Martin Luther King Day

I taught my friends that somebody shot Dr. Martin Luther King and after that I taught them how his dream came true. His dream was to get along together. That’s it. The end. – Rion S. 

When Martin Luther King Jr. was a kid, he didn’t think the laws were fair because when he was going to a coffee shop on the door it said “White Only”. When he grew up, he wrote letters to the President saying he wanted the laws to be changed because they were not fair laws. The colored skin people could not go to the same school as the white skinned people. That’s why he wanted to change the laws because he actually had a dream when he grew up and when he was maybe 13, 14, or 15, this lady on a bus sat where the white people sat in the front and she didn’t let the white person who needed to sit there and she got arrested. Arrested means she had to go to jail. So when he was older he had a dream and he said some pretty good words. His dream was that the black people and the white people could go on the same buses, sit by each other on the bus, and go to the same school. And that happened. But when he was 80 somebody shot him because they did not like the rules.

If Dr. Luther King wouldn’t do that, mom, Rion, and me would live in one house and dad would have to live alone. If he had to live alone we would not have a dad. But, about Martin Luther King, he changed the laws and let us and our dad sleep together in the same house because wouldn’t it be a shame if we didn’t get to play with our dad.

On Martin Luther King day I got to stay home with my uncle. Some of you know what his name is. His name is Uncle Nick. He got to stay home with me and also one of his friends, Katie. Katie lives in Chicago and Uncle Nick lives in Peoria. We had fun together. We played a couple of games on the Wii. We also read books together. I didn’t even have work that they gave me. Isn’t that amazing? aMaZiNg? See, it’s in a pattern. Isn’t that spectacular? I can’t say cool because cool is a dead word. Or, I can’t say big or dead because they are dead words. Dead words are words you can’t write anymore because you have to write words like ginormous, spectacular, and other awesome words. And that’s it. Pretty much that’s all we did today. So, see you later (as he waves to the computer). Bye. - Owen
The MLK story is a big hit in our house because there was a gun and death involved. Owen learned about it at school, told Rion, and Rion told his daycare class. After learning about him, Owen was able to apply the story to our mixed-race household. We were very surprised he was able to make the connection. - N