15th Jan. Martín Luther King Day

Martin Luther King, Jr., was a great man who worked for racial equality and civil rights in the United States of America. He was born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia. Martin had a brother, Alfred, and a sister, Christine. Both his father and grandfather were ministers. His mother was a schoolteacher who taught him how to read before he went to school.

Young Martin was an excellent student in school; he skipped grades in both elementary school and high school . He enjoyed reading books, singing, riding a bicycle, and playing football and baseball. Martin entered Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, when he was only 15 years old.

Martin experienced racism early in life. He decided to do to something to make the world a better and fairer place.

After graduating from college and getting married, Dr. King became a minister and moved to Alabama.

During the 1950's, Dr. King became active in the movement for civil rights and racial equality. He participated in the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott and many other peaceful demonstrations that protested the unfair treatment of African-Americans. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964.

Dr. King was assassinated on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee.

Commemorating the life of a tremendously important leader, we celebrate Martin Luther King Day each year in January, the month in which he was born. August 28, the anniversary of Dr. King's 1963 I Have a Dream speech, is called "Dream Day."

Timeline of Martin Luther King Jr.'s Life:

1929	Born on January 15, in Atlanta, Georgia
1948	Graduates from Morehouse College
1953	Marries Coretta Scott
1955	Earns a doctoral degree
1956	Dr. King's house is bombed
1958	Dr. King publishes his first book, Stride Toward Freedom
1963	Dr. King gives his "I Have a Dream" speech at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.
1964	Dr. King is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
1968	Dr. King is assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee
1986	Martin Luther King Jr. Day is declared a national holiday in the U.S.

Speech:

I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, that one day right down in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.