Celebrating Dr. King's Birthday: Inspiring Words and a Game Board - From Lauren's Blog

[qwlauren35]

https://afrobougieblues.com/dr-kings-birthday/ ‎ Visit, Comment, Share, Subscribe.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This year for Dr. King's Birthday, I want to share two things with you. A speech, and a Jeopardy game board.  The speech is "Give Us the Ballot".  I listen to it every election year and I'll share a quote to show you why I listen to it.


Over 30 years ago, living Massachusetts and working for a computer company, I realized that my company would not make Dr. King's Birthday a holiday. So, I started having a celebration the day before, on Sunday. I called it the King Thing and would invite friends of all genders and races to celebrate the day by sharing two speeches. First, "I Have a Dream", and then one I had curated from a collection of of his speeches and writings from the book A Testament of Hope. And then, we would discuss, and talk about moving forward. I enjoyed putting these together for many years, but for 10 years, while I lived in North Carolina, I did not have a King Thing. Then I moved to Maryland and after I began to make some new friends, I started the King Thing again.  This time I was selecting from a collection of 24 landmark recordings, and discovered "Give Us the Ballot". Dr. King gave the speech in 1957 at the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom.

"Give us the ballot and we will no longer have to worry the federal government about our basic rights ...
"Give us the ballot and we will no longer plead to the federal government for passage of an anti-lynching law ...
"Give us the ballot and we will fill our legislative halls with men of good will ...
"Give us the ballot and we will place judges on the benches of the South who will do justly and love mercy ...
"Give us the ballot and we will quietly and nonviolently, without rancor or bitterness, implement the Supreme Court's Decision of May 17, 1954.

I hope you can see why the speech matters. I have found that every election year, the things that we need change, but the need to have the ballot doesn't change.  So, I invite you to listen to
" target="_blank">"Give Us the Ballot" and share it with your friends.


The second thing I want to share with you is an MLK Day Jeopardy Board. I don't do the King Thing any more because my job has me traveling, and I can't organize it. So, as something to commemorate the day, I created this Jeopardy game board. It's simple to play. If you want to play it by yourself, just set to "No Teams", click "Start" and click on each dollar figure to see the answer and guess the question. If you choose more than one player, the game board will keep score for you. I hope you enjoy it.


Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day!