Martin Luther King’s Day, Civil Rights Movement and Black history
Martin Luther King’s Day cette année est le 19 janvier (3ème lundi de janvier), juste une journée avant l’investiture d’Obama et Février est Black History Month. Vous pouvez présenter Obama et faire des parallèles entre ses discours et ceux de MLK à partir de cette page du Café sur son élection :
Vous pouvez aussi choisir de parler du Civil Rights Movement et présenter « Woolworth’s lunch counter sit-in in Greensboro » le 1er février, ou la déségrégation de Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, ou encore les histoires de Rosa parks ou de Emmett Till. Voici des adresses pour présenter tous ces évènements.
February 1st : the story of the Greensboro four
Here are links to go on to Black history month (February) with this less known story. The Woolworth’s lunch counter sit-in in Greensboro started on February 1st 1960 with four students and a modest idea spurred on by the brutal killing of 14-year-old Emmett Till. To learn more about Emmett Till, see those links in le Café Pédagogique about him and Rosa Parks, who died 3 years ago:
Then read more on PBS, with a timeline of the events
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/februaryone/sitin.html
Greensboro sit-ins : an interesting site about the events
http://www.sitins.com/index.shtml
A timeline of the Civil Rights (placing the full desegregation of schools in 1971!)
http://www.sitins.com/timeline.shtml
A lot of audio testimonies and interview of the actors (no scripts), a photo gallery and a video of the inauguration of the statue built in memory of the events
http://www.sitins.com/keyplayers.shtml
http://www.sitins.com/multimedia.shtml
About school desegragation, you can train your students to read long stories with this site about Melba Pattillo and the desegregation of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas.
http://teacher.scholastic.com/barrier/hwyf/mpbstory/index.htm
January 21st : MLK Day
Martin Luther King Day is each year on the 3rd Monday in January. This year, MLK Day is on Monday, January 21st 2007. Each year, Infonews and le Café select for you sites that you can use in your classes.
WARNING!!!!!
If you use a search engine (like google) to find sites about MLK, or worse, if you encourage your students to do so, be warned that there is a supremacist site craftily hidden under the aspect of a normal MLK site.
–> the site martin luther king dot org ( I don’t want to activate this link!) is a white supremacist site. At first glance, it looks normal, but when you read it, you soon get shocked (but only if you understand English) and when you look at the signature at the end of the page, you find a group promoting racism and Nazi ideas.
History of the Day
The full story with the text of « I have a dream »
http://stockholm.usembassy.gov/Holidays/celebrate/mlk.html
The story with a timeline
http://www.infoplease.com/spot/mlkhistory1.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King_Day
The story with a short timeline and some quotes
http://martin-luther-king-day.123holiday.net/
Remember that:
– MLK Day is the only national holiday commemorating an African American.
– MLK Day is not only a holiday, but a day of services.
Day of service
The moto is : « Make the holiday “A day ON, not a day OFF!”. The notion of service to the community is very important in English-speaking countries, and especially in the USA. To discover what a day of service is and hear people explain what they will do for the community see these videos:
http://www.mlkday.gov/about/newsroom/video.asp
Read the national website presenting the « day of services »
http://www.mlkday.gov/about/overview/index.asp
And see also: « why serve? » :
http://www.mlkday.gov/about/why/index.asp
Biographies
Short and simple biographies : kindergarten kids have drawn these pictures, and they are a bit simplistic, but the text accompanying them is short and easy and can enable weak students to remember the key moments of MLK’s life and his movement. The sentences are in the present : a simple exercise could be to turn all theses sentences in the past to build a biography.
http://www.pps.k12.or.us/schools-c/pages/buckman/timeline/kingframe.html
http://www2.lhric.org/pocantico/taverna/98/1.htm
For older students or those who prefer a short timeline without pictures
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/history/us/MLK/timeline.shtml
a full biography
http://www.netstate.com/states/peop/people/ga_mlk.htm
Quizzes with links to find the answers and learn
– A quiz from the Seattle Times that you do first, without clues, and then you get interesting information in the answers, in short sentences.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/mlk/classroom/MLKquiz.html
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/mlk/king/quiz.html
– The interactive « Fight for Rights » from Time for Kids : a game (quiz) about black American’s fight for their rights, with nice photos and a timeline to find the answers (open both windows)
http://www.timeforkids.com/TFK/specials/bhm/0,8805,97501,00.html
The timeline for the « fight for rights », from then till now, with a text and a picture describing what happened at each step
http://www.timeforkids.com/TFK/specials/bhm/0,8805,97502,00.html
A worksheet with a timeline
http://www.timeforkids.com/TFK/class/pdfs/2006S/060113_wr1.pdf
– This quiz from the AT&T knowledge Network worked well with upper intermediate students : you can print the questions and then they visit the links (they all work this year, and some of the questions have changed.) and look for the answers (the answers are not provided on the site, but for the past five years, my students have always found the answers (en classe de première S)
http://www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/BHM/bh_hunt_quiz.html
– An online quiz to learn. I did it with lower intermediates as a whole class (who had already worked on the simple timeline to know the basic facts), and they love learning about MLK through a game. This « game » is a flash quiz where speed is essential. But don’t worry, you can do the quiz several times over, and this even helps to memorize the answers!
http://www.surfnetkids.com/games/king-sw.htm
– for beginners, here is a questionnaire about MLK’s timeline that you can print. You can even use it without a computer : you then hand out the questionnaire and the timeline.
http://www2.lhric.org/pocantico/taverna/98/webquest.htm
Ready to use worksheets
Activity for the youngest : create a clothesline timeline of MLK
http://www.education-world.com/a_lesson/02/lp248-03.shtml
A crossword
http://www.surfnetkids.com/games/king-cw.htm
A quiz and words to find in a grid
http://www2.lhric.org/pocantico/taverna/98/king.htm
(two level, with a different number of words to find)
*** Lots of activities : quizzes, word search, printouts, printable activity booklets:
http://worksheets.teach-nology.com/misc/mlk/
Webquests
An easy treasure hunt based on MLK’s biography
http://lve.scola.ac-paris.fr/anglais/mlkth.php
Even easier, an interactive online fill in the blanks worksheet for younger
Children
http://lve.scola.ac-paris.fr/anglais/MLK/mlkbio.htm
« I have a dream »
*** to hear the full speech and read the script as it goes
http://www.hpol.org/record.php?id=72
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/historicspeeches.html
To read the text
http://members.aol.com/klove01/dreamsp.htm
http://members.tripod.com/jean2000/jc/jc9.htm#dream
To hear short extracts, with other speeches and a short video
http://www.npr.org/news/specials/march40th/speeches.html
For a full video of the speech which gives a good idea of the atmosphere (thanks to Laurence Bernard on eTeachNet)
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbUtL_0vAJk&eurl=
Pages of links and resources
– an excellent and very comprehensive teaching unit by Jérome Quintena. A ready to use teaching unit with nicely designed worksheets:
or go to
http://teachers.domainepublic.net/
then choose « documents »; « civilisation »; « Term STT- black American Project »
– a ready to use online page, 4 biographies, three quizzes and seven questions
http://lycees.ac-rouen.fr/pascal/infonews/themes/MLK.htm
– other pages prepared by colleagues
http://www.ac-nancy-metz.fr/enseign/anglais/Henry/mlk.htm
http://lve.scola.ac-paris.fr/anglais/fetes01.php#mlk
– and some more ages of links
http://www.kiddyhouse.com/Holidays/MLK/MLK.html
http://www.cumbavac.org/martin_luther_king.htm
http://k6educators.about.com/cs/martinlutherking/a/mlkingjr2.htm
http://www.educationworld.com/holidays/archives/mlking.shtml
Special reports from TV and magazines
– VOA « King Holiday Considered ‘Mixed Blessing’ By Some Historians »(advanced).
http://voanews.com/english/archive/2005-01/2005-01-14-voa25.cfm?CFID=20477635&CFTOKEN=44690881
– Seattle Times
a special report with ideas for the class and links.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/mlk/
– PBS
listen to « three perspectives » the interviews of MLK, malcolm X and James Baldwin (no transcript but a teacher’s guide).
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/mlk/
– BBC
A short biogaphy, a page about the March on Washington (August 28th 1963), and another about I have a dream, with the audio file and interviews of people who took part.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/king_martin_luther.shtml
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/august/28/newsid_2656000/2656805.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3170387.stm
– The Encyclopedia Britannica
A guide to African American history. An interesting study guide for advanced students, with videos and audio documents
http://search.eb.com/blackhistory/study/index_eb.htm
– Stanford University
Lots of documented resources for advanced students
http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/kingpapers/index
Articles from Time magazine about MLK
Now everyone can access the full archives of Time Magazine for free. So have a look at the special Time Magazine from January 3rd 1964 « Martin Luther King Junior, man of the year » where MLK was named « man of the year » and where you find the article :’Every Negro Who Discharges His Duty Faithfully Is Making a Real Contribution’
Article
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,940760,00.html
Full magazine
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/0,9263,7601640103,00.html
See also this article « Attack on the Conscience » from Time magazine dated Feb. 18, 1957 : it is horribly full of the word « negro » and you can read : « The man whose word they seek is not a judge, or a lawyer, or a political strategist or a flaming orator. He is a scholarly, 28-year-old Negro Baptist minister, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who in little more than a year has risen from nowhere to become one of the nation’s remarkable leaders of men. » It is interesting to have a glimpse at the context of the moment.
http://www.time.com/time/archive/preview/0,10987,809103,00.html
For advanced students (level B2 and above), read this article from Time Magazine dated January 9th 2006, with excerpts from a book describing the last year of his life and how things were changing.
http://www.time.com/time/archive/preview/0,10987,1145260,00.html
