I have a dream...
MALA ASHOK
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January 15 is the birth anniversary of the freedom rights movement activist Martin Luther King Jr.
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"I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin, but by the content of their character." The speaker was an American named Martin Luther King (Junior).
Martin Luther King (Jr.) was born in Atlanta, Georgia, on January 15, 1929. His parents taught him and his brother, and sister that all people deserved to be treated with respect. As he was growing up, Martin wondered why Black (African American) people like himself could not drink water from the same taps as White people.
Luther heard of the work Mahatma Gandhi was doing in South Africa, and subsequently in India, and made Gandhilji his role model. He heard Gandhiji say, "My life is my message," and made it his motto too.
The movement
In 1955, in Montgomery Alabama, Rosa Parks put up the first opposition to the `Back of the Bus Rule'. This was a rule whereby African-Americans were not allowed to sit at the front in buses. African-Americans across the country, led by Luther and a few others organised a bus boycott, which lasted 382 days. On December 21, 1956, the `Back of the Bus Rule' was declared unconstitutional.
At age 35, Luther was the youngest to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. He donated the entire proceeds to the cause dearest to his heart — the civil rights movement. Like Gandhiji's famous Dandi March, Luther too made a historic march to Washington D.C, where he made a speech, which has gone down in history as the famous, "I Have a Dream" speech. Alas! Like Gandhiji, he too wad the victim of an assassin's bullet.
A memorial is being built for Luther in the capital of the U.S, not far from the venue of the speech. He is the first African -American to be commemorated here and only the third non-president.
The U.S honours him with a holiday on the third Monday of January. This year coincidentally, it falls on his birthday, January 15.
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