Martin Luther King was born on January 15th, 1929. Throughout his short life he devoted himself to the pursuit of equality for all. His method was non-violent resistance, a method which proved surprisingly effective.

Related Websites

Send your students to these websites, or just take a look yourself.

Visit The King Center, set up by Coretta King http://www.thekingcenter.org/

Lessons and Activities http://k6educators.about.com/cs/martinlutherking/a/mlkingjr2.htm

Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King_Day

Here’s a site all about the inspirational Gandhi http://www.mkgandhi.org/

Forty years on, his words still resonate with relevance for today's situation:

"Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam . I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home and death and corruption in Vietnam . I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours."
"I am convinced that if we are to get on right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a "thing-oriented" society to a "person-oriented" society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered."

"True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring."

From A Time to Break Silence (April 4, 1967) at a meeting of Clergy and Laity Concerned, Riverside Church , New York City

"We have deluded ourselves into believing the myth that capitalism grew and prospered out of the Protestant ethic of hard work and sacrifices. Capitalism was built on the exploitation of black slaves and continues to thrive on the exploitation of the poor."

From his speech given at the National Conference for a New Politics, Chicago , August 1967