to participate.

"Daddy," the boy said, "I don't want to disobey you, but I have made my pledge. If you try to keep me home, I will sneak off. If you think I deserve to be punished for that, I'll just have to take the punishment. For, you see, I'm not doing this only because I want to be free. I'm doing it also because I want freedom for you and Mama, and I want it to come before you die." That father thought again, and gave his son his blessing.

The movement was blessed by the fire and excitement brought to it by young people such as these. And when Birmingham youngsters joined the march in numbers, an historic thing happened. For the first time in the civil-rights movement, we were able to put into effect the Gandhian principle: "Fill up the jails." Jim Bevel had the inspiration of setting a "D" Day, when the students would go to jail in historic numbers. When that day arrived, young people converged on the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in wave after wave. Altogether on "D" Day, May 2, more than a thousand young people demonstrated and went to jail. At one school, the principal gave orders to lock the gates to keep the students in. The youngsters climbed over the gates and ran toward freedom. The assistant superintendent of schools threatened them with expulsion, and still they came, day after day. At the height of the campaign, by conservative estimates, there were 2,500 demonstrators in jail at one time, a large proportion of them young people.

Serious as they were about what they were doing, these teenagers had that marvelous humor that arms the unarmed in the face of danger. Under their leaders, they took delight in confusing the police. A small decoy group would gather at one exit of the church, bringing policemen streaming in cars and on motorcycles. Before the officers knew what was happening, other groups, by the scores, would pour out of other exits and move, two by two, toward our goal in the downtown section.

Many arrived at their destination before the police could confront and arrest them. They sang as they marched and as they were loaded into the paddy wagons. The police ran out of paddy wagons and had to press sheriff's cars and school buses into service.

Watching those youngsters in Birmingham, I could not help remembering an episode in Montgomery during the bus boycott. Someone had asked an elderly woman why she was involved in our struggle.

"I'm doing it for my children and for my grandchildren," she had replied.

Seven years later, the children and grandchildren were doing it for themselves.

Introduction: Martin Luther King, Jr. by Walter Dean Myers ix

Love and Faith
A Gift of Love*
An Experiment in Love
Loving Your Enemies
A Knock at Midnight

Nonviolent Resistance
The Sword That Heals
My Trip to the Land of Gandhi

Consequences of War
Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence
The Casualties of the War in Vietnam

Young People Working for Justice
The Time for Freedom Has Come
The Burning Truth in the South
Black and White Together

The Power of Freedom
Speech at the Great March on Detroit
Letter from Birmingham Jail
I Have a Dream

Suffering, Hope, and the Future
Eulogy for the Martyred Children
Suffering and Faith
The Drum Major Instinct
What Is Your Lifeís Blueprint?

Acknowledgments
Glossary
Index

* Reflection questions are included after each selection.

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the essential works of martin luther king

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The first collection of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s essential writings for high school students and young people with eighteen selections including "I Have a Dream," "Letter from Birmingham Jail," and "What Is Your Life's Blueprint?" Download the Teacher's Guide "In your life's blueprint should be a deep belief in your own dignity, your own worth, and your own somebodiness.

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Opinion: Martin Luther King Jr.'s message just as relevant in the age of Trump

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Opinion: Martin Luther King Jr.'s message just as relevant in the age of Trump

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What does it mean to celebrate the life of Martin Luther King Jr. in the age of Trump? Too many Americans see the King legacy as focused on the racial segregation of America's distant past but not the political and moral quagmires of today. With the increasing polarization and political fracturing of American society, can the life and legacy of King remain a viable resource in a country whose president's brand identity, "Make America Great Again," invokes a past where blacks were not full citizens, women were marginalized and sexual minorities suppressed? How can the grand legacy of King address the tribalism of contemporary culture?

King is rightly credited as being a key leader in getting blacks the right to vote and ending segregation in the South, but those achievements, as important as they are, don't capture the entirety of King's contribution. King's mission was to redeem the soul of America. To loosen America from her historic shackles and push her to live out her highest purpose. It is this aspect of the King legacy, the revisioning of our life-together, that has largely disappeared from public and political life.

King consistently points out there's a gap between American ideals and American reality. America claims to be about freedom, justice and equality, but her reality is far different. What King called for was for America to be true to her own commitments. He fervently believed America's history of slavery and segregation need not be her destiny. History is not fated or determined, and contradictions of life are not final. Humans create history, and can inject new meaning and dignity into the veins of civilization. The birthing of a new society is an organic not mechanical process.

Democracies are either growing or decaying. The idea of "Making America Great" by going back to some fictionalized past is completely against King's vision. The idea is not to romanticize or preserve a flawed democracy by going back but to evolve or grow a better democracy out of our present conditions.

King reminds us that the goal of the struggle was not only the right to sit at the front the bus or to vote, but to give birth to a new society based on love and justice. As we face an impeachment trial, an intensification of the "War on Terror" and another deeply polarizing election, I think King's legacy grows increasingly relevant. In his last book, he raised the question "where do we go from here?" The world was growing more and more interdependent, nevertheless there were strong antagonistic forces keeping people divided. King's message was despite the reactionary forces that keep us divided, we need each other!

King saw a hidden wholeness beneath the brokenness and division in human life. He didn't see our choices as being between black versus white, republican versus democrat, gay versus straight, for him the choice was clear: chaos or community. We can live together as brothers and sisters or perish together as fools.

Americans must "undergo a radical revolution in values where we transform from a thing-centered society to a person-centered society." It is possible, King concedes, that America is so wedded to a death instinct that she locks herself into spiraling patterns of division and self-destruction. The catastrophic is a live option. But King calls us to be more courageous, he reminds us that while elections are important, what's more important is "what kind of democracy are we trying to become," just and inclusive, or tribal and restrictive? He calls us to shed the scales from our eyes and see the hidden wholeness, which he refers to as Beloved Community. Beloved community is both within and before us, and with this awareness we are challenged to be able to hew out stones of hope from mountains of despair.
Adam Clark is an associate professor in the Department of Theology at Xavier University.

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Opinion: Martin Luther King Jr.'s message just as relevant in the age of Trump

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What does it mean to celebrate the life of Martin Luther King Jr. in the age of Trump? Too many Americans see the King legacy as focused on the racial segregation of America's distant past but not the political and moral quagmires of today.

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Op-Ed:  What King would say to Black Lives Matter activists today

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Op-Ed:  What King would say to Black Lives Matter activists today

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In his "I Have a Dream" speech, Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of "the marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community," and reminded the nation that Black people could "never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality."

Instead of seeing Black people as the enemies of democracy - contemporary critics of Black Lives Matter call the activists terrorists - King understood them as the friends of liberty. He particularly understood the need to renew the vision and energy of the movement by embracing Black youth.

King worked throughout his career with younger people, whether he was trading fierce but friendly barbs about Black power with Stokely Carmichael, applauding the courageous activism of John Lewis, or encouraging young gang members to lay down their guns in exchange for the more powerful weapon of love. King was in regular contact with members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and while they shared a broad vision of social justice, they clashed on methods and style.

King was reared in a leadership culture in the church full of patriarchy and hierarchy. While there was often consultation and conversation with members of the church community, decisions were usually made unilaterally by the male religious head.

The SNCC's guiding spirit was an amazing female leader named Ella Baker. Baker's philosophy was driven by the belief that movements produce leaders, not the other way around, and that didn't necessarily comport too well with the Black church's charismatic authoritarianism.

There were the usual tensions between younger and older leaders, some of a more serious nature - King often swooped down in a town after the local work had been done, often by SNCC, taking with him the cameras and glory for labor the younger folk had contributed to but rarely got credit for. Beyond these tensions, however, King and what were essentially the Black Lives Matter activists of their day forged progress together, with the aim of changing the world and making it safer and saner for Black people.

As we celebrate King's legacy, we should remember that today's young Black activists who challenge the status quo are humanitarian leaders deeply invested in Black freedom and justice and making America a truly democratic society.

They are patriots and heroes because they are willing to risk life and limb for the building up, not tearing down, of America. Their disappointment with the nation, their rage against its lethal limits and fatal failures, is but love turned inside out.

Unlike white supremacists and domestic insurrectionists, they are trying to make America reaffirm its principles, its beliefs, its ambitions and its fundamental commitment to democracy for all.

As King reminded America on that sunny day in August 1963, these principles cannot be realized if Black people do not continue to confront police misconduct and abuse. King understood then that the official power of the state to punish and murder Black people was fatal for a democracy. He also understood that too often law enforcement joined ranks with white supremacist forces to execute domestic terror that was protected by a badge and a gun.

In our day, the stakes of Black protest against racial injustice are heightened by the fact that more than a few members of law enforcement were directly involved in the recent Capitol insurrection. The tentacles of white supremacy stretch ominously into American policing. The ultimate paradox may be that many white followers of the 45 th president rail against the very police forces that have historically had a hand in white supremacy's deadly rampages against the Black people, who are its truest victims.

The bitter resistance of many white people to organizations like the FBI might be better understood coming from the mouths of Black people, even King himself, whom the agency deliberately chose not to warn when there were credible threats to his life.

Perhaps King's greatest value to our present moment is to remind us that Black people have been willing to defend this country at every moment even when their lives didn't matter to the people they protected. King's nonviolent valor seems lost on white insurrectionists. It may be the height of irony that angry white people who benefitted most from American democracy are now willing to destroy it.
This article is adapted from a sermon delivered at the Washington National Cathedral on Sunday. Michael Eric Dyson is a professor of African American Studies at Vanderbilt University and an author, most recently, of "Long Time Coming: Reckoning With Race in America."

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Op-Ed: What King would say to Black Lives Matter activists today

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In his "I Have a Dream" speech, Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of "the marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community," and reminded the nation that Black people could "never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality."

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Vox: Don’t ask what Martin Luther King Jr. would do today and then ignore his real message

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Vox: Don’t ask what Martin Luther King Jr. would do today and then ignore his real message

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Don’t ask what Martin Luther King Jr. would do today and then ignore his real message

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The civil rights icon called for nonviolence but also warned about violent white mobs.

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How do you celebrate and teach the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., both on the holiday that celebrates his birth, and all year long?

On Aug. 28, 1963, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. addressed thousands of people gathered around the Reflecting Pool on the National Mall in Washington. Credit... Agence France-Presse - Getty Images

Please note: In honor of Martin Luther King Day, The Learning Network will not be publishing on Jan. 20, 2020.
Martin Luther King Jr. Day, an annual federal holiday since 1986, celebrates the national civil rights leader who was instrumental in challenging the racial caste system that delineated how millions of Americans lived their lives.

All 50 states celebrate the public holiday on the third Monday in January, but not all states, cities and towns dedicate it solely to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Some package it as a broader celebration of both Dr. King and Confederate leaders, according to this 2017 piece, " Celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Still Faces Pushback."

Teaching Tolerance's "Dos and Don'ts of Celebrating MLK Day" (and "Going the Extra Mile for MLK Day") remind us that although the holiday is just one day - and Black History Month is just one month - Dr. King's message of equality and justice for all are best embedded in the curriculum all year round.

The New York Times reported on Dr. King's campaign and on the civil rights movement in general, and continues to report on related issues of segregation and inequality today. And on April 4, 2018, the 50th anniversary of Dr. King's assassination, The Times published a rich collection, from articles and Op-Eds to photos and video, to celebrate his life and legacy.

Below, we've chosen both recent pieces as well as pieces from the Times archives published during Dr. King's lifetime. We also suggest several teaching ideas for connecting his message with our world today.

How do you teach about Dr. King? Let us know in the comments.

Here's what you'll find below:

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What would Dr. King make of America today?

On April 4, 2018, The Times published an interactive look at that question. Headlined " Martin Luther King Jr.: 50 Years Later, His Battles Live On," here is how it begins:

Martin Luther King Jr. remains frozen in time for many Americans. Seared into our consciousness is the man who battled Southern segregation.

We see him standing before hundreds of thousands of followers in the nation's capital in 1963, proclaiming his dream for racial harmony. We see him marching, arms locked with fellow protesters, through the battleground of Alabama in 1965.

But on the 50th anniversary of his death, it is worth noting how his message and his priorities had evolved by the time he was shot on that balcony at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis in 1968. Dr. King was confronting many challenges that remain with us today.

He was battling racism in the North then, not just in the South. He was pushing the government to address poverty, income inequality, structural racism and segregation in cities like Boston and Chicago. He was also calling for an end to a war that was draining the national treasury of funds needed to finance a progressive domestic agenda.

This may not be the Dr. King that many remember. Yet, his words resonate powerfully - and, perhaps, uncomfortably - today in a country that remains deeply divided on issues of race and class.

How do your students see his words resonating in their own lives and communities - and in our nation and around the world? Invite them to click through this rich collection, which links to both new and archival pieces, as they attempt to answer the question we pose above: What would Dr. King make of America today?

As they work, students might highlight quotes and ideas that pair especially well with other things they are reading, learning about, listening to or viewing. For instance, how do they speak to current works like Childish Gambino's "This Is America" or Angie Thomas's " The Hate U Give "? Why? As a culminating activity, a class might create a gallery of images and quotes that bridge Dr. King's battles with those we are fighting today.

Do you have to be disobedient if you want justice? How would your students answer?

How much do your students know about the civil rights movement? Test their knowledge with this 13-question quiz The Times published in 2019 in honor of Dr. King's 90th birthday. Then consider: What did working to advance racial and social justice look like in the 1950s and 60s? What does it look like now?

In a 2015 Magazine article, " Teaching Martin Luther King Jr. in the Age of Freddie Gray," Syreeta McFadden writes about discussing "Letter From Birmingham Jail" with her students at a community college in Manhattan:

... We returned to King's letter, in which he draws a distinction between just and unjust laws. They didn't know about this King, I found, the one who fought the law. In their view, the civil rights movement was embodied in King the Christlike leader, who stands for peace, love and brotherhood.

I told the students that King went to jail a lot for peace, love and brotherhood.

We talked about Baltimore, where the police had just killed Freddie Gray and street protests were swelling to an uprising. My students were skeptical of headlines and commentary that called for nonviolent protest. One of the students noted that the police were violent, too, and they were placing people in mortal danger just to protect some buildings from being damaged.

"A building is not more valuable than a person," she said. Most of the others nodded in agreement. More began to speak. The rote discussion was becoming impassioned, cacophonous:

"But there's a difference between rioting and peaceful protest. ..."

"Are we saying property is more valuable than a human being?"

"That's like saying to protest is unlawful. ..."

"What does 'peaceful' even mean?"

Read about the rest of the discussion that day, and think about the implications for your own classroom. How does teaching about Dr. King and the civil rights movement look different today, after recent movements like #takeaknee and #MeToo, and protests from the Women's March and Black Lives Matter to the events in Charlottesville, Va.?

In " The Art of the Protest," a November 2016 opinion article published just after the election of Donald J. Trump, Tina Rosenberg reminds us that "America enshrines in its Constitution the right to peacefully voice protest to check government power." She continues:

The Republican Party will soon control the presidency, Congress, most governorships and state legislatures; in all probability, there will be a conservative majority on the Supreme Court. Given Donald J. Trump's approval of advisers from the white nationalist far right, following his vitriolic attacks on the policies of the Obama administration, Democrats, independents and even some Republicans are bracing for assaults on - everything.

... Protests can change policies, however - and often have. In other countries and throughout American history, ordinary citizens banding together have triumphed over governments, even when a single party holds sweeping control. Many of those protests used resources that the opposition to President-elect Trump enjoys today. They can learn from how those victories were won.

And in a 2017 Op-Ed, Jason Sokol writes:

In this season of political polarization, it is tempting to hope that we can unite in celebration of Dr. King. But celebrators ought to know whom they are honoring. Dr. King died for striking garbage workers and beseeched his government to protect the vulnerable. He had a message for those who would target immigrants or wall off America from the world. In a 1967 speech, he declared: "Our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than national." Instead of policing their borders, nations should "develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole."

The alternative was unacceptable. "History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate." To honor Dr. King is to follow a different path.

Finally, on Martin Luther King Day 2018, in the wake of news that President Trump used crude words to describe Haiti and African countries, The Times reports that " Black Churches See a Nation Backsliding." In a related Opinion piece, George Yancy asks, " Will America Choose King's Dream or Trump's Nightmare? "

Have your students read any or all of these pieces and discuss the role of protest in America in the past and today. What lessons might movements of the past offer us now? How?

The Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service, signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1994, challenges Americans to make the holiday into a day of active volunteer service to honor Dr. King.

Have students research ideas in the spirit of service here, and then design a day of service for themselves and their classmates, or for their family members, and present these ideas to their class. They can also find resources in our lesson plan Making a Difference: Ideas for Giving, Service Learning and Social Action.

Invite your students to watch Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech. Why is it still so powerful over 50 years later?

That's the question we ask in our Text to Text lesson plan that pairs Dr. King's words with an article by the Times book critic Michiko Kakutani, "The Lasting Power of Dr. King's Dream Speech."In it, we pose questions about the figurative language and other poetic and oratorical devices, such as repetition and theme, he uses, as well as questions about what it still has to say to us today. There are also several ideas for assessing how much progress on Dr. King's dream our nation has made since he spoke.

Consider, for example, Adeel Hassan's 2019 interview with Dr. King's son about how far, or close, we are to achieving his father's dream. Martin Luther King III said:

This vision that he engaged in and talked about, elements of it have become true. But the hope is that we'd be much further as a nation. I think we're going through a metamorphosis. And what I mean by that is all of the ill, or all of the negative, has to come out for the positive to emerge because there's no way that we can go back to the past.

Students can be invited to read the rest of the piece and then post answers to our Student Opinion question, What Does Dr. King's Legacy Mean to You?

Have students listen to some of the songs written in honor of Dr. King, and then write their own song. For example, see Stevie Wonder's "Happy Birthday Song," originally written for Dr. King after there was opposition to creating the federal holiday, above.

Students might also listen to this one by James Taylor, which is not part of the Billboard list, above. Here is the first stanza:

Let us turn our thoughts today to Martin Luther King

and recognize that there are ties between us, all men and women living on the Earth.

Ties of hope and love, sister and brotherhood, that we are bound together

in our desire to see the world become a place in which our children can grow free and strong.

We are bound together by the task that stands before us and the road that lies ahead.

We are bound and we are bound.

For additional ideas for teaching history and social studies with music see our lesson plans Teaching With Protest Music and The Ten-Dollar Founding Father Without a Father: Teaching and Learning With 'Hamilton.'

Crowds gathering at the Lincoln Memorial for the March on Washington on Aug. 28, 1963. Related Article | Related Lesson Plan Credit... James H. Wallace/The Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture

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How Dr. King Changed a Sanitation Worker's Life

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. came to Memphis in 1968 to march with sanitation workers who were protesting low wages and poor working conditions. Cleophus Smith marched with him. He's still on the job.

If Dr. King came back and seen the way things are, he wouldn't be pleased with it. No, he wouldn't be pleased at all. All right. I call us sanitation engineers because we're supposed to run the job, not let the job run us. I was 24 years old when I started. But back then, it was a different ball game. Back then, the working condition, it was unbearable. After three weeks, when I got my first check, I broke down and cried. We were working full time. And at the same time, the wages were so low, we was qualified to get food stamps. We were determined that we was going to get a union organized, that we would see justice. We were striking about the wages, fair treatment and dignity. When we heard that Dr. King was coming to Memphis to help us in that sanitation strike, we were very surprised. We knew then that there was somebody that cared about our struggle. We was at Mason Temple this particular night. Dr. King said, the Lord allowed me to go to the mountaintop and to look over into the promised land. And he said, I might not get there with you, but we will make it to the promised land. Everybody was just jubilated, just excited, not knowing the next day would be a day of silence. Because of Dr. King's death, that was one of the reasons that Mayor Loeb went on and signed that union into a decree. We got what we wanted, but at the same time, we lost the great leader. "He never thought in terms of his personal welfare, but always in terms of the cause which he dedicated his life to." I really had a lot of animosity. I came from the streets. I was a street thug. And Dr. King was the one that taught me, through his humility and his leadership. I said, that's the way I'd like to be. "- united will never be defeated. The workers united will never be defeated. The workers united will never be defeated. The workers united will never be defeated." There are still some unsolved problems need to be solved. "What do we want?" "15." "When do we want it?" "Now!" "What do we want?" "15." "When do want it?" "Now!" It is what it is until somebody can roll his sleeves up and get out there and fight.

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. came to Memphis in 1968 to march with sanitation workers who were protesting low wages and poor working conditions. Cleophus Smith marched with him. He's still on the job.

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Teaching and Learning About Martin Luther King Jr. With The New York Times

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How do you celebrate and teach the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., both on the holiday that celebrates his birth, and all year long? Please note: In honor of Martin Luther King Day, The Learning Network will not be publishing on Jan. 20, 2020. Martin Luther King Jr.

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How do you celebrate and teach the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., both on the holiday that celebrates his birth, and all year long?

On Aug. 28, 1963, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. addressed thousands of people gathered around the Reflecting Pool on the National Mall in Washington. Credit... Agence France-Presse - Getty Images

Please note: In honor of Martin Luther King Day, The Learning Network will not be publishing on Jan. 20, 2020.
Martin Luther King Jr. Day, an annual federal holiday since 1986, celebrates the national civil rights leader who was instrumental in challenging the racial caste system that delineated how millions of Americans lived their lives.

All 50 states celebrate the public holiday on the third Monday in January, but not all states, cities and towns dedicate it solely to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Some package it as a broader celebration of both Dr. King and Confederate leaders, according to this 2017 piece, " Celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Still Faces Pushback."

Teaching Tolerance's "Dos and Don'ts of Celebrating MLK Day" (and "Going the Extra Mile for MLK Day") remind us that although the holiday is just one day - and Black History Month is just one month - Dr. King's message of equality and justice for all are best embedded in the curriculum all year round.

The New York Times reported on Dr. King's campaign and on the civil rights movement in general, and continues to report on related issues of segregation and inequality today. And on April 4, 2018, the 50th anniversary of Dr. King's assassination, The Times published a rich collection, from articles and Op-Eds to photos and video, to celebrate his life and legacy.

Below, we've chosen both recent pieces as well as pieces from the Times archives published during Dr. King's lifetime. We also suggest several teaching ideas for connecting his message with our world today.

How do you teach about Dr. King? Let us know in the comments.

Here's what you'll find below:

Image

What would Dr. King make of America today?

On April 4, 2018, The Times published an interactive look at that question. Headlined " Martin Luther King Jr.: 50 Years Later, His Battles Live On," here is how it begins:

Martin Luther King Jr. remains frozen in time for many Americans. Seared into our consciousness is the man who battled Southern segregation.

We see him standing before hundreds of thousands of followers in the nation's capital in 1963, proclaiming his dream for racial harmony. We see him marching, arms locked with fellow protesters, through the battleground of Alabama in 1965.

But on the 50th anniversary of his death, it is worth noting how his message and his priorities had evolved by the time he was shot on that balcony at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis in 1968. Dr. King was confronting many challenges that remain with us today.

He was battling racism in the North then, not just in the South. He was pushing the government to address poverty, income inequality, structural racism and segregation in cities like Boston and Chicago. He was also calling for an end to a war that was draining the national treasury of funds needed to finance a progressive domestic agenda.

This may not be the Dr. King that many remember. Yet, his words resonate powerfully - and, perhaps, uncomfortably - today in a country that remains deeply divided on issues of race and class.

How do your students see his words resonating in their own lives and communities - and in our nation and around the world? Invite them to click through this rich collection, which links to both new and archival pieces, as they attempt to answer the question we pose above: What would Dr. King make of America today?

As they work, students might highlight quotes and ideas that pair especially well with other things they are reading, learning about, listening to or viewing. For instance, how do they speak to current works like Childish Gambino's "This Is America" or Angie Thomas's " The Hate U Give "? Why? As a culminating activity, a class might create a gallery of images and quotes that bridge Dr. King's battles with those we are fighting today.

Do you have to be disobedient if you want justice? How would your students answer?

How much do your students know about the civil rights movement? Test their knowledge with this 13-question quiz The Times published in 2019 in honor of Dr. King's 90th birthday. Then consider: What did working to advance racial and social justice look like in the 1950s and 60s? What does it look like now?

In a 2015 Magazine article, " Teaching Martin Luther King Jr. in the Age of Freddie Gray," Syreeta McFadden writes about discussing "Letter From Birmingham Jail" with her students at a community college in Manhattan:

... We returned to King's letter, in which he draws a distinction between just and unjust laws. They didn't know about this King, I found, the one who fought the law. In their view, the civil rights movement was embodied in King the Christlike leader, who stands for peace, love and brotherhood.

I told the students that King went to jail a lot for peace, love and brotherhood.

We talked about Baltimore, where the police had just killed Freddie Gray and street protests were swelling to an uprising. My students were skeptical of headlines and commentary that called for nonviolent protest. One of the students noted that the police were violent, too, and they were placing people in mortal danger just to protect some buildings from being damaged.

"A building is not more valuable than a person," she said. Most of the others nodded in agreement. More began to speak. The rote discussion was becoming impassioned, cacophonous:

"But there's a difference between rioting and peaceful protest. ..."

"Are we saying property is more valuable than a human being?"

"That's like saying to protest is unlawful. ..."

"What does 'peaceful' even mean?"

Read about the rest of the discussion that day, and think about the implications for your own classroom. How does teaching about Dr. King and the civil rights movement look different today, after recent movements like #takeaknee and #MeToo, and protests from the Women's March and Black Lives Matter to the events in Charlottesville, Va.?

In " The Art of the Protest," a November 2016 opinion article published just after the election of Donald J. Trump, Tina Rosenberg reminds us that "America enshrines in its Constitution the right to peacefully voice protest to check government power." She continues:

The Republican Party will soon control the presidency, Congress, most governorships and state legislatures; in all probability, there will be a conservative majority on the Supreme Court. Given Donald J. Trump's approval of advisers from the white nationalist far right, following his vitriolic attacks on the policies of the Obama administration, Democrats, independents and even some Republicans are bracing for assaults on - everything.

... Protests can change policies, however - and often have. In other countries and throughout American history, ordinary citizens banding together have triumphed over governments, even when a single party holds sweeping control. Many of those protests used resources that the opposition to President-elect Trump enjoys today. They can learn from how those victories were won.

And in a 2017 Op-Ed, Jason Sokol writes:

In this season of political polarization, it is tempting to hope that we can unite in celebration of Dr. King. But celebrators ought to know whom they are honoring. Dr. King died for striking garbage workers and beseeched his government to protect the vulnerable. He had a message for those who would target immigrants or wall off America from the world. In a 1967 speech, he declared: "Our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than national." Instead of policing their borders, nations should "develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole."

The alternative was unacceptable. "History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate." To honor Dr. King is to follow a different path.

Finally, on Martin Luther King Day 2018, in the wake of news that President Trump used crude words to describe Haiti and African countries, The Times reports that " Black Churches See a Nation Backsliding." In a related Opinion piece, George Yancy asks, " Will America Choose King's Dream or Trump's Nightmare? "

Have your students read any or all of these pieces and discuss the role of protest in America in the past and today. What lessons might movements of the past offer us now? How?

The Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service, signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1994, challenges Americans to make the holiday into a day of active volunteer service to honor Dr. King.

Have students research ideas in the spirit of service here, and then design a day of service for themselves and their classmates, or for their family members, and present these ideas to their class. They can also find resources in our lesson plan Making a Difference: Ideas for Giving, Service Learning and Social Action.

Invite your students to watch Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech. Why is it still so powerful over 50 years later?

That's the question we ask in our Text to Text lesson plan that pairs Dr. King's words with an article by the Times book critic Michiko Kakutani, "The Lasting Power of Dr. King's Dream Speech."In it, we pose questions about the figurative language and other poetic and oratorical devices, such as repetition and theme, he uses, as well as questions about what it still has to say to us today. There are also several ideas for assessing how much progress on Dr. King's dream our nation has made since he spoke.

Consider, for example, Adeel Hassan's 2019 interview with Dr. King's son about how far, or close, we are to achieving his father's dream. Martin Luther King III said:

This vision that he engaged in and talked about, elements of it have become true. But the hope is that we'd be much further as a nation. I think we're going through a metamorphosis. And what I mean by that is all of the ill, or all of the negative, has to come out for the positive to emerge because there's no way that we can go back to the past.

Students can be invited to read the rest of the piece and then post answers to our Student Opinion question, What Does Dr. King's Legacy Mean to You?

Have students listen to some of the songs written in honor of Dr. King, and then write their own song. For example, see Stevie Wonder's "Happy Birthday Song," originally written for Dr. King after there was opposition to creating the federal holiday, above.

Students might also listen to this one by James Taylor, which is not part of the Billboard list, above. Here is the first stanza:

Let us turn our thoughts today to Martin Luther King

and recognize that there are ties between us, all men and women living on the Earth.

Ties of hope and love, sister and brotherhood, that we are bound together

in our desire to see the world become a place in which our children can grow free and strong.

We are bound together by the task that stands before us and the road that lies ahead.

We are bound and we are bound.

For additional ideas for teaching history and social studies with music see our lesson plans Teaching With Protest Music and The Ten-Dollar Founding Father Without a Father: Teaching and Learning With 'Hamilton.'

Crowds gathering at the Lincoln Memorial for the March on Washington on Aug. 28, 1963. Related Article | Related Lesson Plan Credit... James H. Wallace/The Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture

Video

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transcript

How Dr. King Changed a Sanitation Worker's Life

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. came to Memphis in 1968 to march with sanitation workers who were protesting low wages and poor working conditions. Cleophus Smith marched with him. He's still on the job.

If Dr. King came back and seen the way things are, he wouldn't be pleased with it. No, he wouldn't be pleased at all. All right. I call us sanitation engineers because we're supposed to run the job, not let the job run us. I was 24 years old when I started. But back then, it was a different ball game. Back then, the working condition, it was unbearable. After three weeks, when I got my first check, I broke down and cried. We were working full time. And at the same time, the wages were so low, we was qualified to get food stamps. We were determined that we was going to get a union organized, that we would see justice. We were striking about the wages, fair treatment and dignity. When we heard that Dr. King was coming to Memphis to help us in that sanitation strike, we were very surprised. We knew then that there was somebody that cared about our struggle. We was at Mason Temple this particular night. Dr. King said, the Lord allowed me to go to the mountaintop and to look over into the promised land. And he said, I might not get there with you, but we will make it to the promised land. Everybody was just jubilated, just excited, not knowing the next day would be a day of silence. Because of Dr. King's death, that was one of the reasons that Mayor Loeb went on and signed that union into a decree. We got what we wanted, but at the same time, we lost the great leader. "He never thought in terms of his personal welfare, but always in terms of the cause which he dedicated his life to." I really had a lot of animosity. I came from the streets. I was a street thug. And Dr. King was the one that taught me, through his humility and his leadership. I said, that's the way I'd like to be. "- united will never be defeated. The workers united will never be defeated. The workers united will never be defeated. The workers united will never be defeated." There are still some unsolved problems need to be solved. "What do we want?" "15." "When do we want it?" "Now!" "What do we want?" "15." "When do want it?" "Now!" It is what it is until somebody can roll his sleeves up and get out there and fight.

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. came to Memphis in 1968 to march with sanitation workers who were protesting low wages and poor working conditions. Cleophus Smith marched with him. He's still on the job.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Teaching and Learning About Martin Luther King Jr. With The New York Times

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
How do you celebrate and teach the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., both on the holiday that celebrates his birth, and all year long? Please note: In honor of Martin Luther King Day, The Learning Network will not be publishing on Jan. 20, 2020. Martin Luther King Jr.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
How do you celebrate and teach the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., both on the holiday that celebrates his birth, and all year long?

On Aug. 28, 1963, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. addressed thousands of people gathered around the Reflecting Pool on the National Mall in Washington. Credit... Agence France-Presse - Getty Images

Please note: In honor of Martin Luther King Day, The Learning Network will not be publishing on Jan. 20, 2020.
Martin Luther King Jr. Day, an annual federal holiday since 1986, celebrates the national civil rights leader who was instrumental in challenging the racial caste system that delineated how millions of Americans lived their lives.

All 50 states celebrate the public holiday on the third Monday in January, but not all states, cities and towns dedicate it solely to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Some package it as a broader celebration of both Dr. King and Confederate leaders, according to this 2017 piece, " Celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Still Faces Pushback."

Teaching Tolerance's "Dos and Don'ts of Celebrating MLK Day" (and "Going the Extra Mile for MLK Day") remind us that although the holiday is just one day - and Black History Month is just one month - Dr. King's message of equality and justice for all are best embedded in the curriculum all year round.

The New York Times reported on Dr. King's campaign and on the civil rights movement in general, and continues to report on related issues of segregation and inequality today. And on April 4, 2018, the 50th anniversary of Dr. King's assassination, The Times published a rich collection, from articles and Op-Eds to photos and video, to celebrate his life and legacy.

Below, we've chosen both recent pieces as well as pieces from the Times archives published during Dr. King's lifetime. We also suggest several teaching ideas for connecting his message with our world today.

How do you teach about Dr. King? Let us know in the comments.

Here's what you'll find below:

Image

What would Dr. King make of America today?

On April 4, 2018, The Times published an interactive look at that question. Headlined " Martin Luther King Jr.: 50 Years Later, His Battles Live On," here is how it begins:

Martin Luther King Jr. remains frozen in time for many Americans. Seared into our consciousness is the man who battled Southern segregation.

We see him standing before hundreds of thousands of followers in the nation's capital in 1963, proclaiming his dream for racial harmony. We see him marching, arms locked with fellow protesters, through the battleground of Alabama in 1965.

But on the 50th anniversary of his death, it is worth noting how his message and his priorities had evolved by the time he was shot on that balcony at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis in 1968. Dr. King was confronting many challenges that remain with us today.

He was battling racism in the North then, not just in the South. He was pushing the government to address poverty, income inequality, structural racism and segregation in cities like Boston and Chicago. He was also calling for an end to a war that was draining the national treasury of funds needed to finance a progressive domestic agenda.

This may not be the Dr. King that many remember. Yet, his words resonate powerfully - and, perhaps, uncomfortably - today in a country that remains deeply divided on issues of race and class.

How do your students see his words resonating in their own lives and communities - and in our nation and around the world? Invite them to click through this rich collection, which links to both new and archival pieces, as they attempt to answer the question we pose above: What would Dr. King make of America today?

As they work, students might highlight quotes and ideas that pair especially well with other things they are reading, learning about, listening to or viewing. For instance, how do they speak to current works like Childish Gambino's "This Is America" or Angie Thomas's " The Hate U Give "? Why? As a culminating activity, a class might create a gallery of images and quotes that bridge Dr. King's battles with those we are fighting today.

Do you have to be disobedient if you want justice? How would your students answer?

How much do your students know about the civil rights movement? Test their knowledge with this 13-question quiz The Times published in 2019 in honor of Dr. King's 90th birthday. Then consider: What did working to advance racial and social justice look like in the 1950s and 60s? What does it look like now?

In a 2015 Magazine article, " Teaching Martin Luther King Jr. in the Age of Freddie Gray," Syreeta McFadden writes about discussing "Letter From Birmingham Jail" with her students at a community college in Manhattan:

... We returned to King's letter, in which he draws a distinction between just and unjust laws. They didn't know about this King, I found, the one who fought the law. In their view, the civil rights movement was embodied in King the Christlike leader, who stands for peace, love and brotherhood.

I told the students that King went to jail a lot for peace, love and brotherhood.

We talked about Baltimore, where the police had just killed Freddie Gray and street protests were swelling to an uprising. My students were skeptical of headlines and commentary that called for nonviolent protest. One of the students noted that the police were violent, too, and they were placing people in mortal danger just to protect some buildings from being damaged.

"A building is not more valuable than a person," she said. Most of the others nodded in agreement. More began to speak. The rote discussion was becoming impassioned, cacophonous:

"But there's a difference between rioting and peaceful protest. ..."

"Are we saying property is more valuable than a human being?"

"That's like saying to protest is unlawful. ..."

"What does 'peaceful' even mean?"

Read about the rest of the discussion that day, and think about the implications for your own classroom. How does teaching about Dr. King and the civil rights movement look different today, after recent movements like #takeaknee and #MeToo, and protests from the Women's March and Black Lives Matter to the events in Charlottesville, Va.?

In " The Art of the Protest," a November 2016 opinion article published just after the election of Donald J. Trump, Tina Rosenberg reminds us that "America enshrines in its Constitution the right to peacefully voice protest to check government power." She continues:

The Republican Party will soon control the presidency, Congress, most governorships and state legislatures; in all probability, there will be a conservative majority on the Supreme Court. Given Donald J. Trump's approval of advisers from the white nationalist far right, following his vitriolic attacks on the policies of the Obama administration, Democrats, independents and even some Republicans are bracing for assaults on - everything.

... Protests can change policies, however - and often have. In other countries and throughout American history, ordinary citizens banding together have triumphed over governments, even when a single party holds sweeping control. Many of those protests used resources that the opposition to President-elect Trump enjoys today. They can learn from how those victories were won.

And in a 2017 Op-Ed, Jason Sokol writes:

In this season of political polarization, it is tempting to hope that we can unite in celebration of Dr. King. But celebrators ought to know whom they are honoring. Dr. King died for striking garbage workers and beseeched his government to protect the vulnerable. He had a message for those who would target immigrants or wall off America from the world. In a 1967 speech, he declared: "Our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than national." Instead of policing their borders, nations should "develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole."

The alternative was unacceptable. "History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate." To honor Dr. King is to follow a different path.

Finally, on Martin Luther King Day 2018, in the wake of news that President Trump used crude words to describe Haiti and African countries, The Times reports that " Black Churches See a Nation Backsliding." In a related Opinion piece, George Yancy asks, " Will America Choose King's Dream or Trump's Nightmare? "

Have your students read any or all of these pieces and discuss the role of protest in America in the past and today. What lessons might movements of the past offer us now? How?

The Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service, signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1994, challenges Americans to make the holiday into a day of active volunteer service to honor Dr. King.

Have students research ideas in the spirit of service here, and then design a day of service for themselves and their classmates, or for their family members, and present these ideas to their class. They can also find resources in our lesson plan Making a Difference: Ideas for Giving, Service Learning and Social Action.

Invite your students to watch Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech. Why is it still so powerful over 50 years later?

That's the question we ask in our Text to Text lesson plan that pairs Dr. King's words with an article by the Times book critic Michiko Kakutani, "The Lasting Power of Dr. King's Dream Speech."In it, we pose questions about the figurative language and other poetic and oratorical devices, such as repetition and theme, he uses, as well as questions about what it still has to say to us today. There are also several ideas for assessing how much progress on Dr. King's dream our nation has made since he spoke.

Consider, for example, Adeel Hassan's 2019 interview with Dr. King's son about how far, or close, we are to achieving his father's dream. Martin Luther King III said:

This vision that he engaged in and talked about, elements of it have become true. But the hope is that we'd be much further as a nation. I think we're going through a metamorphosis. And what I mean by that is all of the ill, or all of the negative, has to come out for the positive to emerge because there's no way that we can go back to the past.

Students can be invited to read the rest of the piece and then post answers to our Student Opinion question, What Does Dr. King's Legacy Mean to You?

Have students listen to some of the songs written in honor of Dr. King, and then write their own song. For example, see Stevie Wonder's "Happy Birthday Song," originally written for Dr. King after there was opposition to creating the federal holiday, above.

Students might also listen to this one by James Taylor, which is not part of the Billboard list, above. Here is the first stanza:

Let us turn our thoughts today to Martin Luther King

and recognize that there are ties between us, all men and women living on the Earth.

Ties of hope and love, sister and brotherhood, that we are bound together

in our desire to see the world become a place in which our children can grow free and strong.

We are bound together by the task that stands before us and the road that lies ahead.

We are bound and we are bound.

For additional ideas for teaching history and social studies with music see our lesson plans Teaching With Protest Music and The Ten-Dollar Founding Father Without a Father: Teaching and Learning With 'Hamilton.'

Crowds gathering at the Lincoln Memorial for the March on Washington on Aug. 28, 1963. Related Article | Related Lesson Plan Credit... James H. Wallace/The Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture

Video

Back

transcript

How Dr. King Changed a Sanitation Worker's Life

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. came to Memphis in 1968 to march with sanitation workers who were protesting low wages and poor working conditions. Cleophus Smith marched with him. He's still on the job.

If Dr. King came back and seen the way things are, he wouldn't be pleased with it. No, he wouldn't be pleased at all. All right. I call us sanitation engineers because we're supposed to run the job, not let the job run us. I was 24 years old when I started. But back then, it was a different ball game. Back then, the working condition, it was unbearable. After three weeks, when I got my first check, I broke down and cried. We were working full time. And at the same time, the wages were so low, we was qualified to get food stamps. We were determined that we was going to get a union organized, that we would see justice. We were striking about the wages, fair treatment and dignity. When we heard that Dr. King was coming to Memphis to help us in that sanitation strike, we were very surprised. We knew then that there was somebody that cared about our struggle. We was at Mason Temple this particular night. Dr. King said, the Lord allowed me to go to the mountaintop and to look over into the promised land. And he said, I might not get there with you, but we will make it to the promised land. Everybody was just jubilated, just excited, not knowing the next day would be a day of silence. Because of Dr. King's death, that was one of the reasons that Mayor Loeb went on and signed that union into a decree. We got what we wanted, but at the same time, we lost the great leader. "He never thought in terms of his personal welfare, but always in terms of the cause which he dedicated his life to." I really had a lot of animosity. I came from the streets. I was a street thug. And Dr. King was the one that taught me, through his humility and his leadership. I said, that's the way I'd like to be. "- united will never be defeated. The workers united will never be defeated. The workers united will never be defeated. The workers united will never be defeated." There are still some unsolved problems need to be solved. "What do we want?" "15." "When do we want it?" "Now!" "What do we want?" "15." "When do want it?" "Now!" It is what it is until somebody can roll his sleeves up and get out there and fight.

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. came to Memphis in 1968 to march with sanitation workers who were protesting low wages and poor working conditions. Cleophus Smith marched with him. He's still on the job.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Teaching and Learning About Martin Luther King Jr. With The New York Times

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
How do you celebrate and teach the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., both on the holiday that celebrates his birth, and all year long? Please note: In honor of Martin Luther King Day, The Learning Network will not be publishing on Jan. 20, 2020. Martin Luther King Jr.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
How do you celebrate and teach the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., both on the holiday that celebrates his birth, and all year long?

On Aug. 28, 1963, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. addressed thousands of people gathered around the Reflecting Pool on the National Mall in Washington. Credit... Agence France-Presse - Getty Images

Please note: In honor of Martin Luther King Day, The Learning Network will not be publishing on Jan. 20, 2020.
Martin Luther King Jr. Day, an annual federal holiday since 1986, celebrates the national civil rights leader who was instrumental in challenging the racial caste system that delineated how millions of Americans lived their lives.

All 50 states celebrate the public holiday on the third Monday in January, but not all states, cities and towns dedicate it solely to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Some package it as a broader celebration of both Dr. King and Confederate leaders, according to this 2017 piece, " Celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Still Faces Pushback."

Teaching Tolerance's "Dos and Don'ts of Celebrating MLK Day" (and "Going the Extra Mile for MLK Day") remind us that although the holiday is just one day - and Black History Month is just one month - Dr. King's message of equality and justice for all are best embedded in the curriculum all year round.

The New York Times reported on Dr. King's campaign and on the civil rights movement in general, and continues to report on related issues of segregation and inequality today. And on April 4, 2018, the 50th anniversary of Dr. King's assassination, The Times published a rich collection, from articles and Op-Eds to photos and video, to celebrate his life and legacy.

Below, we've chosen both recent pieces as well as pieces from the Times archives published during Dr. King's lifetime. We also suggest several teaching ideas for connecting his message with our world today.

How do you teach about Dr. King? Let us know in the comments.

Here's what you'll find below:

Image

What would Dr. King make of America today?

On April 4, 2018, The Times published an interactive look at that question. Headlined " Martin Luther King Jr.: 50 Years Later, His Battles Live On," here is how it begins:

Martin Luther King Jr. remains frozen in time for many Americans. Seared into our consciousness is the man who battled Southern segregation.

We see him standing before hundreds of thousands of followers in the nation's capital in 1963, proclaiming his dream for racial harmony. We see him marching, arms locked with fellow protesters, through the battleground of Alabama in 1965.

But on the 50th anniversary of his death, it is worth noting how his message and his priorities had evolved by the time he was shot on that balcony at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis in 1968. Dr. King was confronting many challenges that remain with us today.

He was battling racism in the North then, not just in the South. He was pushing the government to address poverty, income inequality, structural racism and segregation in cities like Boston and Chicago. He was also calling for an end to a war that was draining the national treasury of funds needed to finance a progressive domestic agenda.

This may not be the Dr. King that many remember. Yet, his words resonate powerfully - and, perhaps, uncomfortably - today in a country that remains deeply divided on issues of race and class.

How do your students see his words resonating in their own lives and communities - and in our nation and around the world? Invite them to click through this rich collection, which links to both new and archival pieces, as they attempt to answer the question we pose above: What would Dr. King make of America today?

As they work, students might highlight quotes and ideas that pair especially well with other things they are reading, learning about, listening to or viewing. For instance, how do they speak to current works like Childish Gambino's "This Is America" or Angie Thomas's " The Hate U Give "? Why? As a culminating activity, a class might create a gallery of images and quotes that bridge Dr. King's battles with those we are fighting today.

Do you have to be disobedient if you want justice? How would your students answer?

How much do your students know about the civil rights movement? Test their knowledge with this 13-question quiz The Times published in 2019 in honor of Dr. King's 90th birthday. Then consider: What did working to advance racial and social justice look like in the 1950s and 60s? What does it look like now?

In a 2015 Magazine article, " Teaching Martin Luther King Jr. in the Age of Freddie Gray," Syreeta McFadden writes about discussing "Letter From Birmingham Jail" with her students at a community college in Manhattan:

... We returned to King's letter, in which he draws a distinction between just and unjust laws. They didn't know about this King, I found, the one who fought the law. In their view, the civil rights movement was embodied in King the Christlike leader, who stands for peace, love and brotherhood.

I told the students that King went to jail a lot for peace, love and brotherhood.

We talked about Baltimore, where the police had just killed Freddie Gray and street protests were swelling to an uprising. My students were skeptical of headlines and commentary that called for nonviolent protest. One of the students noted that the police were violent, too, and they were placing people in mortal danger just to protect some buildings from being damaged.

"A building is not more valuable than a person," she said. Most of the others nodded in agreement. More began to speak. The rote discussion was becoming impassioned, cacophonous:

"But there's a difference between rioting and peaceful protest. ..."

"Are we saying property is more valuable than a human being?"

"That's like saying to protest is unlawful. ..."

"What does 'peaceful' even mean?"

Read about the rest of the discussion that day, and think about the implications for your own classroom. How does teaching about Dr. King and the civil rights movement look different today, after recent movements like #takeaknee and #MeToo, and protests from the Women's March and Black Lives Matter to the events in Charlottesville, Va.?

In " The Art of the Protest," a November 2016 opinion article published just after the election of Donald J. Trump, Tina Rosenberg reminds us that "America enshrines in its Constitution the right to peacefully voice protest to check government power." She continues:

The Republican Party will soon control the presidency, Congress, most governorships and state legislatures; in all probability, there will be a conservative majority on the Supreme Court. Given Donald J. Trump's approval of advisers from the white nationalist far right, following his vitriolic attacks on the policies of the Obama administration, Democrats, independents and even some Republicans are bracing for assaults on - everything.

... Protests can change policies, however - and often have. In other countries and throughout American history, ordinary citizens banding together have triumphed over governments, even when a single party holds sweeping control. Many of those protests used resources that the opposition to President-elect Trump enjoys today. They can learn from how those victories were won.

And in a 2017 Op-Ed, Jason Sokol writes:

In this season of political polarization, it is tempting to hope that we can unite in celebration of Dr. King. But celebrators ought to know whom they are honoring. Dr. King died for striking garbage workers and beseeched his government to protect the vulnerable. He had a message for those who would target immigrants or wall off America from the world. In a 1967 speech, he declared: "Our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than national." Instead of policing their borders, nations should "develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole."

The alternative was unacceptable. "History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate." To honor Dr. King is to follow a different path.

Finally, on Martin Luther King Day 2018, in the wake of news that President Trump used crude words to describe Haiti and African countries, The Times reports that " Black Churches See a Nation Backsliding." In a related Opinion piece, George Yancy asks, " Will America Choose King's Dream or Trump's Nightmare? "

Have your students read any or all of these pieces and discuss the role of protest in America in the past and today. What lessons might movements of the past offer us now? How?

The Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service, signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1994, challenges Americans to make the holiday into a day of active volunteer service to honor Dr. King.

Have students research ideas in the spirit of service here, and then design a day of service for themselves and their classmates, or for their family members, and present these ideas to their class. They can also find resources in our lesson plan Making a Difference: Ideas for Giving, Service Learning and Social Action.

Invite your students to watch Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech. Why is it still so powerful over 50 years later?

That's the question we ask in our Text to Text lesson plan that pairs Dr. King's words with an article by the Times book critic Michiko Kakutani, "The Lasting Power of Dr. King's Dream Speech."In it, we pose questions about the figurative language and other poetic and oratorical devices, such as repetition and theme, he uses, as well as questions about what it still has to say to us today. There are also several ideas for assessing how much progress on Dr. King's dream our nation has made since he spoke.

Consider, for example, Adeel Hassan's 2019 interview with Dr. King's son about how far, or close, we are to achieving his father's dream. Martin Luther King III said:

This vision that he engaged in and talked about, elements of it have become true. But the hope is that we'd be much further as a nation. I think we're going through a metamorphosis. And what I mean by that is all of the ill, or all of the negative, has to come out for the positive to emerge because there's no way that we can go back to the past.

Students can be invited to read the rest of the piece and then post answers to our Student Opinion question, What Does Dr. King's Legacy Mean to You?

Have students listen to some of the songs written in honor of Dr. King, and then write their own song. For example, see Stevie Wonder's "Happy Birthday Song," originally written for Dr. King after there was opposition to creating the federal holiday, above.

Students might also listen to this one by James Taylor, which is not part of the Billboard list, above. Here is the first stanza:

Let us turn our thoughts today to Martin Luther King

and recognize that there are ties between us, all men and women living on the Earth.

Ties of hope and love, sister and brotherhood, that we are bound together

in our desire to see the world become a place in which our children can grow free and strong.

We are bound together by the task that stands before us and the road that lies ahead.

We are bound and we are bound.

For additional ideas for teaching history and social studies with music see our lesson plans Teaching With Protest Music and The Ten-Dollar Founding Father Without a Father: Teaching and Learning With 'Hamilton.'

Crowds gathering at the Lincoln Memorial for the March on Washington on Aug. 28, 1963. Related Article | Related Lesson Plan Credit... James H. Wallace/The Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture

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How Dr. King Changed a Sanitation Worker's Life

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. came to Memphis in 1968 to march with sanitation workers who were protesting low wages and poor working conditions. Cleophus Smith marched with him. He's still on the job.

If Dr. King came back and seen the way things are, he wouldn't be pleased with it. No, he wouldn't be pleased at all. All right. I call us sanitation engineers because we're supposed to run the job, not let the job run us. I was 24 years old when I started. But back then, it was a different ball game. Back then, the working condition, it was unbearable. After three weeks, when I got my first check, I broke down and cried. We were working full time. And at the same time, the wages were so low, we was qualified to get food stamps. We were determined that we was going to get a union organized, that we would see justice. We were striking about the wages, fair treatment and dignity. When we heard that Dr. King was coming to Memphis to help us in that sanitation strike, we were very surprised. We knew then that there was somebody that cared about our struggle. We was at Mason Temple this particular night. Dr. King said, the Lord allowed me to go to the mountaintop and to look over into the promised land. And he said, I might not get there with you, but we will make it to the promised land. Everybody was just jubilated, just excited, not knowing the next day would be a day of silence. Because of Dr. King's death, that was one of the reasons that Mayor Loeb went on and signed that union into a decree. We got what we wanted, but at the same time, we lost the great leader. "He never thought in terms of his personal welfare, but always in terms of the cause which he dedicated his life to." I really had a lot of animosity. I came from the streets. I was a street thug. And Dr. King was the one that taught me, through his humility and his leadership. I said, that's the way I'd like to be. "- united will never be defeated. The workers united will never be defeated. The workers united will never be defeated. The workers united will never be defeated." There are still some unsolved problems need to be solved. "What do we want?" "15." "When do we want it?" "Now!" "What do we want?" "15." "When do want it?" "Now!" It is what it is until somebody can roll his sleeves up and get out there and fight.

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. came to Memphis in 1968 to march with sanitation workers who were protesting low wages and poor working conditions. Cleophus Smith marched with him. He's still on the job.

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Teaching and Learning About Martin Luther King Jr. With The New York Times

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How do you celebrate and teach the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., both on the holiday that celebrates his birth, and all year long? Please note: In honor of Martin Luther King Day, The Learning Network will not be publishing on Jan. 20, 2020. Martin Luther King Jr.

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it starts with me: a virtual  youth book reading  and puppetry presentation

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it starts with me: a virtual  youth book reading  and puppetry presentation tickets

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It Starts With Me: A Virtual Youth Book Reading and Puppetry Presentation

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Eventbrite - The King Center presents It Starts With Me: A Virtual Youth Book Reading and Puppetry Presentation - Saturday, January 15, 2022 - Find event and ticket information.

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The King Center: Beloved Community Teach In

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The King Center: Beloved Community Teach In

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Lesson plans for K-12 from the King Center in Atlanta.  If you only have a few hours to explore Dr. King's legacy this is a good resource that does not perpetuate the King as Hero narrative.

The resource has quotes from MLK, Jr. that could also be used to explore King's philosophy.

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Beloved Community Teach-In - The King Center

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Martin Luther King, Jr. described the “Beloved Community” as a society where “caring and compassion drive political policies that support the worldwide elimination of poverty and hunger and all forms of bigotry and violence. At its core, the ‘Beloved Community’ is an engine of reconciliation.”

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The King Center: Beloved Community Teach In

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The King Center: Beloved Community Teach In

# data[].attributes.body
Lesson plans for K-12 from the King Center in Atlanta.  If you only have a few hours to explore Dr. King's legacy this is a good resource that does not perpetuate the King as Hero narrative.

The resource has quotes from MLK, Jr. that could also be used to explore King's philosophy.

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Beloved Community Teach-In - The King Center

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Martin Luther King, Jr. described the “Beloved Community” as a society where “caring and compassion drive political policies that support the worldwide elimination of poverty and hunger and all forms of bigotry and violence. At its core, the ‘Beloved Community’ is an engine of reconciliation.”

# data[].attributes.headline
The King Center: Beloved Community Teach In

# data[].attributes.subject
The King Center: Beloved Community Teach In

# data[].attributes.body
Lesson plans for K-12 from the King Center in Atlanta.  If you only have a few hours to explore Dr. King's legacy this is a good resource that does not perpetuate the King as Hero narrative.

The resource has quotes from MLK, Jr. that could also be used to explore King's philosophy.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Beloved Community Teach-In - The King Center

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Martin Luther King, Jr. described the “Beloved Community” as a society where “caring and compassion drive political policies that support the worldwide elimination of poverty and hunger and all forms of bigotry and violence. At its core, the ‘Beloved Community’ is an engine of reconciliation.”

# data[].attributes.headline
The King Center: Beloved Community Teach In

# data[].attributes.subject
The King Center: Beloved Community Teach In

# data[].attributes.body
Lesson plans for K-12 from the King Center in Atlanta.  If you only have a few hours to explore Dr. King's legacy this is a good resource that does not perpetuate the King as Hero narrative.

The resource has quotes from MLK, Jr. that could also be used to explore King's philosophy.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Beloved Community Teach-In - The King Center

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Martin Luther King, Jr. described the “Beloved Community” as a society where “caring and compassion drive political policies that support the worldwide elimination of poverty and hunger and all forms of bigotry and violence. At its core, the ‘Beloved Community’ is an engine of reconciliation.”

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This video offers primary news sources and speeches about MLK, Jr.'s assassination.

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The Assassination of MLK, Jr.: Lonnie Bush Reflects

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The Assassination of MLK, Jr.: Lonnie Bush Reflects

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Former president of the National Civil Rights Museum, Lonnie Bush offers his recollections and reflections on the day MLK, Jr. was assassinated and the aftermath in Washington, D.C.

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How Martin Luther King Jr.'s Death Set a War in Motion

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2021 Remembering MLK: The Man. The Movement. The Moment at the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee

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2021 Remembering MLK: The Man. The Movement. The Moment at the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee

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In last years April 2021 tribute at the former Lorraine Motel you will find spoken word, musical, and speeches remembering the legacy of Dr. King.

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2021 Remembering MLK: The Man. The Movement. The Moment.

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B-Roll Tour of the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee

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B-Roll Tour of the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee

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Visit the National Civil Rights Museum virtually. The tour ends with a view of the hotel room where Martin Luther King, Jr. stayed prior to his murder.

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National Civil Rights Museum Visitor Experience, B-roll

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2022 Skanner MLK, Jr. Virtual Breakfast Event

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2022 Skanner MLK, Jr. Virtual Breakfast Event

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This annual event to commemorate the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. is sponsored by the Skanner, a Black serving newspaper organization.

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The Skanner Foundation 36th Annual Martin Luther King Jr. Breakfast

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The Skanner Foundation invites the community to celebrate the life of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. at our virtual breakfast event.

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The Skanner News offers breaking news from Portland, Oregon and around the world. Check out the special features, entertainment news and classified ads.

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10 OTHER Things that Martin Luther King, Jr. Said

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10 OTHER Things that Martin Luther King, Jr. Said

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Jay Smooth offers us quotes from MLK, Jr. that are not highlighted in the US narrative of King's philosophy.

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Ten OTHER Things Martin Luther King Said