Today we celebrate the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, and most of us will focus on his “I Have a Dream” speech in the classroom. Of all the things Dr. King said and wrote during his lifetime, that speech has proven to be the most enduring. It is powerful and certainly deserves this annual attention.

Dr. King taught that justice and equality were noble goals and that the best way to work toward them was nonviolently. He adopted the concept of civil disobedience that Henry David Thoreau had written about a hundred years earlier, a concept implemented during World War II in Europe, during the civil rights movement in Africa, and against the British in India.

Every student of Bloom’s Taxonomy knows that knowledge and comprehension are fundamental to learning. We also know that being able to apply learning to specific situations demonstrates a more sophisticated understanding of the ideas.

When Dr. King was assassinated, Bobby Kennedy was campaigning for the Democratic Presidential nomination. He was in my hometown, Indianapolis; and it fell to him to announce Dr. King’s death to a large group of predominantly African-American supporters downtown. Everyone there knew and understood what Dr. King stood for. Would they take it to the next level and respond nonviolently to this crisis?

Unfortunately my blog software won’t allow me to embed this YouTube video of Kennedy’s speech which has been enhanced with a graphic montage. I hope you will take 6 minutes to watch and listen.

There were riots in several American cities the night Dr. King was killed, but there was calm in Indianapolis.

People applied what they had learned. It was a fitting tribute.

Posted Mon, 21 Jan 2008 00:01:10 and filed under Speech. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.