Good morning and welcome to Kid News. I'm Kim. Today is Monday, January 19th, 2026. The third Monday in

January, which means it's Martin Luther King Jr. Day in the U.S. 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.

I have a dream today.

That's one of the reverend's most famous speeches delivered on the steps of the Lincoln

Memorial at the March on Washington in August of 1963. But there's a whole lot that

came before and after for this gifted speaker and icon of civil rights. Martin Luther King,

Jr. was born in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1929 and was actually known as Michael for the first four

years of his life. Following a trip to

Germany, Michael's dad changed his name to Martin in honor of the Protestant leader Martin Luther.

Atlanta was segregated or racially divided in those days. Black families had to sit in the back of

movie theaters and restaurants, use different restrooms, and even when buying

shoes were told to go to the rear of the store because they wouldn't be served in the front.

These rules separating white people from black in public were called Jim Crow laws.

Martin was only six when the prejudice really hit home.

According to National Geographic Kids, his white friend's dad would no longer

let the boys play together. MLK's meteoric rise to national prominence began in 1955 when

Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama.

Dr. King organized a successful 381-day boycott of the city's buses, which helped get the

segregation law thrown out. Most important to the Reverend was that all protests for equality

be peaceful. But even that had its consequences.

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