Martin Luther King Jr. was many things. He was an activist, a visionary and a fighter for equal rights. Martin Luther King Day takes place on January 15 – the day he was born. King fought for civil rights and for every person of color to be treated equally.

“I think Martin Luther King Jr. would be very proud of the world we live in today because now the world is different. There is no segregation because of his work against racial discrimination,”Acacia Fang, a fifth-grade student, commented.

King went to India in 1959 and was inspired by Mahatma Gandhi’s way of protesting against the injustice of British rule with non violence. Years later at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., King delivered his famous speech where he said, “I have a dream 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.”

Desmond White a fifth-grade student, believes that King made a great impact on our world.

“He changed the world by having people of color go and do whatever they would like to do and by protesting in a nonviolent way against slavery and segregation,” White said.

King was a person who worked tirelessly to change the world for the better. He was assassinated on April 4, 1968.