Students Learn About Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” Speech
By Angel Sabater
Students of all grade levels came to Teen Time: MLK Jr.’s Birthday to find out why Americans celebrate his birthday and to explore the famous “I Have A Dream” speech, and also discuss and researched on the ipads.
Freshmen, Crescens Ott reading and listening to Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech.
“The purpose of this event was to honor his memory by learning from the past and research about his speech,” said Librarian Rae Downen.
Dr. King is famous for leading the Civil Rights movement and making peace without violence. But his main legacy was to secure progress on Civil Rights.
“Every Tuesday is Teen Time, but I’m normally in the library everyday. So it was just an opportunity to get away,” says Jacob Briseno. “What to me is most important about Dr. King’s legacy is the Civil Rights today,” Briseno said.
Even for freshmen, Crescens Ott who has not seen or read the “I Have A Dream” speech had learned many great things from it.
“Initially I went to see if there was anything for me to do since I’m a volunteer for the library, but I stayed for this event because I haven’t really read this speech and I wanted to see what it’s about,” Ott said.
On August 28,1963 was when King had given his famous speech “I Have A Dream” in front of the Lincoln Memorial, with 250,000 Civil Rights supporters, after the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.“I Have A Dream” was a 17 minute speech that gave many people inspiration and hope; and came to be regarded as one of the finest speeches in the history of American oratory.
“I learned a lot, like his speech is still relevant today; and also the realization that African Americans and other people of different races are still people and just the whole Civil Rights movement was something new to learn about,” Ott said.