Martin Luther King (3ºESO, Raquel)

Martin Luther King was a Baptist minister and leader of the American civil rights
movement in the 1950s and 1960s. He was born in Georgia on 15th January, 1929.
He was against racial discrimination and helped organise the first major protest of
African-Americans who wanted equal rights. This first successful African-American civil
rights movement is known as the “Montgomery Bus Boycott”. The black people
stopped using buses in Alabama as a way to protest because they didn’t want to give
up their bus seats to white people. This was unfair, Rosa Parks started this movement
when she refused to give her seat to a white passenger on a bus in 1955, in
Montgomery, Alabama.
In many states of North America, black people and white people didn’t have equal
rights. Many white people thought that black people were inferior. Black people didn’t
have voting rights, they couldn’t go to the same schools as white people and interracial
marriage was banned. Martin Luther King defended civil disobedience and nonviolent
protests against this social injustice. He led peaceful protests throughout the American
States where segregation existed.
He has a famous speech that begins with the words: “I have a dream that my four
little 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…” Two hundred and fifty thousand
people listen to this speech in 1963, outside the Lincoln Memorial. In 1964 Martin
Luther King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his commitment to racial justice,
using non-violent action.
The Supreme Court would rule against segregation. The Civil Rights Act of 1964
ruled that segregation was not constitutional. The Civil Rights Act prohibited racial
discrimination in employment, education and public places.
Sadly, Martin Luther King was assassinated by a gunman in Tennessee, on 4th
April, 1968.

1. Read the text and look up the words that you don’t understand. (Lee el texto y
busca el significado de las palabras que no entiendes).

2. Who was Martin Luther King? (¿Quién era Martin Luther King?).
3. Where was he born? And when? (¿Dónde nació y cuándo?).

4. The first successful African-American civil rights movement is known as the

“Montgomery Bus Boycott”. What was the problem on the buses? (El primer
movimiento de derechos civiles de éxito es conocido como el boicot de
autobuses de Montgomery. ¿Cuál era el problema en los autobuses?).

5. Who refused to give her bus seat to a white passenger? (¿Quién se negó a dar
su asiento en la guagua a un pasajero blanco?).

6. What rights didn’t black people have? (¿Qué derechos no tenían las personas
de raza negra?).

7. Translate the beginning of Martin Luther King’s famous speech: “I have a

dream that my four little 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”. (Traduce el principio del famoso discurso de Martin Luther King).

8. Did Martin Luther King use violence in his protests? (¿Martin Luther King usaba
la violencia en sus protestas?).

9. When did Martin Luther King receive the Nobel Peace Prize? (¿Cuándo recibió
Martin Luther King el Premio Nobel de la Paz?).

10. What did the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibit? (¿Qué prohibió la Ley de
Derechos Civiles de 1964?).