14 January 2010
Photo: Carol M. Highsmith
King's words from the "I Have a Dream speech" appear on a wall of the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama, which is dedicated to those who died in the struggle for equal rights
Time again for our Website of the Week, when we showcase interesting and innovative online destinations.
On Monday [18 January], Americans observe the annual holiday honoring slain civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Dr. King's widow, Coretta Scott King, chose Stanford University Professor Clayborne Carson to edit her husband's papers for publication.
Those many volumes of speeches, letters, sermons, and other writings are really intended for a scholarly audience, but many of King's writings are now available to a wider audience at our Website of the Week.
"And now, hundreds and even thousands of documents are available on our website, and people throughout the world can get access to information that just 20 years ago was only available to a handful of researchers. So I think that's a major breakthrough and a truly exciting development," says history professor Clayborne Carson.
Carson is the editor of the Martin Luther King papers, online at KingPapers.org. While the published books will mostly end up in university libraries, Carson says the King papers website is designed for a more general audience, so, for example, young people can learn about Dr. King.
"We try to make available those documents that have particular interest to a broader range of people, particularly to teachers and to students in the classroom."
Using its documents, the King Papers project has developed a set of lessons called the Liberation Curriculum, designed to teach about the values of social justice and non-violence that Dr. King championed in his lifetime.
"They can learn about one of the times in history where ordinary people, including many people their own age, changed the course of history."
Martin Luther King is remembered not only as a great civil rights leader but also as an orator of prodigious skill. On KingPapers.org you can read and listen to excerpts of some of Dr. King's great speeches and sermons.
The King Papers project is part of Stanford University's Martin Luther King Institute, and the website also includes the King Online Encyclopedia and a chronology of Dr. King's life.
It's all there at KingPapers.org, or visit our site, VOAnews.com, for the link to this and hundreds of other Websites of the Week.