Recess! Media

This coming Monday is our nationally designated holiday celebrating the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.. Hopefully, over the next few days you will read or hear King’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech. Those glorious words, so passionately spoken, remind us of the world we strive to live in.

Hopefully, too, you will have some time over the weekend to log on to the Internet and to reacquaint yourself (or your children) with this amazing man who dedicated his life to showing us our better angels.

Begin with LIFE Magazine’s tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr. In these riveting photographs, King springs to life, captured in classic images from the magazine. One of them is particularly powerful: it’s a 1960 picture of King, arms crossed, standing on the steps of the state capital in Montgomery Alabama is a study of strength and determination coupled with responsibility and exhaustion.

Next, visit the Martin Luther King Jr. Papers Project from Stanford University. Here you can view a chronology of King’s life and accomplishments and read the texts of some of King’s most famous speeches, among them, the text for the “Letter From Birmingham Jail,” the ringing March on Washington “I Have a Dream” speech, and “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop,” King’s last sermon. These words leave one inspired, shaken, and intensely moved.

Finish your tour at the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change. This center was established in 1968 by Mrs. Coretta Scott King as a living memorial to the work of her husband. At the Center we are reminded to “Celebrate a Day On, Not a Day Off” by volunteering our time, or performing an act of service to our communities.

This Martin Luther King Day offers one possibilities to pause and reflect on the contributions of this remarkable leader in the struggle for Civil Rights. We can’t remind our children too often and whatever ways we can, including the internet, the importance of having the courage to follow a dream as vital as one that Dr. King honored with his work…and with his life.