 So from the National Archives, my name is Missy McNatt and I'm an Education Specialist in Washington, D.C. and welcome to the National Archives Comes Alive Young Learners Program. We offer these programs once a month and you can find information about upcoming programs on the National Archives website under events or the National Archives Facebook page. This morning we will meet the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Baptist minister, activist, leader, and eloquent spokesperson for the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s. Dr. King is portrayed by the Reverend Dr. John Moore, internationally recognized minister and orator who has portrayed Dr. King at schools, universities, colleges, churches, and organizational gatherings around the nation. This Monday, July 18th is the federal holiday that commemorates the birth of Dr. King and is also a time for us to remember and to celebrate his many accomplishments. In the holdings of the National Archives, we have numerous records related to Dr. King and the Civil Rights Movement and this one is, first one is a photograph of Dr. King at the 1963 March on Washington where he gave his very famous I Have a Dream speech and we literally have hundreds of photographs, video recordings, and textual documents about the 1963 March on Washington. This next document is a telegram from Dr. King to President Johnson about the 1965 Voting Rights Act and you can find these documents and many, many more in docsteach.org. Our featured document for today is on Docs Teach about Dr. King and we will have this slide up again at the end of the program. So at the end of Dr. King's presentation, we will have a question and answer session. So please write your questions in the YouTube chat box and let us know where you're watching from today. We have a National Archives staff person who is monitoring the chat box for us. This program is brought to you by the National Archives Education staff. The National Archives and the National Archives Foundation. And now it is my great pleasure to introduce to you the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. whose words and actions changed our history. What an honor it is to be here with you today in a city that means so much to me in Washington, D.C. and to say hello to all of the young people that are out there who are listening. Today, I want to share with you about my legacy, about my family, and about the different things that I was able to do in order to make this country a better place. So take this journey with me. See, it all began at my birthplace in Atlanta, Georgia. The address of that home right there is 501 Allburn Avenue. It was in that home that I had wonderful friends and siblings and we played games outside. You know, I like to play baseball and all these other sports and I had a wonderful family. My father was a great man and a great preacher. My mother was an organist and a great mom. My grandmother loved me so much. I think my grandmother loved me more than any of the other kids. And I got to share that home with my brother and sister, A.D. King and my sister Christine. We grew up and we really experienced some great things. But there was something that happened that changed my life. When I was a little boy and I was seeing my friend in the neighborhood and I wanted to play with him, but there was a little problem. You see, my friend was white and I'm black and his father saw us playing and his father said, you can't play together anymore. And we both looked at him and didn't understand it because you see, there was a thing in the South called segregation and it didn't allow people of different colors to be together. And so he told me I couldn't play with my friend any longer and that really bothered me. So instead of getting angry, I decided to do something. And you know, I knew that school was my ticket to being able to be successful. And so at just 15 years old, I was able to enter into Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia. I had skipped my senior year and was able to go into that school. I met a great man by the name of Dr. Benjamin E. Maze who became my mentor and he began to teach me some wonderful things about what I could do. But as I was there, I kind of realized what it is that I was going to do after finishing school for my destiny was already set. You see, it's very simple. My father's a preacher. My great-grandfather was a preacher. My great-great-grandfather was a preacher. My uncle was a preacher. My daddy's brother was a preacher. So I didn't have much choice. So I knew I was going to go into the ministry and preach along with my father. And it was one of the greatest things to do, to follow into my father's footsteps. And it was very exciting to work alongside with my father. We were both pastors at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. Of course, my dad was the senior pastor. And I was his co-pastor. So when my father wouldn't preach, he would allow me to preach. And everything was so great. And there were other key events that happened in my life at the church. At just a tender age of 26 at Boston University, I was able to get my PhD. Therefore, then being known as the Reverend Doctor, Martin Luther King Jr. And while I was there in college, there was even a greater event that took place in my life. It was called marriage. And I remember meeting this beautiful young lady when I was a student at Boston University. And her name was Coretta Scott. We fell madly in love. And we were married in her hometown in Alabama. And it was beautiful. Once we got married, then my family began to grow. And we had our first child. Her name was Yolanda. I affectionately called her Yoki. Oh, they come home at night at the hard-day work and to look into her little eyes. It meant so much to me. I loved her so much. And we enjoyed that daughter. But our family continued to grow. And from there, we had three more children. My son Martin Luther King III, my son Dexter King, and then my youngest daughter, Bernice King. And we enjoyed ourselves as a family. It was absolutely amazing. I got my first job as a senior pastor in Montgomery, Alabama. It was at a church called Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. It was right next to the Capitol building in Montgomery. And I started preaching there. Things were going well. People were enjoying the ministry. But then while I was preaching there a few years later, something happened that changed my life. There was a woman by the name of Rosa Parks. And they had this segregation issue with the public buses. And one day Ms. Parks was tired. She had came home from work. She was in her seat. The bus driver demanded that she give her seat to a white passenger. She was tired. And she refused to give up her seat. And that changed history for all the things that I was doing. And I was asked to be the leader of the organization that led that march. Now, there were many times when I was arrested, I've been arrested over 18 times for the things that I was doing to be able to support these marches. But yet still I wanted to be the great leader that they needed me to be. And so they called me to be this leader in this great organization. That organization was called the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. And I can remember that time as the leader there. And there were many people who didn't like what we were doing. As the leader of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, I led these marches. But then those people who knew that we were doing good, they weren't happy with those marches. And so we started seeing people in the community that were angry with the things of what we were doing. Yes, those many people were not happy with what we were doing. As you can see in the next slide, they argued with us. They screamed at us. They said all types of mean things against us. But we didn't let that disturb us because we knew that we were in a fight for freedom. And we weren't going to let anything turn us around. But it was worth it, you see. It was worth it to fight for freedom. And in fighting for that freedom, it led me to this great march called the March on Washington. It was August the 28th, 1963. There were 250,000 people gathered in there to hear 12 speakers share the importance of American democracy. And I was the final speaker that was there. And so in front of the Lincoln Memorial, I shared my famous speech. I have a dream. So even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal. I have a dream that one day on the Red Hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners, will they be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream, my four little children, will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. I have a dream today. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening elegannies of Pennsylvania. Let freedom ring from the snow caberacches of Colorado. Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California. But not only that, let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia. Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee. Let freedom ring from every hill in Moe Hill in Mississippi, from every mountain sign. Let freedom ring and when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village in every hamlet, from every state in every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the Odeonigro spiritual. Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, we are free at last. Oh, that speech still has so much relevance today. And it was that speech that led me to so much recognition, not only in the United States but across this country and its world. It led me to being recognized by Time Magazine in 1964 as the Time Magazine Man of the Year. But there was an even greater prize that I won called the Nobel Peace Prize. I was only 35 years old at the time that I won that prize and at that moment I was the youngest person to ever win this great honor. And you know it came with money, but I decided to take all of the prize money and invent that money in the movement of what we were doing in our fight for freedom. And that led to many more marches, my friends. There was a great march down Highway 80 from Montgomery to Selma, Alabama. We left Selma, Alabama and crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge. You may have seen that in an incident called Bloody Sunday. We crossed that bridge and we walked miles in all types of conditions, in the heat, in the stormy rains, in all types of windy conditions. But we didn't stop until we reached the capital and we shared at Montgomery how much we wanted to see this world be a better place. And that led to my final march in Memphis, Tennessee. You see they were having problems in Memphis with the sanitation workers, those guys who go around and collect all the trash. They weren't paying them much money because they were black. They weren't allowing them to ride inside of the cabins of the trucks even in a rainstorm. And because of this, they felt that they were being treated unfairly when they were telling those in Memphis, Tennessee, I am a man. And so it was there in Memphis, Tennessee on April the 3rd, 1968, that I gave my final address titled The Mountaintop. It went like this. Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead, but it really doesn't matter with me now because I've been to the Mountaintop and I don't mind. Like anybody I would like to live, her long life, longevity has its place, but I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will and He's allowed me to go up to the mountain and I've looked over and I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the Promised Land. So I'm happy tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. My eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord. The next day on April the 4th, 1968, I was standing on the balcony at the Lorraine Motel where I often would stay when I was in Memphis, Tennessee. When we were talking about a dinner we were getting ready to go to, was getting late. It was about six o'clock in the evening and I walked out again and I was speaking to the people that were down in the parking lot. When my driver told me to go get a coat and in the moment of silence, all of a sudden you heard the gunshot. It was a bullet that came from a rifle shot by James Earl Ray and it took my life that day. Many people thought that the dream was over. There were so many people who came out to my funeral, thousands of people from all over the country, especially those right there in Atlanta, Georgia, followed my casket from Spellman to Morehouse to Ebenezer Baptist Church to say their final farewell. Many people thought that the dream had died, but I'm telling you young people today that the dream has not died. The dream is still alive. That dream lies in each and every one of you. You may say, well, Reverend Dr. King, how can you who have passed on and have come to visit us today, how can you say that the dream lives on? Now I want to tell you in this special way, in the way that I spell dream. To make your dream become what it is, you must do these things. First, if you would allow me to show you in the next slide what making the dream a reality is, that dream first is to be dedicated. That means young people give everything you've got to make your dreams come true. The R in dream, the R stands for resilient. That means my friends that when challenges come your way, like the challenges I had to face with people who wanted to take my life, I stood strong up against those challenges and continued to move forward. When you're running the challenges in the classroom, when you're running to problems that you think you can't overcome, be resilient. You will achieve your dream, the E in dream. That means you have to be enthusiastic. You have to have enthusiasm about life. You have to be excited every day that you wake up. They just say that this is another day that I have an opportunity to make things better in my life. The A in dream, that stands for attitude. Having a positive attitude, it causes a chain reaction, a positive thoughts, events and outcomes. It is a catalyst and a spark that creates extraordinary results. And the final letter, the M in dream is to be motivated. Don't wait for anybody to do anything for you students. You get in that classroom and you work hard. You get home at night before your parents can tell you, you start doing your homework. You start doing your research. You start finding out the things that are necessary in order to be able to be a success. And then when you remember how to spell that, be dedicated, resilient, enthusiastic, having the right attitude and being motivated. You can make your dream come true. So it has been my honor to spend this time with you today. I hope that all of you will in some way or another on Monday, my 91st birthday, be able to celebrate through the power of service. You know the national theme for my holiday, it's a day on, not a day off. And there's nothing greater that you can do on that day than to do some public service, help somebody in need, help the hungry by giving them something to eat, help the homeless by being able to provide them something that can help them with shelter, help another young person who needs a friend by being able to be there for them. And when you do these things, you keep my dream alive. God bless you and thank you so much. Well, thank you so much, Dr. King. That was truly, truly inspirational and really has changed the way I see Monday and made me start thinking about what I'm going to do on Monday to make a difference. So thank you. We have folks watching from across the country from Maryland, Utah, Texas, New York. So you know, it's wonderful to have so many people. What a great way to meet people. We do have a few questions for you. The first one is how important were peaceful demonstrations in the civil rights movement? Absolutely. I was an absolute advocate for nonviolence. And so it was my theory that as my great mentor, Mahatma Gandhi once said, an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind. And we know that when we are out protesting, we can protest without violence. There's a powerful center in that. It's not a weakness. But the powerful center of nonviolent resistance was to love the old who were hating you. And there's a redemptive power. Please try to understand this. Can you imagine someone hitting you and instead of you hitting them back, you tell them, I love you. Or if someone pushes you or tries to be mean to you, instead of being mean back, you show them kindness. What happens in the movement is when we did that, people who once despised us began to see our point of view because violence achieves nothing. But when you want harmony, you must do these things nonviolently. Young people, I want you to know that what happened at the camp until the other day, the insurrection, it solved nothing. But when we come together and speak our peaceful minds together, we can come up with solutions. And that's why we believe in the civil rights movement, nonviolence was the answer. Thank you. The next question, can you name other people who helped in the civil rights movement? You mentioned Rosa Parks, but some other people who really stand out for you. I know there were so many people, but yeah, a few, thank you. Well, this man made you young people. You may hear me say people like Ralph Abernathy who walks side by side with me in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference along with Andrew Young and Hosea Williams and James Orange. But let me tell you about one special person. Her name was Mother Pollock. She was an older lady, but English wasn't very good. As a matter of fact, when we were having a bus boycott, we tried to stop one time to ask her if she needed a ride. And she said, no, I don't need no ride. And then we went a little further. We stopped because she looked like she was tired. And I asked her that, we said, well, aren't you tired? And she said it this way, my feet is tired, but my soul is rested. And it was because of people like that that you may never read about who were instrumental in coming off the sidelines and inspiring us to not give up. So Mother Pollock and all the different people in the churches, all the great people whose names won't be in history books were just as important as the famous people that you do read about in the civil rights movement. Oh, that's wonderful. I just got an update. We've got folks not only from across the country, but across the world. We've got folks from Russia and Canada. That's fantastic. So here is a question. What do you think of the current Black Lives Matter movement? Well, I would say this. I'm very proud of what I've seen with this movement. You know, when I gave the I Have a Dream speech, I made a very profound statement that many people may not hear. It said, the marvelous new militancy, which engulfs the Negro community, must not lead us to a distrust of all white people. For many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny and their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone. And when I admire those in the Black Lives Movement, it wasn't just a Black Lives Movement that you saw people out there, but there were people of all colors walking on behalf of Black Lives that mattered. And when this country comes to realize that it's not about color, as I said in I Have a Dream speech, we want to be judged not for the color of our skin, but for the content of our character. Black Lives Movement showed me that. They looked beyond the color of skin. And my friend, what they saw was humanity, people who are just like you and I. And it's a great statement I've often shared with folks. And it is this, injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. So whenever we see injustice, we all have to step up and make a difference. And that's why I applaud those in a Black Lives movement. Well, thank you. I think that's a terrific, terrific answer and something we can all take to heart and learn from. Another, well, I also see we have folks from Washington, D.C., as we should, I'm happy about that. But another question was there's one particular thing in the civil rights movement that you thought was the most important thing that you did, anything, you know, the one thing that stands out. You know, I would say this. There were many achievements that we had in the civil rights movement. But I think the one that really marked me the most took place in 1963. It was a campaign called the Children's Campaign, B-Day. And what had happened is I had come down to Birmingham because of all of the segregation actions that were taking place there with a gentleman down there by the name of Bull Connor under the leadership of the governor, George Wallace, and they were denying people of color the opportunity to just live in liberty. They had signs in the store that said black and white. They had those Jim Crow signs at the water fountains. And so it was one thing for us to march. As a matter of fact, I went down there and got arrested, which is where I wrote my letter from a Birmingham jail. But here was the remarkable victory that came out of that that I will never forget. It was the young people. It was young people coming by the thousands who decided not to go to school on a day and go into those streets and face those police and face those negative energies. How did they face them? They faced them when they put hoses on them. They faced them when they attacked them with dogs. But again, non-violently, they stood their ground. And when people were able to see these things on national television, it changed laws. But now all of a sudden, those signs that said black and white in the department store, those signs that said black and white by the water fountains, they all began to go away. And it was so courageous that these young people were willing to go to jail so that we can enjoy that freedom today. What a remarkable moment. The jails, another question. What was it like to be in jail? You said you were arrested several times. Well, you know, I would say this and please don't get this misunderstood. I didn't go to jail because I thought that it was a place of comfort and where I can get some solitude. But my attitude was this, to go into a jail and turn it from a dungeon of shame to a haven of freedom and dignity. And so I was going to those jails and I'd think there. I'd pray there. I'd meditate there. And the reason I went to those jails is because I was willing to break unjust laws. There are just laws and there are unjust laws. And I was willing to go again and again until laws were changed so that people could be free. You know, I think one time when I was in jail in Birmingham and I could remember when all of the wardens and the prison guards came around asking us questions. And you see, this always offered an opportunity to talk with people and they were telling us how wrong we were with desegregation and how right they were. But then when I found out how much they were getting paid and where they were living, I told those brothers, you need to be out there marching with us because you're seeing just as much injustice as anyone else. And so being in prison allowed me to have the opportunity to talk to different people. But it also gave me the opportunity to stand up for what was right and I was willing to do that over and over again. And because of those imprisonments, we saw laws change. We have two people asking the same question. If you were alive today, would your campaign with, you know, the nonviolent resistance campaign be any different? I don't think it would. I still believe in nonviolent resistance. I think that it even proved itself to a point in the Black Lives Matter movement. Listen and follow this. Normally when those protests took place during the day, they were peaceful protests. People were out there with signs. They were singing. They were standing there on these Capitol steps. No violence, no looting. They were just making their point. The unfortunate thing was that there were people who followed them, who came down with an ulterior motive, who wanted to be disruptive, who wanted to destroy property, who wanted to loot. And so those would be the very things that I would speak against. I would say looting achieves nothing. Burning businesses achieves nothing. Hating people achieves nothing. But when we come together in peaceful protests and we make our voices heard and we be consistent and come day after day after day, and when we know that we have tremendous power as we have seen in the selection, when we stand in peace and make our voices heard through the ballot box, then we can change those in office who do not want to treat us fairly. And in being able to change those persons doesn't take an act of a gun or a knife or any type of evil. It's just the power of going in there and casting votes for people who will be concerned about your welfare. So I think my movement back then of non-violence would be just as affected today as it was in the 1950s and 60s. Okay, another question. I think we'll have time for two more questions. We're running out of time. But a question, do you think that America has changed since the civil rights movement? That's a very good question. You know, again, I'm sorry to refer to this. When you saw the insurrection on Wednesday, you may have felt defeated. You may have felt that racism had raised its ugly head again. And is racism still a problem? Absolutely. It's been a problem long before the civil rights movement, long before this country was established. The differences in people. But I believe that we have come a mighty long way because if you look at national offices, if you look at Fortune 500 companies, as you look at our universities and you look at the celebrities that are enjoying the freedom and wealth that America promises, we've come a mighty long way. And I'm very proud of that. Okay. Now, I will say we have a long way still to go. Yes, this is the last question. And what do you think your impact on children has been? Well, you know, I believe that children, and this may sound like a song, I believe that children are our future. Children are everything. You know, when I speak to children and I look in their innocent eyes, I see the promise of what this country is all about. And I believe that as we train our children to be able to work diligently in the classroom, to learn the academia that they need, to be able to get into the science and technology and engineering and mathematics and arts that they can transform the world. You know, whoever asked that question, I want you to get this. Young people are gonna take this country to a place that's never been in a positive direction. And so you give us hope. You give us inspiration. So do your part. Continue to learn. As you're learning today on this here, great session. Take that knowledge, share it with your friends, and then go out in your communities. Help those in need. Help those that are maybe not doing as well as you are in school. And I'm telling you, children, you are the true dreamers of today. Well, thank you so much. My goodness, and I tell you, so inspirational. I'm gonna get a little tears. But it is one more comment from just not a question. A parent who says, thank you for telling children to do their homework and the dream. And, you know, I was a teacher for many years and it's because I believe in our future and our children too. So again, I cannot thank you enough for joining us and being so inspirational. So you have a wonderful rest of your day and the weekend and take care. Thank you. God bless you. Continue to keep the dream alive. As promised, here is the DocsTeach activity about Dr. King that you can access. Again, docsteach.org. And if you go to the menu at the top left and click on that and then go to activities and click on Dr. King, you will find it. So I encourage you to check this out and check out our numerous other records about the Dr. King and the Civil Rights Movement. And then our last slide is about our program in February. We will have Harriet Tubman joining us on February 11th. And I know it will be a terrific program where just like with the past, we learned so much. So again, thank you everyone for joining us. And I wish you all a great day and a wonderful weekend. And as Dr. King told us, go out and do something for someone. Thank you.