OUSD MLK Oratorical

Resources:

Video, MLK: Nonviolence is the Most Powerful Weapon

Speech: Nonviolence: The Only Road to Freedom” Martin Luther King, Jr., May 4, 1966 (abridged)

Stanford U, Dr. MLK, Jr., Institute: Nonviolence

Video, Facing History: Rev. Dr. Bernard Lafayette on Non-Violence

Lesson: Teaching for Change: Putting The Movement Back Into Civil Rights Teaching / Download Lessons K-12

Lessons, National Park Service: Picturing Nonviolence Or Nonexistence 3-5

Rethinking Schools: Rethinking The Cycle of Violence 

Video, PBS Documentary: The Interrupter

Lessons, Rethinking Schools: Teaching SNCC: The Organization at the Heart of the Civil Rights Revolution 

Lessons, Martin Luther King, Jr., Gandhi, and the Power of Nonviolence Lesson Plans 6-12

Video, Martin Luther King Speaks! "Nonviolence and Social Change" 

UN International Day of NonViolence 

VIP Shoutouts

2024 Theme

“Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon. Indeed, it is a weapon unique in history, which cuts without wounding and ennobles the wo/man who wields it.”

(Ennobles: verb - to make noble, honorable, or excellent; dignify; exalt)

The Challenge is to Practice NonViolence: 64 Ways/Days to Practice NonViolence.

Theme Context: Excerpt from…

Martin Luther King Jr. Nobel Lecture, December 11, 1964

The Quest for Peace and Justice

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In a real sense nonviolence seeks to redeem the spiritual and moral lag that I spoke of earlier as the chief dilemma of modern man. It seeks to secure moral ends through moral means. Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon. Indeed, it is a weapon unique in history, which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it.

I believe in this method because I think it is the only way to reestablish a broken community. It is the method which seeks to implement the just law by appealing to the conscience of the great decent majority who through blindness, fear, pride, and irrationality have allowed their consciences to sleep.

The nonviolent resisters can summarize their message in the following simple terms: we will take direct action against injustice despite the failure of governmental and other official agencies to act first. We will not obey unjust laws or submit to unjust practices. We will do this peacefully, openly, cheerfully because our aim is to persuade. We adopt the means of nonviolence because our end is a community at peace with itself. We will try to persuade with our words, but if our words fail, we will try to persuade with our acts. We will always be willing to talk and seek fair compromise, but we are ready to suffer when necessary and even risk our lives to become witnesses to truth as we see it.