Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Martin Luther King Day

Happy Martin Luther King Day!

We joined the festivities in our town today: a march, a special concert of spirituals, and a presentation at the children's museum. It was inspiring to see how a gifted child grew into someone who made an enormous difference in such a short time:

His mother taught him to read before Kindergarten.
He skipped 9th and 12th grades in high school.
He entered college at 15.
He graduated college at age 19.
He was an ordained minister at 19.
He was Time Magazine's Man of the Year at age 34.
He won the Nobel Peace Prize at age 35.

I wonder how different the story would have been if he'd been told, "Sorry, we don't accelerate."


In our efforts to advocate for gifted children, Martin Luther King's quote provides inspiration.

How cool that your town offers such festivities.

Wish we could've been there!

I got a huge kick out of that, too, Dottie.

I love that people take the time out to remember and I know this year MLK day has more meaning than ever before.

Some of the best books I have ever read on MLK is Taylor Branch's Trilogy. I loved the journalistic approach to his life and though fits into historical he had information that no historian would have risked their reputations on for the criticism of being too close to the subject but it is why the books are what they are. I highly recommend the books for anyone who would like to take a walk with the life of MLK.

OH and on a separate note: I love Grey's Anatomy and even more so knowing that all the crazy cases they wrap the story into are based on real ones. So while watching the show I always think about it.

I loved teaching "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" to my college students because it is perhaps the single best piece of argumentative writing I've ever read. It gave me chills to teach it! The man could write!

Oh yes he could. I love 'Letter from a Birmingham Jail' talk about the climax and a man with such an amazing life.

And so my library list grows longer still. Thanks for the recommendations!

You can probably find "Letter" online. It's really short. It *is* actually a letter! Just a really, really good one.

If you look for it, be sure you get some sort of historical background on who MLK was writing to and why he was writing. It makes more sense that way. But it's a 20-minute read, tops, if you really take your time!

Found it!

http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/popular_requests/frequentdocs/birmingham.pdf

Well, maybe more than 20 minutes. But still not that long! Obviously it's been too long since I read it. I remembered it as being shorter.