"I have a dream today...That one day...little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white girls and white boys as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today. That my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

Martin Luther King, Jr., was a great man who worked for racial equality in the United States of America. He was born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia. Martin had a brother, Alfred, and a sister, Christine. Both his father and grandfather were ministers. His mother was a schoolteacher who taught him how to read before he went to school.

Young Martin was an excellent student in school; he skipped grades in both elementary school and high school . He enjoyed reading books, singing, riding a bicycle, and playing football and baseball. Martin entered Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, when he was only 15 years old.

Martin experienced racism early in life. He decided to do to something to make the world a better and fairer place.

After graduating from college and getting married, Dr. King became a minister and moved to Alabama.

During the 1950's, Dr. King became active in the movement for civil rights and racial equality. He participated in the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott and many other peaceful demonstrations that protested the unfair treatment of African-Americans. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964.

Dr. King was assassinated on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee. Commemorating the life of a tremendously important leader, we celebrate Martin Luther King Day each year in January, the month in which he was born.

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