Found PoemsIn Middle School, English teacher Irie De Lilly had her students complete a "found poetry" project in which students created poems from Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, pictured above.
Speech About a SpeechIn Lower School, student McKenzie H. wrote a beautiful and timely speech in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, shared below. Thank you for sharing your heartfelt words with us, McKenzie!
Oh, Martin Luther King, Jr., what a wonderful man you were! You cared about your people, and looked for equality everywhere. If you didn’t see the thing you wanted to see, you would fix it. You would help those who could not fight for their own freedom. You would make speeches that inspired all that were with you. You would walk miles and miles to fight for your freedom, and even when things didn’t look good, you kept on going. Oh Martin, how much we miss you.
“I have a dream,” he would say, “that one day, my four little children will live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
We still have work to do. That dream has not come true yet. It can, but it hasn't. Have we really been caring about our black community? Have we really stopped police brutality?
NO. We’re supposed to be fixing this. Are we, really? Are we taking the care to ask the people? Are we letting everyone be free? Are we being kind, or are we killing our own? What happened to the peace? What happened to being kind and caring? It's gone. We have to bring it back, like Martin wanted. We have to make sure everyone, and I mean everyone, is created equal.
Martin’s words mean something. We have to do something about this. We aren’t done. We aren’t done here.
To me, Martin’s speech means we have to fight for equality, something we don’t have. To me, Martin’s speech means that we have to keep pushing forward. We might think we have done all we could, but have we? We have to think about what we can do. We can’t be mad at those before us. They're gone. We aren’t. We can’t blame them; we can think about all the things they did wrong and fix them. We can push forward, not look back. We can look back and be taken over by hatred, or we can look forward with hope.
We must speak out about what is wrong. This is what Martin’s words mean to me. It means we must break the barrier. We must know what is right or wrong and we must fix them. We must prove our point. I'm speaking today not just because I want to, but because I have to. For all those people being treated wrongly. We have to show them we are strong. We have to show them we will fight for what is right. We have to show them they are wrong. We must keep going.
Dear Martin,
Thank you for showing us all that we must push forward, we must fight for what's right, and we must not, will not, cannot forget you.