E-Day
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E-Day Topic Resource Page
Grade 2 Topic
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Brief Overview/objective:
To learn about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. – his life, his ministry, his calling. To recognize his
contribution to changes in our country and our thinking about other people
After completing this Enrichment Day, the students will be able to:
Define discrimination and injustice
Explain Martin Luther King Jr’s vision and it’s source in God’s Word
Identify several changes in our laws and culture as a result of Dr. King’s ministry
Resources in workroom:
MLK 3-ring binder (includes ED lesson plans, information, activities and sheets)
Martin’s Big Words by Doreen Rappaport (book)
Martin’s Big Words (DVD)
The Story of Ruby Bridges by Robert Coles (book)
Ideas to get you started:
Create a discrimination exercise such as only giving children with brown hair cookies and
having the others stand in the back of the room.
Discuss God’s view of man – both as image-bearer and sinner.
Read and discuss scriptural examples of God’s view versus man’s view (1 Samuel 16 -David
being selected over his brothers as God looked at the heart)
Make a time line or mobile of Martin Luther’s life
Listen to or read the “I Have a Dream” speech.
Write your own “I Have a Dream” speech.
Identify ways that his “dream” has come true, and ways that it is not yet fulfilled.
Identify areas in our society where there are injustices today.
Read and discuss Biblical ways to deal with conflict. (Ex. Luke 6:31-“Treat other the way you
want them to treat you.” or Proverbs 15:1-“A gently answer turns away wrath.”, etc.)
Identify and pray for ministries that are working to address the needs of the poor or
oppressed in our country or around the world.
Listen to other MLK speeches, sermons and quotes.
Make a collage or mobile of MLK quotes
http://www.thekingcenter.org/
PERIMETER SCHOOL E-DAY RESOURCE
last updated 11.11.2011
E-Day Topic Resource Page for
Martin Luther King, Jr.
The Nobel Peace Prize 1964
Martin Luther King Jr.
The Nobel Peace Prize 1964
Nobel Peace Prize Award Ceremony
Martin Luther King Jr.
Biography
Martin Luther King, Jr., (January 15, 1929-April 4, 1968) was born Michael Luther King, Jr., but later
had his name changed to Martin. His grandfather began the family's long tenure as pastors of the
Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, serving from 1914 to 1931; his father has served from then until
the present, and from 1960 until his death Martin Luther acted as co-pastor. Martin Luther attended
segregated public schools in Georgia, graduating from high school at the age of fifteen; he received
the B. A. degree in 1948 from Morehouse College, a distinguished Negro institution of Atlanta from
which both his father and grandfather had graduated. After three years of theological study at Crozer
Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania where he was elected president of a predominantly white senior
class, he was awarded the B.D. in 1951. With a fellowship won at Crozer, he enrolled in graduate
studies at Boston University, completing his residence for the doctorate in 1953 and receiving the
degree in 1955. In Boston he met and married Coretta Scott, a young woman of uncommon
intellectual and artistic attainments. Two sons and two daughters were born into the family.
In 1954, Martin Luther King became pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery,
Alabama. Always a strong worker for civil rights for members of his race, King was, by this time, a
member of the executive committee of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People, the leading organization of its kind in the nation. He was ready, then, early in December,
1955, to accept the leadership of the first great Negro nonviolent demonstration of contemporary times
in the United States, the bus boycott described by Gunnar Jahn in his presentation speech in honor of
the laureate. The boycott lasted 382 days. On December 21, 1956, after the Supreme Court of the
United States had declared unconstitutional the laws requiring segregation on buses, Negroes and
whites rode the buses as equals. During these days of boycott, King was arrested, his home was
bombed, he was subjected to personal abuse, but at the same time he emerged as a Negro leader of
the first rank.
In 1957 he was elected president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization
formed to provide new leadership for the now burgeoning civil rights movement. The ideals for this
organization he took from Christianity; its operational techniques from Gandhi. In the eleven-year
period between 1957 and 1968, King traveled over six million miles and spoke over twenty-five
hundred times, appearing wherever there was injustice, protest, and action; and meanwhile he wrote
five books as well as numerous articles. In these years, he led a massive protest in Birmingham,
Alabama, that caught the attention of the entire world, providing what he called a coalition of
conscience. and inspiring his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail", a manifesto of the Negro revolution; he
planned the drives in Alabama for the registration of Negroes as voters; he directed the peaceful
march on Washington, D.C., of 250,000 people to whom he delivered his address, "l Have a Dream",
he conferred with President John F. Kennedy and campaigned for President Lyndon B. Johnson; he
was arrested upwards of twenty times and assaulted at least four times; he was awarded five honorary
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Martin Luther King, Jr.
degrees; was named Man of the Year by Time magazine in 1963; and became not only the symbolic
leader of American blacks but also a world figure.
At the age of thirty-five, Martin Luther King, Jr., was the youngest man to have received the Nobel
Peace Prize. When notified of his selection, he announced that he would turn over the prize money of
$54,123 to the furtherance of the civil rights movement.
On the evening of April 4, 1968, while standing on the balcony of his motel room in Memphis,
Tennessee, where he was to lead a protest march in sympathy with striking garbage workers of that
city, he was assassinated.
-------------------------------------Selected Bibliography----------------------------------Adams, Russell, Great Negroes Past and Present, pp. 106-107. Chicago, Afro-Am Publishing Co., 1963.
Bennett, Lerone, Jr., What Manner of Man: A Biography of Martin Luther King, Jr. Chicago, Johnson, 1964.
I Have a Dream: The Story of Martin Luther King in Text and Pictures. New York, Time Life Books, 1968.
King, Martin Luther, Jr., The Measure of a Man. Philadelphia. The Christian Education Press, 1959. Two
devotional addresses.
King, Martin Luther, Jr., Strength to Love. New York, Harper & Row, 1963. Sixteen sermons and one essay
entitled "Pilgrimage to Nonviolence."
King, Martin Luther, Jr., Stride toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story. New York, Harper, 1958.
King, Martin Luther, Jr., The Trumpet of Conscience. New York, Harper & Row, 1968.
King, Martin Luther, Jr., Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? New York, Harper & Row, 1967.
King, Martin Luther, Jr., Why We Can't Wait. New York, Harper & Row, 1963.
"Man of the Year", Time, 83 (January 3, 1964) 13-16; 25-27.
"Martin Luther King, Jr.", in Current Biography Yearbook 1965, ed. by Charles Moritz, pp. 220-223. New York,
H.W. Wilson.
Reddick, Lawrence D., Crusader without Violence: A Biography of Martin Luther King, Jr. New York, Harper,
1959.
From Nobel Lectures, Peace 1951-1970, Editor Frederick W. Haberman, Elsevier Publishing Company,
Amsterdam, 1972
This autobiography/biography was written at the time of the award and first published in the book series Les
Prix Nobel. It was later edited and republished in Nobel Lectures. To cite this document, always state the
source as shown above.
* Editor's note: This biography uses the word "Negro". Even though this word today is considered
inappropriate, we have chosen not to change the original text to adhere to the copyright owner's wish to keep
the original version as a historical document.
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Picture Study and Reproduction
Clear off the work surface
Create excitement (briefly) for what the students are about to see.
Hand out the picture upside down.
Discuss questions that they can ask themselves as they study the picture. . Tell them
they will have 2 minutes to study the picture in silence… to study and personally relate to
the picture. Ask them not to get distracted by other people/ things in the room.
Say, “I don’t want to see anyone’s eyes. If you think you’ve seen it all, close your eyes,
and see what you can still see. Focus on whatever you want to. Look at the background,
the foreground, the big picture, then the details. Keep opening and closing your eyes
until the image is clearly in your mind.”
Turn it over and spend 2 minutes in silence.
At the end of 2 minutes, turn the picture over again. Pair the students and have them
narrate the picture quietly to one another for another 2 minutes. (Use a timer if that
helps.)
Have the children take turns spontaneously sharing with the group. (Limit this sharing
time to 1 minute per student if that helps.) If the students make a mistake, don’t correct
them, just raise an eyebrow! They will find out the truth later. No peeking at the picture!
Now, and only now, turn the picture back over. This is the time to correct. “Are you
happy about that now?” This should be a very satisfying experience.
Demonstrate the size of the original.
Discuss the medium.
Now, put on quiet, classical music and let the students draw the picture they’ve just
studied. Allow at least 20 minutes for this part of the activity. Suggestions for an
excellent reproduction:
 Block out the main shapes/size first
 Press lightly on the pencil when starting (erasing doesn’t work)
 Add details and shading later
 Parents should walk around and see if anyone is getting off on the wrong
foot, and offer encouragement. Do not do any drawing for them.
 Save the pictures for the classroom teacher
 “Mount” pictures on black construction paper to highlight
The close is quiet. Have a final, last, quiet look at the original. No more talking now.
“Stow this impression in the photo album of your mind. Now this picture is yours for the
rest of your life!”
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