On the 21st of January, people in the US celebrated Martin Luther King Day. Children in American schools had a holiday day to honour Dr. King. While we didn’t get a day off school in Ballybrack!!!!.... we did learn a lot about Martin Luther King.
Some facts we learned were:
- Martin Luther King Jr was born in the United States of America to African American parents. At birth he was named Michael King, but his father later changed his name to Martin Luther King Jr.
- When Martin Luther King was growing up, black people had different schools, toilets and even sections of the bus to white people, this was called 'segregation'. They were also denied the right to vote in elections.
- Martin Luther King was so clever, he skipped two grades in school.
- Martin Luther King Jr became a minister.
- Martin was a great believer in peaceful protest, inspired by the Indian activist Mahatma Gandhi. His protests used no-violent tactics.
- In 1963, Martin gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech, at a famous rally named ‘March on Washington.’
- In October 1964, Martin won the Nobel Peace Prize!
Martin Luther King wanted equal civil rights for everyone, regardless of their race, gender or class.
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For art, we worked together to create this collaborative portrait of Martin Luther King. We used oil pastels to make it.
We wrote and drew some of the information we’d learned about Dr. King.
