MLK Dinner Party Trivia

Hello and welcome to a mid-January Saturday here at the Wannaskan Almanac. Today is January 15th.

Happy Birthday to Martin Luther King, Jr. who's birthday is on this day.

Fun Fact: The third Monday of the month is MLK's official day of recognition. It's a federal holiday, so if you need to apply for a marriage license, pay your property taxes, or renew a passport - unless it's online, it ain't gonna happen. Get your cash from the ATM because banks will be closed. School in Wannaska, however, will be open.

Fun Fact: I've already admitted to not being a very good history buff. I imagine there are folks out there like me, so for your benefit (and mine), I typed "Fun Facts About Martin Luther King Jr" in the Google search bar, because, isn't fun a great way to absorb some useful information?

I was rewarded with an article that appreciated my learning style on the History channel website: 

10 Things You May Not Know About Martin Luther King Jr. by Christopher Klein.

Yay, right?!

When I was in college, a lady once told me if I wanted to sound smart, just read the headlines, skim a few articles, then begin any dinner conversation with, "I read in the paper today, that..." I tested her theory and she was right! "Wow, you're smart," my conversation partners would say.

With a dinner table that is regularly filled with at least six people (plus various friend guests), I'm always on the lookout for good table topics. Sounding smart is a bonus, especially with teenagers who are more than happy to point out when I'm wrong. And I've got not one but two teenagers in Knowledge Bowl so, believe me, the pressure to get it right is on like never before.

So, here we go, copied and pasted from the article (give credit where credit's due, folks).

1. King's Birth Name Was Michael, Not Martin

King was born Michael King Jr. on January 15, 1929. In 1934, however, his father, a pastor at Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, traveled to Germany and became inspired by the Protestant Reformation leader Martin Luther. As a result, King Sr. changed his own name as well as that of his five-year-old son.

2. King Entered College At the Age of 15

King was such a gifted student that he skipped grades nine and 12 before enrolling in 1944 at Morehouse College, the alma mater of his father and maternal grandfather. Although he was the son, grandson and great-grandson of Baptist ministers, King did not intend to follow the family vocation until Morehouse president Benjamin E. Mays, a noted theologian, convinced him otherwise. King was ordained before graduating college with a degree in sociology.

3. King Received His Doctorate in Systematic Theology

After earning a divinity degree from Pennsylvania’s Crozer Theological Seminary, King attended graduate school at Boston University, where he received his Ph.D. degree in 1955. The title of his dissertation was “A Comparison of the Conceptions of God in the Thinking of Paul Tillich and Henry Nelson Wieman.”

4. King’s 'I Have a Dream' Speech Was Not His First At the Lincoln Memorial

Six years before his iconic oration at the March on Washington, King was among the civil rights leaders who spoke in the shadow of the Great Emancipator during the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom on May 17, 1957. Before a crowd estimated at between 15,000 and 30,000, King delivered his first national address on the topic of voting rights. His speech, in which he urged America to “give us the ballot,” drew strong reviews and positioned him at the forefront of the civil rights leadership.

5. King Was Imprisoned Nearly 30 Times

According to the King Center, the civil rights leader went to jail 29 times. He was arrested for acts of civil disobedience and on trumped-up charges, such as when he was jailed in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1956 for driving 30 miles per hour in a 25-mile-per-hour zone.

6. King Narrowly Escaped an Assassination Attempt a Decade Before His Death

On September 20, 1958, King was in Harlem signing copies of his new book, Stride Toward Freedom, in Blumstein’s department store when he was approached by Izola Ware Curry. The woman asked if he was Martin Luther King Jr. After he said yes, Curry said, “I’ve been looking for you for five years,” and she plunged a seven-inch letter opener into his chest. The tip of the blade came to rest alongside his aorta, and King underwent hours of delicate emergency surgery. Surgeons later told King that just one sneeze could have punctured the aorta and killed him. From his hospital bed where he convalesced for weeks, King issued a statement affirming his nonviolent principles and saying he felt no ill will toward his mentally ill attacker.

7. King's Last Public Speech Foretold His Death

King had come to Memphis in April 1968 to support the strike of the city’s Black garbage workers, and in a speech on the night before his assassination, he told an audience at Mason Temple Church: “Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now … I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. And I’m happy tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”

8. Members of King’s Family Did Not Believe James Earl Ray Acted Alone

Ray, a career criminal, pled guilty to King’s assassination but later recanted. King’s son Dexter met publicly with Ray in 1997 and argued for the case to be reopened. King’s widow, Coretta, believed the Mafia and local, state and federal government agencies were deeply involved in the murder. She praised the result of a 1999 civil trial in which a Memphis jury decided the assassination was the result of a conspiracy and that Ray was set up to take the blame. A U.S. Department of Justice investigation released in 2000 reported no evidence of a conspiracy.

9. King's Mother Was Also Slain By a Bullet

On June 30, 1974, as 69-year-old Alberta Williams King played the organ at a Sunday service inside Ebenezer Baptist Church, Marcus Wayne Chenault Jr. rose from the front pew, drew two pistols and began to fire shots. One of the bullets struck and killed King, who died steps from where her son had preached nonviolence. The deranged gunman said that Christians were his enemy and that although he had received divine instructions to kill King’s father, who was in the congregation, he killed King’s mother instead because she was closer. The shooting also left a church deacon dead. Chenault received a death penalty sentence that was later changed to life imprisonment, in part due to the King family’s opposition to capital punishment.

10. George Washington and Abraham Lincoln Are the Only Other Americans to Have Had Their Birthdays Observed as a National Holiday

In 1983 President Ronald Reagan signed a bill that created a federal holiday to honor King. The holiday, first commemorated in 1986, is celebrated on the third Monday in January, close to the civil rights leader’s January 15 birthday.

I'm sure the elementary-aged kids will come home with their own fun facts and art. (I seem to recall a drawing the Fourth Grader did in third grade.) There's a really nice kid-friendly news publication that has come home in the kids' backpacks over the years. It usually shares a fun fact or two about MLK as a kid, i.e. how many siblings he had or starting college at age 15, then drives home a main idea or two about the man, namely that he was a major American civil rights leader and that he was assassinated. It's been my experience that kids quickly grasp the importance of this historical figure: That Martin Luther King Jr believed everyone should be treated fairly and that being killed for his beliefs was not okay. 

If your kids don't come home with an art project or worksheet, here's a whole list of Books for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. 

More fun: There is an It Starts With Me: A Virtual Youth Book Reading and Puppetry Presentation this morning from 9:30-10:30am CST. 

One last fun fact: According to the PBS website where I found the compilation of book titles, I learned that "in 1994, the holiday was officially recognized as a National Day of Service where volunteers across the country work together to make a difference in their communities."

After we share our fun facts over meatloaf, and the ice cream has been scooped, I think our dinner conversation can move to that most crucial part to observing MLK Day: How we might work together to make a difference in our communities. I'm sure the kids will have some great ideas.

On This Day

Historic Highlights (credits)

2001 - Wikipedia goes online

The online encyclopedia has since become the largest reference work on the internet.

1992 - Croatia and Slovenia are internationally recognized as independent nations

The Yugoslav federation effectively collapsed as a result.

1973 - Nixon orders ceasefire in Vietnam

The fighting continued anyway until the capture of Saigon by the Vietnam People's Army on April 30, 1975.

1892 - The rules of Basketball are published

Canadian James Naismith invented the sport for his gym class at YMCA in Springfield, Massachusetts.

1759 - The British Museum opens

Its collection comprises 8 million items and it is one of the most comprehensive collections in the world.

Happy Birthday to You!🎶 

1965 - James Nesbitt, Irish actor

1941 - Captain Beefheart, American singer-songwriter

1929 - Martin Luther King, Jr., American minister, activist, Nobel Prize laureate

1918 - Gamal Abdel Nasser, Egyptian army officer, politician, 2nd President of Egypt

1622 - Molière, French playwright, actor

Remembering You

1994 - Harry Nilsson, American singer-songwriter, musician

1988 - Seán MacBride, Irish politician, Nobel Prize laureate

1950 - Henry H. Arnold, American general

1947 - Elizabeth Short, American waitress, murder victim

1919 - Rosa Luxemburg, Russian economist, philosopher

Be the difference in your community and make it a great Saturday. 

Kim