Martin Luther King Jr.'s Microphone, Vol. 6

Children's Literature - Marilyn Courtot

Born in 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia, Martin Luther King, Jr. grew up to become a minister, speaker, and a man determined to make changes in the ways African Americans were treated in America. Segregation was a way of life in the South. Blacks had inferior schools, jobs and all that went with being second-class citizens. There were events that brought racism to the fore—including the murder of Emmett Till, the incident involving Rosa Parks and the Montgomery bus boycott, and the integration of schools in Little Rock, which required the intervention of the National Guard. Martin Luther King, Jr. learned from the teachings of Gandhi and endorsed the role of civil disobedience without violence. When tried in the U.S., the cruel actions of individuals like Theophilus Eugene "Bull" Connor, the police chief of Birmingham, were broadcast around the world and as a result change was bound to come. Sit-ins, the bombing in Birmingham and the winning of the Nobel peace prize by Martin Luther King, Jr. brought even more focus on the issue of segregation. The riots of the 1960s and the assassination of King all led to his dream finally coming true with the changes in many laws. Each January, Martin Luther King Jr. Day is celebrated as a national holiday—a day of service. This series, "Stories of Great People," is set up with a sister and brother team (Digby and Hannah) who visit the Knicknack Market and its vendors. One of them, Mr. Rummage, has a "disorderly jumble of things"—all of which fascinate Digby. These objects serve as the lead in to a story about a famous person. The factual accounts are interspersed with reactions from the kids and the book is liberally illustrated. It has atable of contents, an index, a brief glossary and an introduction to the cast of characters. The design and format are more likely to get kids reading than are most biographies for this age group. Reviewer: Marilyn Courtot