This biography follows the dramatic life story of one of the world’s most famous campaigners for peace. The writer has divided the story into the events that first brought King to the civil rights movement and the many episodes on the road to a better life for blacks in America.
Born in 1929 into a comfortable home in the southern United States, King first learned about the importance of skin color when he was 5 and could not go to the same school as his white friend. At 15 he was made to give up his at to a white pasnger on a two-hour bus journey. He enjoyed his college years in Philadelphia and Boston in the North of the US, where life for blacks was much better and more equal with whites. He was tempted to stay, but at 25, decided to move back to the gregatio
nist South, to Montgomery, Alabama, where whites hated blacks and where people needed his help. Here the real campaign began.
The book describes the origins of slavery and how the North and South of America came to have very different attitudes to blacks. King’s very public life began in 1955 with the Montgomery bus boycott, which saw the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) firebombing King’s home. King started making speeches all over the country and fighting to stop gregation in schools. After reading Gandhi and Thoreau, who ideas are described in the book, King taught non-violent resistance to his followers. Hate must be met with love.
psspThe book follows the struggle in the South for equality. Terrible violence was committed against African-Americans. Politicians were divided. President Kennedy supported King and began to draw up a civil rights bill, and then came the famous march on Washington, with a crowd of 200,000 marchers including 50,000 whites.
Violence continued between blacks and whites in the South as blacks tried to challenge gregationist policies with direct action. Some gains were made, but many blacks lived in terrible poverty. As they became radicalized, they became more violent and they stopped listening to King. Their anger culminated in the Watts riots in Los Angeles in 1965.
In 1968 King made his last speech in front of an audience in Memphis. The next evening he was shot dead in a parking lot. Blacks have equal political and voting rights today, thanks to the work of Martin Luther King at the head of the civil rights campaign.
King’s story, which has helped shape modern America, is as powerful today as it was when he lived it. Readers will probably find this lively account both shocking and compelling. This biography shows that Martin Luther King, Jr. dedicated his life
to his cau, and although he had a wife and four children, his time
was not his own. The cau of civil rights for African-Americans
was so big and his campaigns made it so active, that he could
never rest. He lived a very public life in front of the world’s press.
His heart, mind and actions were ruled by his religious and political beliefs; he was driven. Other protest leaders who have given up
their lives to their cau include Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela
and Aung San Suu Kyi in Burma, who has left her family and children in England to fight for democracy in her country.
The central theme of King’s campaign for civil rights was non-violence. It worked better for King in the US than it did for Gandhi
in India, where independence was accompanied by terrible fighting between Muslims and Hindus. There are lots of examples in King’s campaign of non-violent protest working. His campaign brought
huge publicity and becau King taught blacks to meet the whites
with love, not hate, it made the whites look silly and evil in the eyes
of the world. For example, when students organized lunchtime protests (e page 18), the world saw white men arresting peaceful
blacks becau they sat in the wrong ats in a lunch bar in Woolworth’s. When children marched in Birmingham, Alabama
(e page 24), the police ud water cannon and dogs against them, arrested them and put them in jail.
Another important weapon in King’s fight against injustice was publicity. For many poor blacks, life was simply a struggle to feed
their families and keep a place to live. King needed to reach all
tho people and show them that their lives could be better. He
made speeches all over America. He held meetings. When he was arrested, news of his arrest was in newspapers around the world.
Black African-Americans became radicalized and wanted to fight.
Some went further than King wanted, and ud violence, as in the
excu me
Watts riots in 1965 in Los Angeles. But he taught them that they
could change things. Publicity then included posters, newspapers, meetings, word of mouth, marches, demonstrations, radio, and
xinongearly television.
The central wrongdoing of this story is racism. The belief by one
race that they are better than another or that they can rule another
is behind most human conflict. The early slave traders treated black people as animals. It has taken centuries for most whites to stop believing they are superior to blacks. Many whites today still believe they are superior to blacks, in all parts of the world,. Racism
exists in more or less extreme forms in most cultures, and is one of
the most pressing issues in world politics today. Level 3 – Pre-Intermediate Martin Luther King
Summary Background and themes
Level 3 – Pre-Intermediate Martin Luther King
This is a long story to tell in a short space. Encourage students to read more or arch the internet if they are interested. One uful site Students may also come across anti-King sites which try to show that King was not a good man.There are plenty of people in the world today who wish the KKK had won the fight in the south of the US in the 1950s and 1960s.
The following teacher-led activities cover the same ctions of text as the exercis at the back of the reader, and supplement tho exercis. For supplementary exercis covering shorter ctions of the book, e the photocopiable Student’s Activities pages of this Factsheet. The are primarily for u with class readers but, with the exception of discussion and pair/group work questions, can also be ud by students working alone in a lf-access center. ACTIVITIES BEFORE READING THE BOOK
1Ask students to look at the list of contents on page iii. What do the titles tell us about Martin Luther King, Jr? Expand the titles into predictions and ideas, and write notes on the board. 2King, like Mahatma Gandhi, is associated with non-violent protest. Do students think peaceful protest can change things in the world? Can they think of examples where it has worked in their country?ACTIVI
TIES AFTER READING A SECTION Pages 1–13
Get students to read about Rosa Parks on page 10 again. Put them into pairs. Tell them to imagine they are young reporters on Montgomery newspapers. Half of the pairs work for a white newspaper. The other half work for a black newspaper. They prepare their reports. Compare reports across the class, looking at ways students have ud to express bias and give only one side of the story.Pages 14–28
Put students in pairs or small groups. Give each pair one of the following episodes in the story. Ask them to summarize it in two or three ntences and then read their summary to the class:King’s trip to Ghana, p.15; Rich’s lunch bar p.18; the vote for US president, November 1960; the May 15 Freedom Ride p.20; the children’s march pages 24–25; Little Rock High School, p.22; Bull Connor, pages 25–26; the Washington march, p.27; the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, p.28.Pages 29–41
The story of Martin Luther King, J r. is the story of the fight by African-Americans to change a racist society into a non-racist society. Ask students to think about why we have racism and where it comes from. Invite them to talk about racism in their own culture.Have they experienced racism themlves? What is the best way to respond to racism?
ACTIVITIES AFTER READING THE BOOK
1Class discussion. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a hero to young black people in the 1950s and 1960s. Who are today’s
heroes? What battles do they need to fight in today’s world? 2Put students in small groups. When someone is murdered for a political reason, like Gandhi in 1948 and King in 1968, they may become more important, not less. Students can discuss the questions: What happens to people’s ideas and actions when they are killed? Are people more interested or less interested in them? Are they remembered or forgotten?
It will be uful for your students to know the new words. They are practiced in the exercis at the back of the book. (The definitions are bad on tho in the Longman Active Study Dictionary.)Communicative activities
Glossary
Pages 1–13
arrest (v) when the police take someone away
bail (n) money paid to the court so someone can leave prison until their ca comes to courtvipabc的收费
bomb (v) bombs are dropped from planes during wars; when you bomb someone’s hou, you throw, for
example, cans of gasoline through the window
boycott (v) to stay away from
something or stop doing something for political reasons
campaign (n) a program of activities with a political purpo, usually to try and change something
civil rights (pl n) the rights that a person has by law, for example, to go to school and to vote
demonstrate (v) to show how you feel about something, often on the streets equality (n) having the same rights as other people
freedom (n) the right to do what you like jail (n) prison
leader (n) the person in an organization or group who decides things march (n) when people walk to
gether from one place to another with a political message
peace (n) when there is no war preacher (n) a person who makes speeches about religion
protest (n) when a group of people do something, often on the streets, to show their feelings about something gregate (v) to keep black people away from white people; for example,to have different schools and different bus
老罗英语培训广告slave (n) someone who is owned by another person; they must work for them without any payflappy
writtenviolence (n) when people try to hurt and kill other people
voting rights (pl n) the right in law to vote Pages 14–28
riot (v) when people run wild, usually in a city; they fight police, break store windows, burn cars
1Look through this ction of the book quickly. Find the dates and match them with the things that happened.
1807 February 15, 1948 December 1955 December 1, 1955 January 30, 1956 August 28, 1963
(a)King became a preacher.
(b)King made his ‘I have a dream’speech.
(c)Rosa Parks was arrested on the bus in Montgomery,
Alabama.
(d)Slave ships became illegal in America.
(e)The civil rights campaign began.
(f)The KKK bombed King’s hou.
2Answer the questions.
(a)How old was King when he first learned that life was
hard for blacks?
(b)Why did he leave his good life in the North for the
gregated South?
(c)On the train from Connecticut to Atlanta in 1945, what
happened to him in the dining car?
(d)What did King think about Gandhi’s ideas of non-violent
impress的用法protest?
(e)Black soldiers received a different welcome from white
soldiers when they returned from the war in 1945. What
happened?
陈冠希新闻发布会
(f)What job did Coretta Scott have before she married
King?
(g)What job did she have after they were married?
(a)35th President of the United States
(b)A Birmingham preacher
(c)Atlanta city judge
(d)Police chief, Birmingham, Alabama
(e)State leader, Alabama
(f)State leader, Arkansas
(g)Time Magazines’s Man of the Year 1957
(i)Bull Connor
(ii)Fred Shuttlesworth
(iii)George Wallace
(iv)John F. Kennedy
(v)Judge Mitchellbeautify
(vi)Martin Luther King, Jr.
(vii)Orval Faubus
3Imagine you were on the Freedom Ride bus on 15 May near Anniston, Alabama. Write a few ntences to someone in your family about what happened. How did you feel? What did you do?
4Imagine the South without Martin Luther King in the 1960s? What happens? What is it like? Talk to another student.
5Answer the questions.
(a)Why did President Einhower nd soldiers to Little
Rock, Arkansas, in 1957?
(b)In King’s letter from Birmingham Jail, what does “Wait!”
mean for black people?
(c)What did people think when they saw US policemen and
dogs attack black children on a protest march?
streets? Write a list.
3Describe Martin Luther King, Jr. in one ntence.
