Martin Luther King: Who Was He?

We get a day off school on January 20 this year to take note of Martin Luther King's birthday.

Why?

Who was this man?

                                                         MLK Memorial     Washington, D.C.

He was named Michael Luther King, Jr., at his birth  on 1-15-1929 in Georgia. His father's name was originally Michael Luther King, but he changed his first name to Martin after German Reformist Martin Luther. When Michael, Jr., was a teenager, he changed his name to Martin like his father.

You may have heard him referred to as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. This is because he earned a Ph.D, or Doctorate. Here are the degrees he earned:

Bachelor of Arts        Morehouse University   http://www.morehouse.edu/
*Note: Martin Luther King, Jr., graduated from high school at the age of 15.

Bachelor of Divinity  Crozer Theological Seminary  http://www.crcds.edu/

Doctor of Philosophy   Boston University  http://www.bu.edu/

Beginning his career, Dr. King was a Baptist Minister at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia. His grandfather and father also served as ministers for that church. Ebenezer is still an active church today.

Dr. King was an activist for equal rights for African Americans. Later in his life, he also rallied against poverty in general and against the war in Vietnam.

In 1957, he spoke to a crowd of 15,000 people in Washington, D.C.

In 1961, he participated in a Freedom Ride, where people, both white and black, rode Greyhound buses through the south, where the freedom to do so was denied African Americans. It sounds like such a simple thing, but they encountered threats and violence as they rode from Washington D.C. to New Orleans. Someone even threw a bomb into one of the buses. Read about it here: http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/freedom-rides

One of his non-violent protests staged in Birmingham, Alabama, made national news, ironically, because of the violent response of the (white) police who tried to stop it.

The police response was to spray people with fire hoses--the force of this water knocked people over and injured them. The other was to sic their vicious dogs on the protesters.


Dr. King was arrested and served time in jail several times in his life: in 1960, 1962, twice in 1963, and 1967, for attempting to achieve equal rights for African Americans in the Deep South. He also worked in Chicago to end poverty.

These black people could be arrested for trying to eat a lunch counter designated for white people only. 

Signs like these were common throughout the South. Dr. King fought to obtain the equal rights that all people were entitled to.

The Civil Rights Act was not passed until 1964, guaranteeing people of color the same rights as white people, even though the Civil War which focused mainly on slavery had taken place 100 years earlier. Dr. King fought for equal rights his whole adult life. Read more about the Civil Rights Act and its history here: https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/civil-rights-act

What is a sit-in?  This was when a large group of people, in protest of unfair treatment of African-Americans, would arrive at a place of business or a government office and simply sit down. They were not a threat to anyone, they did not bear arms, they simply sat down and would not move, to show their solidarity. Police would typically move in and arrest them when they refused to move. In the case of the cafeteria, the people sat at the lunch counter and insisted on being served. Instead of enforcing that right, the police arrested the protesters.

Martin Luther King, Jr.,  was the first President of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.  https://nationalsclc.org/

He wrote seven books in his lifetime:

"Letter From Birmingham"                 1963
"Strength to Love"                               1963
"I Have a Dream"                                1963
"Why We Can't Wait"                         1964
"Where Do We Go From Here"          1967
"Stride Toward Freedom"                   1967
"Trumpet of Conscience"                    1968


And another six were printed using his papers and his story, posthumously (after his death):

 "Daddy King"                                      1980
"The Words of Martin Luther King"    1984
"Testament of Hope"                            1986
"Martin Luther King Companion"       1992
"Papers of Martin Luther King"           1992
"Knock at Midnight"                            1992

He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 for his activism. Here is a history of Nobel Peace Prize winners with links to information about them:

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/index.html

                                                      Dr King accepts his Nobel Peace Prize

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was murdered in Memphis on April 4, 1968. He was 39 years old. https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/martin-luther-king-jr-assassination

After his death, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977 and the Congressional Gold Medal in 2004.

                                          Presidential Medal of Freedom

                                          Congressional Gold Medal

Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday has been a national holiday since 1986, while it had been a state holiday in many states since 1971.

Possibly his best-known speech is the "I Have A Dream" speech. Here is the text:

http://www.archives.gov/press/exhibits/dream-speech.pdf


What did Dr. King do to change the landscape of civil rights? Do we still have problems with it today? How could that be changed? Are there any leaders today who are similar to Dr. King?

Would you have the courage to do the things he did?

Who Is That?

You know who this is...

And this....



But do you know these people??? What changes have they made in the world?

1.   

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 3.    

4.

5.

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7.

8.

9.

10.

11.  

   12.

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1.  Sonia Sotomayor, the first person of Hispanic descent to serve as an Associate Justice (judge) on the United States Supreme Court and the third female Associate Justice. She is originally from New York. The other 2 women are Elena Kagan and Ruth Bader Ginsberg.

2.  Malala Yousefzi. At the age of 14, she was the youngest person to ever win a Nobel Prize. She is outspoken about women's rights, particularly focusing on education. She was shot in the head for being so outspoken, survived, and continues to speak out for womens' rights.

Read about her: Triogenius, 1-6-2014: The Rebel.

3. Greta Thunberg. She is a climate-change activist from Sweden and is not quite 16 years old. She began her call for climate awareness by protesting outside the Swedish Parliament building. She travels the world to spread support for protecting the world's climate. She also is autistic, and calls that her 'superpower'. 

Are you interested in learning about young people that have influenced our lives? Check this out: http://www.mnn.com/lifestyle/responsible-living/photos/8-amazing-kids-who-have-changed-the-world/get-ready

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4. Nelson Mandela. He is a South African man who spoke out against apartheid, and spent 27 years of his life in prison. Read about him here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_Mandela

5. Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft,, which provides many basic computer programs we all use or have used . Read about him at Triogenius, 9-1-2014. 

6. Rosa Parks, considered a pioneer in the Civil Rights Movement, refused to give up her seat on the bus to a white man in 1955, and was arrested. This is a picture of her being fingerprinted, and yes, she was actually arrested over a dispute about a seat on a bus. Her case was heard in court and eventually, the court found in her favor.  Read more about Rosa here:  http://www.rosaparks.org/biography/

7.  Mother Theresa, a highly regarded nun who was born in Albania and served in Calcutta, India, the founder of the Missions of Charity, serving the poorest people of the country and those suffering from AIDs, leprosy, and other diseases. She also was the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979.

8.  Stephen Hawking. Hawking was a physicist who studied things like how the universe began, black holes, and time: He wrote a book, "A Brief History of Time." He suffered from motor neuron disease, which eventually robbed him of the ability to speak as you and I do, but communicated using a computer*..  He died in 2018 at the age of 76.

*learn about the person who developed this sort of computer..beginning when she was 12 years old--Rachel Zimmerman:  http://women-inventors.com/Rachel-Zimmerman.asp

9.  Sally Ride, the first female astronaut in the U.S. Ms. Ride was born in 1951. She was the first American woman in space, flying twice on the space shuttle Challenger and spending over 14 days in space. . She was the youngest person at age 32 to orbit the Earth. After she retired from NASA, she was a physics professor. Ms. Ride died in 2012.

10. Alexander Fleming, who discovered penicillin. He did research on the staphylococcus germ, watching how it grew and behaved when invading healthy cells. He planned to go on a holiday and stacked his samples in a pile, and when he returned he noticed there was some other kind of mold in some of the staph samples that was consuming and destroying it. His remark was, "That's funny.." Penicillin in many forms is still used as the first antibiotic to fight infections. Fleming lived from 1881 to 1955. He was born in Scotland and lived in England.

11.  Jane Goodall, born 1934. She is an Englishwoman who has devoted her life to the study of chimpanzees, living among them and discovering that they use tools, for one thing. Ms. Goodall still advocates for protection of chimpanzees as well as  promoting the saving of the environment,especially that of endangered species. Did you know that her notes and records were first digitized by the University of Minnesota? Here is more on her life:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Goodall

12. Martin Cooper, the inventor of the cell phone (an early prototype is pictured). He worked for Motorola. The first cell phone conversation was Cooper calling a friend while standing on the streets of New York City.

Now you know some important people...

Think of more that you can explore:

• Who invented something you use every day, and when did that happen?
• Who has achieved great success, and how did he or she do it?
• Who would be a role model for you?
• Who rose from humble beginnings to accomplish great things?

Marie Curie

If you've heard of Marie Curie, you probably think: Radiation. Scientist. France. That's maybe all you know. But her story is much more than that.

'Marie' was born Maria Sklodowska in Poland November 7, 1867, to parents who were both teachers. Her father taught math and physics, and her mother ran a boarding house/school until Maria was born. While never wealthy, her father found it hard to get a job when he supported the Polish rebellion to free them from Russian rule. Maria's mother died when Maria was only 10.


Her father brought home experiments for her and her siblings to try out, and taught them as his own students. When she finished her basic schooling, Maria found she was not allowed to attend college in Poland because she was a woman.

One option was the 'Flying University' or 'Floating University,' a sort of underground school for women to learn the same as men. She and her sister Bronislawa took courses there, and then decided that since a woman could study alongside men in Paris, that first Bronislawa would go while Maria supported her, and then Maria would go while her sister supported her. To earn money, Maria took jobs as a governess. In one home, while she took care of the younger children, there was a grown son named Kaczmeirz with whom she fell in love. However, his parents didn't approve of him marrying a penniless woman (meaning, her father was poor), and so sadly they had to break up. Ironically, her sister Bronislawa fell in love with another man also named Kaczmeirz and did marry him.

                                                                Maria on the left, Bronislawa on the right, 1886. Maria is 21.
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It wasn't until 1891 that Maria left Poland for France (at age 26)
to finish her college degree at The Sorbonne in Paris. She barely had enough to get by and almost starved in the process, but she persevered, being interested in the qualities of magnetism. She met Pierre Curie, a French man who taught physics there. They were married in 1895. She wanted to return to Poland to teach, and Pierre declared he loved her so much, he would stop what he was working on and move to Poland with her; but when she realized she wouldn't be allowed to teach, she decided to remain in Paris, and she became a French citizen, then going by 'Marie.' She and Pierre had two daughters, Eve and Irene.


In 1903, Marie became the first woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize for her study of radiation. That prize was shared with her husband Pierre and Henri Bequerel. Pierre died in 1906. He was run over by a horse and carriage. In 1911, Marie once again won a Nobel Prize for her work in chemistry. This made her the first person, and the only woman, to win twice. In her acceptance speech, she noted that she felt she shared the award with Pierre. As an adult, their daughter Irene would also study radioactivity and would also be awarded a Nobel Peace Prize.

From NobelPeacePrize.org, a description of what Marie studied:
Marie Curie studied the radiation of all compounds containing the known radioactive elements, including uranium and thorium, which she later discovered was also radioactive. She also found out that:
- you can exactly measure the strength of the radiation from uranium;
- the intensity of the radiation is proportional to the amount of uranium or thorium in the compound - no matter what compound it is;
- the ability to emit radiation does not depend on the arrangement of the atoms in a molecule; it must be linked to the interior of the atom itself - a revolutionary discovery!
When she realized that some uranium and/or thorium compounds had stronger radiation than uranium, she made the following hypothesis: there must be an unknown element in the compound which had a stronger radiation than uranium or thorium. Her work aroused the interest of her husband, Pierre Curie, who stopped his own research on crystals and joined the "detective work" with his wife. And Marie was proven right: in 1898 the Curies discovered two new radioactive elements: radium (named after the Latin word for ray) and polonium (named after Marie's home country, Poland).  

                                 This watch with 'glow in the dark' hands was quite a novelty in its time. Did you ever have a toy that glowed in the dark?



The 'laboratory' Marie and Pierre used to study was nothing but a shed with bad ventilation. A proper lab wasn't built for them until 1906.


They were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for Physics in 1903, but declined to travel to Stockholm to accecpt it. The money from the prize helped fund their research going forward.


While another scientist, Roentgen, discovered X-rays, the Curies studied radium and discovered it could be used to create Xrays as well. It has some relation to phosphorescence, like in these fish:

During World War I, Marie Curie helped create and manage traveling X-ray trucks to help with the wounded. Initially, it was thought X-rays were completely harmless. While that is not true, and X-rays these days use a fraction of the substance that they used to, X-rays led to the development of radiation therapy to shrink tumors. Digital photography is also used now, for such applications as dental imaging. Without first knowing about X-rays, we would not have CT scans or MRIs to 'see' into the body to diagnose injuries and illnesses. The Curies' work also led to the concept of using sound waves to create images. One important use of Ultrasound is to diagnose and pinpoint heart disease.

Not dancing creatures, but a heart pumping.

While her work was recognized as very important, she still did not have the respect of her countrymen in France or in Poland. She was harshly criticized for an affair she had, and was 'accused' of being a Jewish terrorist, spy, and all manner of fabricated things, mostly because she was a woman. Marie died at age 66 of anemia due to such massive exposure to radiation: her books and personal items are placed in lead boxes and can only be handled if proper safety precautions  are followed. However, her contributions to science and medicine will improve lives forever.