Summer Learning Journey - Week 2 - Day 2 - Activity 3

Activity 3: “I Have a Dream” [6 points]

Martin Luther King Jr was a Christian minister in the United States of America (USA) in the 1950s and 1960s. He spent much of his life fighting for equality (equal rights) for people of colour. At the time, there were laws that kept black and white people separated - they went to different schools, used different toilets, and even sat in different parts of a bus and ate in different areas of a restaurant. This was called ‘segregation.’

Dr King did not agree with these laws and he led many protests against them. He was joined in his protests by many people, including an African American woman named Rosa Parks. In 1955, Rosa boarded a bus in Alabama (USA) and when the bus filled up with people, she refused to give up her seat to a white passenger. You can read about this famous incident here and watch a video about Rosa Parks here.

The brave actions of people like Martin Luther King Jr and Rosa Parks were instrumental in changing the way that African Americans (people of colour) were treated in the United States.

Rosa Parks was a civil rights activist. There was a law about dark coloured Americans and light coloured Americans had to split up like they go different schools eat at different restaurants and even sit at different parts of the bus. On the bus, the white people sit in the front and the African Americans sit at the back and once Rosa Parks was sitting at the front and the bus driver told her to move and she said "NO!" but then she got arrested and soon after that people stopped using the bus as transport so they changed the law and made everything fair.