We Are the Heirs to Dr. King and the Movement

The mantle remains on our shoulders and those of our children. On the MLK Holiday, my wife and I listened to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I've Been to the Mountaintop” speech, delivered the night before he was killed in Memphis, TN on April 4, 1968. Brilliant and so moving. Click to listen, read other …

What Americans Hold in Common Is Far Greater Than What They Disagree About

Steve Schmidt: "I'd like to talk about something we share in common, the United States of America. Our country. All of us who are Americans belong to it as she belongs to all of us. "The most important statement written on paper conceived in the mind of a human being as a declarative political statement …

Historical Films and Lesson Plans from the Kunhardt Film Foundation

The Kunhardt Film Foundation (KFF) (website; Youtube site) is a "not-for-profit educational media organization that produces documentary films, interviews, and teaching tools about the people and ideas that shape our world. KFF was established by a family of filmmakers with a mission to put high-quality educational programs, raw interviews, and teaching tools into the hands …

A New Housing Program to Fight Poverty Has An Unexpected History

Retro Report: "In the 1970s, a landmark Supreme Court case named Gautreaux officially brought an end to segregated government housing in Chicago. But it also created a new challenge: how to undo decades of segregation." More on the Gautreaux Project, the only anti-poverty housing project endorsed by both Democratic and Republican administrations. See also the …

How MLK’s ‘I Have A Dream Speech’ Evolved

Great speeches are often somewhat different renditions of previous speeches a leader has given. For example, Martin Luther King Jr's classic "I Have A Dream" speech delivered at the March on Washington in August, 1963 echoed themes he used in at least two previous speeches, one in Albany, GA and the other in Rocky Mount, …

Rev. Jesse Jackson and Operation Push, Successor to MLK, Made A Difference

Crash Course Black American History #44: In this episode, Clint Smith teaches about civil rights activist and icon, Reverend Jesse Jackson (1941 - ). "Jackson began his career working with Martin Luther King in the 1960s, and in the 1970s he founded PUSH, an organization to advance the cause of urban, poor, and predominantly Black …

10 Questions A Baby Boomer Never Thought Anyone Would Ask

I know fame is fleeting, but one doesn't understand how fleeting it is until one teaches social studies. Public memory is exceedingly short. Pop culture to one generation is entirely different from popular culture to another generation. People who are extraordinarily famous to one generation aren't even known to another generation.  Teenagers ask me questions …

MLK and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference Led the Civil Rights Movement of the ’50s, ’60s

Crash Course Black American History #36: "Today we're going to learn about perhaps the best-known leader in the Civil Rights Era, Martin Luther King, Jr. From his rise to notoriety during the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955, his leadership of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the March on Washington in 1963, his work toward the …

Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955-56 Strengthened International Justice Movement

Crash Course Black American History #35: "For 381 days in 1955 and 1956, the Black citizens of Montgomery, Alabama boycotted the city bus system. Black riders had been mistreated on public transit all over the country for decades, and the national coverage of the Montgomery Bus Boycott intensified the public conversation about Civil Rights. By …

MLK SR, or My Encounters with ‘Daddy King’ In NC

Sometimes as a journalist, you are witnesses not just to current events but to history. I never had the privilege of seeing Martin Luther King Jr., but as a reporter, I did meet and cover his father, Martin Luther King Sr., or "Daddy King" as he was almost universally referred to, on a couple of occasions.  …