1. Martin Luther King Day
By Sarah Adams

2. Who was he?
Last Monday was a very important day in the
US. Have you ever heard of Martin Luther King
Jr (MLK Jr)? He was an American pastor in the
'50s and '60s who led the African-American
Civil Rights Movement.
Because, although slavery ended in the US in
1865, there was horrible inequality and
segregation (=segregación) until this movement.

3. Who was he?
● He received the Nobel
Peace Prize for fighting
racial inequality with
non-violence (=no
violencia); his protests
were always organized
using civil disobedience
(=desobediencia civil).
Gandhi was a big
inspiration for MLK Jr.

4. And who was Rosa Parks?
In March 1955, a fifteen-year-old school girl in Montgomery, Claudette
Colvin, refused to give up her bus seat to a white man according to
racial segregation laws. King was on the committee from the
Birmingham African-American community that looked into the case.
In December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up
her seat.The Montgomery Bus Boycott, planned by Nixon and led by
King, followed. The boycott lasted for 385 days, and the situation
became so tense that King's house was bombed. King was arrested
during this campaign. Eventually racial segregation on all Montgomery
public buses ended. King's role in the bus boycott transformed him into
a national figure and the best-known spokesman of the civil rights
movement.

5. King's “I Have a Dream” speech
"I Have a Dream" is a 17-minute public speech by Martin Luther King,
Jr. delivered on August 28th, 1963, in which he called for racial
equalityand an end to discrimination. The speech was a defining
moment of the American Civil Rights Movement. Delivered to over
200,000 civil rights supporters.
The speech was ranked the top American speech of the 20th century by
a 1999 poll of scholars of public address. According to U.S.
Representative John Lewis, who also spoke that day as the President of
the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, "Dr. King had the
power, the ability, and the capacity to transform those steps on the
Lincoln Memorial into a monumental area that will forever be
recognized. By speaking the way he did, he educated, he inspired, he
informed not just the people there, but people throughout America and
unborn generations."
adaptation from http://www.mlkonline.net/dream.html

6. Martin Luther King Day
Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is a United States federal
holiday marking the birthday of Rev. Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr.
It is observed on the third Monday of January each
year, which is around the time of King's birthday,
January 15.