Martin Luther King, Jr. will be celebrated on Monday, Jan. 20, which is a national holiday and a day off from school or work.
But have you ever taken time out of your MLK day to actually research and look more deeply into his history and ideas?
“I learned about [MLK] through school […] also just… reaching out in the community, hearing the things he’s done […] mostly through school though,” sophomore Connor Owdom said.
Owdom learned a few things about MLK outside of school, but a majority of what he knows is from classes.
Another Westerville South freshman stated that most of what he knows about MLK is from a recent American History class, where he took a “deep dive” into him. Up until that point, he had spent maybe two or three days talking about him in elementary and middle school.
His memory of what he learned during this “deep dive” was a bit fuzzy, with him generally recalling that they only learned of his general life and the more basic parts of his philosophy, such as the contrast between his more peaceful activism vs Malcolm X’s more militant activism.
Classes are useful in introducing the civil rights movement and MLK to students; however, students need to do additional research to gain a better understanding of the civil rights movement and the context or time in which he was an activist.
Kelley Stocker, an African American history teacher, believes that Martin Luther King set an example for how peaceful activism should be done, and that his impact goes beyond just the impact he had on the civil rights movement.
“He set a lot of precedent for how to effectively resist government oppression in an unjust society,” Stocker said.
Martin Luther King was a major part of the civil rights movement. According to the NAACP, with Martin Luther King leading the civil rights movement, they achieved massive victories in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Yet, near the end of his life, he became an advocate for people in poverty, and he also voiced opposition against the Vietnam war. He was an advocate for many and fought for multiple social causes.
In his famous “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”, Martin Luther King chastised not only the white power extremists, such as the members of the Ku Klux Klan, but he chastised the White moderates as well, who say, in his words; “I agree with you in the goal you seek; but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action.”
His philosophy and his writings were much deeper, and too complex in many ways for just one high school class over a couple of days worth of study to summarize. Just, as this article, with one excerpt from a single piece of his writing, can not accurately represent the thoughts or teachings of this great leader.
This MLK day, take some time to study up on Martin Luther King a little more, and practise some of his philosophies a little deeper
Like Stocker said, “[…] rather than just saying, oh it’s Martin Luther King day I might as well just grab this fun quote [and posting it], Contextualize it […] do a little bit of research before you decide to post that quote and really understand what it is you’re posting, or even figure out a way to provide that context with your post.”
