Honoring the Light and Life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

 Some of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's less familiar speeches that hold significance still today:

The Atlantic - The King Issue

Martin Luther King Jr. on the Vietnam War

editor's note: King’s opposition to the Vietnam War gained national attention on February 25, 1967, when he appeared alongside four anti-war U.S. senators at a daylong symposium in Beverly Hills, California. In a powerful address, King described how the casualties of the increasingly unpopular war had spread beyond its physical horrors to wreck the Great Society and threaten American principles and values. His outspokenness about an issue not ordinarily seen as a question of civil rights brought a storm of criticism.

Read here

Above is King's speech honoring the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation ahead of its 100th anniversary in 1962 (this footage was rediscovered in 2013). 

Video details:  "On September 12, 1962, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave a speech at the Park Sheraton Hotel in New York City to honor the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation on the eve of its centennial anniversary."

Letter from a Birmingham Jail

from the King Institute at Stanford University:

Read and listen here.

Image is shared via The Atlantic - King Issue: "King is ready for a mug shot (left) in Montgomery, Alabama, after his 1956 arrest while protesting the segregation of the city's buses. His leadership of the successful 381-day bus boycott brought him to national attention. Right: In 1967, King serves out the sentence from his arrest four years earlier in Birmingham, Alabama."

You might wish to share these resources with a protocol or thinking routine for reflection.

Check here for thinking routines listed by thinking purpose/type.

Some possibilities:

See/Familiar/Surprise/Wonder

See 
What do you see or notice? 
Find the Familiar 
What about this feels familiar? What resonates?
Find the Surprise 
What about this feels surprising or unexpected?
Wonder 
What questions do you have? What do you wonder?

About this Routine: 
Use this routine to practice perspective taking and looking at things, ideas, images from a global viewpoint.

• Encourage Inquiry

• Slow Looking

• Practice Articulation

• Develop Questions

• Make it Safe

• Introduce a Topic or Object

• Wonder about differences and similarities

• Examine Differing Points of View

The 3 Ys

Present learners with an issue, image, or problem that has large scale implications. Ask learners to consider the following questions:

• Why might this (idea, topic, question) matter to me?
• Why might it matter to the people around me (community, friends, family, city, nation)?
• Why might it matter to the world?

Types of thinking encouraged: 

• Slow Looking
• Develop Questions
• Explore in Depth
• Construct Narratives
• Examine Differing Points of View
• Begin to develop sensitivity to big ideas
• Deepen emerging understandings about global questions/challenges