Martin Luther King

In 1963, Martin Luther King made a speech in Washington DC: “I have a dream”, he said. He dreamed of all the people of America, black and white, living together in peace and freedom. He thought that all men and women should be equal.

This speech was shown in TV all over the world and Martin Luther King became a hero to millions of people around the world. But there were many people who hated this man and his ideas. Five years later, in 1968, when he was only 39 years old, a white man shot him dead in Memphis. Many people cried when they heard of his death and others were very angry; there were riots in the big cities of USA. Martin Luther King had been a man who fought for freedom and the world lost a big man, a man who was a symbol of freedom and peace.

In 1929, when he was born in Atlanta (Georgia), most black people in America lived in the South. Slavery in America was ended in 1865, when the civil war ended, but black people in the South did not have the same rights as white people and they were poorer and they lived in worse houses than white people. Blacks and whites lived in different worlds. Black people had to sit at the back of the buses and they could not sit beside whites. They couldn't eat in most restaurants and there were different schools for black children and white children. Blacks and whites lived in the same places but they were kept away from each other. This was called segregation.

Martin grew in this world and he saw how white people treated black people. He thouhgt that segregation was not fair. His father said: “Segregation is wrong but things will get better in time. We should be patient and wait. Change will come”; but young Martin did not agree with his father.”If you want to change this, you have to act”, Martin said. He often spoke in churh and at school about the need for changes.

Martin was an excellent student and when he finished his studies in Atlanta he decided to become a minister, like his father, but a teacher too. He went to Crozer, a college for ministers in Pennsylvania. There were white students at the college but Martin was happy to find that they were friendly toward him and he realized that black people and white people did not have to hate each other. In his last year at Crozer, Martin went to hear a talk about Gandhi, who had fought against the British in India using no-violence, no guns.Ghandi thought than love was more powerful than hate and Martin was excited by Ghandi's words. Could black people in the south end segregation without violence? He began to think seriously about this.

Martin continued his studies at Boston University and soon he was Dr. Martin Luther King. He fell in love with Coretta Scott, a young woman from the South, and got married to her. But he knew that his work was in the South so the Kings moved back there to fight together against segregation and to lead black people toward freedom. Martin Luther believed that no-violence was the only way to win the fight for black's rights and soon his policy of non-violent protest was becoming more popular. But most white people in the South still did not want to change and they were ready to fight to keep their way of life. There were organizations to fight against black rights (like the Ku Klux Klan) that used violence to frighten black people and stop then from fighting.

Martin Luther King work continued and he finally got that black people had some rights than white people. His dream became real. He would have been happy if he had seen Obama as president of USA.