Discovering Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (Famous Americans Series)

In today’s episode, host Amy Contreras and her daughter Cece delve into the extraordinary life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a pivotal figure in American history known for his iconic “I Have a Dream” speech and the ongoing struggle for civil rights. 

Whether you're familiar with his legacy or hearing his name for the first time, this episode aims to provide a comprehensive overview of his life and achievements.

There are opportunities to test yourself on what you already know about Dr. King and lots of new information to help you learn more about his legacy.  

The episode highlights key milestones, such as his leadership in the Montgomery bus boycott sparked by Rosa Parks' refusal to give up her seat. We also discuss his role in organizing the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and his experiences with nonviolent protest. Join us to learn more!  

Transcript

Cece: Welcome to “Check this out!” 

Amy: A podcast series for kids (and their grownups) where we explore interesting people, places, and ponderings that shape the world around us.   My name is Amy Contreras and I’m Cece! Welcome to episode 6 of Check this out!  If you haven’t already, hit the subscribe button so you can be the first to get new episodes!  

In today’s episode we are going to learn about a famous American named Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.  Do you know who Dr. Martin Luther King Jr is?  

If you already know who Dr. King is, great! I’m excited you’re already coming in with a little knowledge on him.  And if the answer is no, you may have heard of him because of his famous “I have a dream speech” or because there is a holiday in the United States, or because lots of streets and schools are named after him.  But if you aren’t sure who he is and why we talk about him as a famous American that is alright, because we are going to tell you all about him today!  

Before we introduce you to  Martin Luther King Jr  (or help you get to know him even better) I want to call something out.  We may talk about some things in this episode that are hard to understand because Martin Luther King Jr’s life’s work was about civil rights and race relations.  He fought against things like segregation, the Jim Crow Laws, and the mistreatment of black people at the hand of figures of authority.  The United States (and the world)  still has a lot of work to do when it comes to the treatment of people of color and historically marginalized groups, like black and indigenous people in the United States.  

We hope that learning about Martin Luther King Jr and his fight for black rights, equality and civil rights inspires you to learn more.  We are never done learning, and at Check this out we believe in living life with curiosity.  Your questions are important!  Talk to a trusted grown up, teachers, local librarian, or friend about what questions you might have after learning about Martin Luther King Jr and the events that happened during the course of his life or during the civil rights movement.  With that, let’s learn more about this famous american!  

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was born January 15, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia.  His parents were college educated and his father was a pastor.  He had 2 siblings and grew up in a middle class black community called Sweet Auburn in Atlanta.  

Fun fact: do you know his birth name was michael but was later changed to martin?  It was changed by his father to honor Martin Luther, the German protestant leader.  

Dr. King attended segregated public schools while growing up. 

Check this out! 

Do you know what the term segregated means?  Back before the civil rights act places like school were segregated into white and colored.  This means that white kids went to school with other white kids and black kids went to school with other black kids.  In 1954 there was a big supreme court case called Brown vs the board of education which declared states could no longer maintain or establish laws allowing separate schools for black and white students. But that happened after Dr King went to school.  

Martin Luther King Jr was a talented student and involved too! He was a member of a team in his high school that helped lead to his success as a civil rights leader later on.  Take a guess, do you think he was on the 

A Chess Team 

B Debate Team 

C Polo Team 

Cece If you said B you’re right! 

He is remembered as a great orator, or speaker, and his time on the debate team certainly would have helped him build those skills as a young man!   

Dr King graduated from high school at the age of fifteen.  He then attended Morehouse College, a historically black college. From Morehouse he received a degree in sociology in 1948.  

Check this out! 

Morehouse College is  the college both Martin Luther King Jr’s  father and grandmother attended.  

Before he went to college he had the experience of working on a tobacco farm in Connecticut and saw how race relations were different in the north, and what desegregation could be.  It reinforced his dislike of the segregated south.  

After graduation from Morehouse Dr King studied theology (or religious studies) at Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania for 3 years and graduated in 1951.  He was elected student body president of a mostly white class, which at the time was fairly unheard of. It demonstrated his popularity and eloquence in speaking and writing.  He won a fellowship while at Crozer, he used it to enroll in graduate school at Boston University, where he got his doctorate degree in theology in 1955.

In Boston he met his wife Coretta Scott, and had 4 children with her.  Coretta Scott King was an active supporter of Dr King and continues to lead the King Foundation to this day.  

Dr King’s first big civil rights movement was leading the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955.  

Check this out! 

164 The Montgomery bus boycott was a massive protest that came out of Rosa Parks being arrested for refusing to give her seat to a white man on a bus.  The boycott was led against the bus system in Montgomery Alabama by civil rights activists, specifically with Martin Luther King Jr. as the spokesperson.  It was a 381 day boycott (thats more than a year! A year has 365 days!)  that led to a US supreme court decision that segregation laws on buses were unconstitutional.  

This boycott received national press and introduced Dr King as a national civil rights leader to the country.  A boycott is when people refuse to use or spend money on a certain thing.  Thousands of people stopped taking the bus over those 381 days and the city of montgomery lost a lot of money! 

Dr King was able to use the success of the Montgomery boycott to organize the southern christian leadership conference (SCLC).  It provided a civil rights platform for him to speak all over the country about race related issues and meet with civil rights leaders in the US and other countries.  Dr King even traveled to India and was influenced by Gandhi's philosophy of nonviolent protest.  

In 1960 King and his family moved back to Atlanta, where he was born, and he served as co-pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church.  

Question: Do you know who his other co-pastor was? 

It was his dad! 

Although he was a pastor, he spent most of his time with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and in October of 1960 he participated in sit-in demonstrations with black college students.  As a result he was arrested.  

Martin Luther King was arrested a lot during his 13 years as a civil rights leader.  Want to take a guess at how many? 

1. 30 times
2. 23 times 
3. 13 times

Cece: If you guessed A - you’re correct.

Can you believe he was arrested 30 times?!  Martin Luther King Jr was standing up to a long held status quo in the United States and many people in power were deeply resistant to black people having more rights and equal opportunities.  Unfortunately there were a lot of laws that made this inequality legal, so when Dr King protested or demonstrated he was breaking laws of that era.  

Not only did he have to endure 30 arrests as a result of his civil rights work.  Dr King’s life was often put at risk as a result of his involvement in the civil rights movement.  His home was bombed and he regularly received threats against his life from people who were against the civil rights movement.  He continued his civil rights efforts in spite of the arrests and threats.  

From 1960-1965 Martin Luther King Jr was seemingly everywhere! He was on tv regularly, speaking to audiences about civil rights and race relations.   MLK jr was an eloquent speaker and gifted writer which helped get the message about civil rights out to the broader american population.  He even got to meet 2 presidents in his time as a civil rights leader!  

Cece: Any guesses as to who they are?  

Was it… 

1. Dwight D Eisenhower and John F Kennedy
2. John F Kennedy and Lyndon B Johnson 
3. Lyndon B Johnson and Richard Nixon 

Cece: If you guessed B you’re correct! Nice work.  

As I mentioned earlier he was arrested several times and in 1963 he wrote a famous letter from Birmingham jail after being arrested (again) for demonstrating against racial injustice.  Hundreds were jailed in Birmingham after the police used violent tactics against peaceful demonstrators.  He rallied supporters using the famous Letter from a Birmingham Jail. After his release Dr King helped organize and participated in a historic March on Washington.  

On August 28th 1963 he shared a speech with more than 200,000 demonstrators who had gathered peacefully on the national mall in front of the Lincoln Memorial to demand equal justice for all under the law.  

Do you know what MLK’s famous speech on the national mall was called?  Was it the 

1. Set us free speech
2. I believe in equality speech 
3. Or the I have a dream speech 

Cece: If you guessed C you’re right 

The 17 minute I have a dream speech is one of the most well known speeches in history and inspired action after the march was over.  

Martin Luther King Jr. was one of many essential civil rights activists that fought for the liberation of the black population and equal protection under the law.  They fought to abolish the Jim Crow laws that created segregation in the south after the civil war.  Some of the people who MLK worked alongside included; Rosa Parks, Ralph Abernathy, Lyndon B Johnson, his wife Coretta Scott King, John Lewis, Ella Baker, Hosea Williams and so many more.  

The civil rights act of 1964 authorized the federal government to enforce desegregation and outlawed discrimination at businesses and employment.  This was the same year MLK won the Nobel peace prize!  Making him the youngest ever male recipient at the time (he was 35) he won the prize for for his non-violent struggle for civil rights for the Afro-American population.   

Although the civil rights act of 1964 was a huge victory there still was a lot of work to do on the path to equality for black people.  Dr King helped organize a march from Selma, Alabama to the capitol in Montgomery.  John Lewis and Hosea Williams - other civil rights activists i mentioned earlier, led the Selma march.  

On March 7 1965 the demonstrators and marchers were turned back when met by state troopers.  The marchers were injured on TV by tear gas, and state troopers with dogs, fire hoses, and big sticks.  2 days after the initial march Dr king led another attempted Selma march, but stopped when they were again met with police forces.  The original march was on the news and became known as “Bloody Sunday” it caused national outrage, which along lots of other civil rights action led to the passing of the Voting Rights act of 1965. 

Check this out

What do you think happened in the voting rights act of 1965? 

• It outlawed the discriminatory voting practices adopted in many southern states after the Civil War, including literacy tests as a prerequisite to voting.

Although there was progress there was still a lot of frustration and resentment at how long it was taking for things to change in the United States for black people.  And younger black activists were frustrated with MLK’s peaceful approach, feeling it wasn’t strong enough.  

After 1965 MLK expanded his focus from civil rights to also opposing the Vietnam war and attempting to support the poor.  In April of 1968 MLK traveled to Memphis Tennessee to support a strike by the city’s sanitation workers.  While in Memphis he was Assassinated at his motel in Memphis by a sniper.  He was only 39 years old.  

Although he was a civil rights leader for only 13 years he made a massive impact on the civil rights movement and our country.  Martin Luther King is commemorated in the United States by a variety of ways to this day.  Do you know what any of them are? 

Here are a few… 

• The king memorial is on the mall in washington DC near the lincoln memorial.  
• There is a federal holiday MLK day 
• 2 books about MLK have won the pulitzer prize 
• In 1983 there was a 20th anniversary march on washington led by his wife Coretta Scott King and Stevie Wonder 
• There are schools, streets, and parks named for him 

Phew We talked about a lot! 

Cece: he was a busy guy  

Cece: Let’s recap some of his achievements… 

• In 1955 he became Spokesman for the montgomery bus boycott after Rosa Parks was arrested 
• 1957, Dr. King co founded and was elected president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), to provide new leadership for the new civil rights movement. He would serve as head of the SCLC until his assassination in 1968
• 1963, he led a coalition of numerous civil rights groups in a nonviolent campaign aimed at Birmingham, Alabama.  Led to his arrest and the writing of the famous Letter from a Birmingham Jail  
• 1963, Dr. King was one of the driving forces behind the March on Washington,” which drew over a quarter-million people to the national mall- this was where he shared his “i have a dream speech”.
• 1964 won the nobel peace prize for his non-violent advocacy of black rights 
• 1964 congress passed the Civil Rights Act 
• 1965 Congress passed the Voting Rights act 

It is incredible to hear how much he accomplished in his short life.  

A big part of Check this out is encouraging you to learn more on your own.  We are going to give you a few facts that you can continue to research after the podcast is over! 

Cece: Here are 3 of our favorite facts 

You can check out more about these after the episode!  

3 facts 

1. Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, Nobel Peace Prize lecture and “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” are among the most quoted speeches and writings in the English language. Check out some of Dr King’s writings and famous quotes.  
2. King was the youngest person to receive the nobel peace prize when he won in 1964 at age 35 - learn about why he won and what the nobel peace prize is!  (And who younger than 35 has won since!) 
3. Martin Luther King Jr played a critical role in the passing of both the 1964 Civil Rights act and the 1965 Voting Rights act.  Learn more about both of these acts, the rights they provided and how they brought more equality to historically marginalized americans.  

By now if you’ve been listening to our podcast you know we don’t just love investigating cool people, places, and ponderings from history.  

Cece: We also love to rhyme!  

Here is a poem we created about Martin Luther King Jr.  

In a world where opportunities were often small,

Dr King stood up and inspired us all.

With a heart full of courage, he took a stand,

For equality and justice for all across the land.  

He spoke of love and the need for faith and peace,

Teaching us that hate and segregation must cease.

From his Birmingham Letter and Dream Speech came a hopeful call,

To unite as one, together we stand tall!

We thank him for all he did, pushing for rights 

And now its our turn, to keep fighting the fight 

At the “check this out” we know it can be hard to know if information you find online is accurate!  We use verified sources to build the stories you hear about. Our sources for this week's episode are nobel prize.org, the king center, naacp, encyclopedia britannica, and history.com 

If you enjoyed this episode please subscribe and share.  

Cece: Thanks for listening 

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1964/king/facts/ 

https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/voting-rights-act 

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Martin-Luther-King-Jr/Challenges-of-the-final-years 

https://thekingcenter.org/about-tkc/martin-luther-king-jr/ 

https://naacp.org/find-resources/history-explained/civil-rights-leaders/martin-luther-king-jr