Sra: Imagine It!, Themes, Taking a Stand, Ancient Civilizations Ecology, Great Expectations, Earth in Action, Art and Impact, Level 6

So I say to you, my friends, that even though we must face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed--we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.

I have a dream that one day sons of former slaves and sons of former slave-owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream 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!

I have a dream that one day ... little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places shall be made plain, and the crooked places shall be made straight and the glory of the Lord will be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with.

With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.

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With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day. This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning--"my country 'tis of thee; sweet land of liberty; of thee I sing; land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrims' pride; from every mountainside, let freedom ring"--and if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.

Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania. Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.

But not only that.

Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.
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Production note: this image crosses the gutter to appear both on page 90 and page 91 in the print version.

And when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and hamlet, from every state and city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children--black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Catholics and Protestants--will be able to join hands and to sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last, free at last; thank God Almighty, we are free at last."

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Meet the Author

Christine King Farris

As the older sister of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Farris has a unique perspective on his life. A teacher, Farris has worked for more than forty years as an education professor at Spellman College in Georgia.

Martin Luther King Jr.

King's public speaking skills, wisdom, and moral conscience led him to become one of the great leaders of the civil rights movement, arguing for equal rights for all. For his efforts, King received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964.
Meet the Illustrator

Chris Soentpiet

Soentpiet was born in South Korea. When he was eight, he and his sister were adopted and joined their new family in Hawaii. Soentpiet has loved painting since high school and takes great pride in his work. He spends weeks researching his subjects. Only after extensive planning is Soentpiet ready to paint. His belief that "immigrant kids should not forget where they came from" is reflected in his art.

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Taking a Stand: Theme Connections
Within the Selection

1. Based on what you read in "My Brother Martin," what would Martin Luther King Jr.'s father say about his "I Have a Dream" speech?

2. How would you expect Martin Luther King Jr.'s father's sermons to be like the "I Have a Dream" speech?

Across Selections

Beyond the Selection

Write about It!

Imagine you are Martin Luther King Jr. and have just been told your white friends cannot play with you anymore. Write about your feelings in a journal entry. How would you want to "turn this world upside down"?

Remember to look for information about King and other civil rights leaders for the Concept/Question Board.

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Social Studies Inquiry: Pericles

Genre

Expository Text tells people something. It contains facts about real people, things, or events.

Feature

Martin Luther King Jr. was not the first speaker to share his dream of democracy. More than two thousand years earlier, a leader in Athens made a lasting speech about government and citizens.

Athens at that time was an independent, self-governing city. It was among the earliest governments to have a democratic constitution. Even so, its citizens practiced slavery. Only free Greek men were citizens of Athens. Women and slaves could not vote.

During the fifth century b.c., Athens was at war with Sparta. Athens held a large funeral for those who had fallen in battle. Pericles made a famous speech at the funeral. In it he honored the men who risked and lost their lives fighting for their country. He described doing so as an exalted act of citizenship.

To explain why defending Athens was important, Pericles praised its government's creed and its citizens. "Our constitution does not copy the laws of neighboring states," he said. He later added, "Its administration favors the many instead of the few. This is why it is called a democracy.

If we look to the laws, they afford equal justice to all in their private differences." He pointed out that people in Athens were judged by ability. Their class mattered less.

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Pericles saw how the citizens lived in peace with one another. "We do not feel called upon to be angry with our neighbor for doing what he likes," he said. He explained, however, that good citizens obeyed all laws.

Athens was defeated by Sparta, and it fell into decline. During the next century, it lost its independence. However, Pericles' funeral oration survived and helped shape what future democracies should be.

What did you learn about Pericles from the caption under the photo?

What might Gandhi, King, and Mott say to Pericles about democracy in Athens?

What might Gandhi, King, and Mott say to Pericles about war and violence?

Try It!

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Vocabulary: Warm-Up

* authority

* rebel

* drought

* indispensable

* overwhelming

* compassionate

* reluctantly

* controversial

* self-sacrifice

* humility

Vocabulary Strategy

Once there was a dry and thirsty land. As the king, the lion had complete authority over the best water hole, where he lived with his lioness. The other animals did not dare rebel and claim the water hole for their own.

One year there were no rains. This drought dried all the land except for the lions' water hole. Water is indispensable , or necessary, to life. Overwhelming thirst drove the animals to a desperate decision--they would approach the lions' water hole.

The oldest deer was a compassionate animal. He wanted to help. "Lions do not kill when they are full. I will go to the water hole alone. After the lions have made a meal of me, you can drink without fear."

Reluctantly the other animals agreed. The plan was controversial , though. The giraffe said, "I admire your self-sacrifice , but I would rather try something else." He turned to the wise owl. "Can you save our friend the deer?"
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"A deer can run faster than a lion. Tomorrow, go near the water hole. The lioness will charge you. Run away. The lioness will tire quickly. Slow down. The lioness must think she can catch you. Speed up when you need to, but keep her following you," said the owl.

"But the lion will be left at the hole," said the zebra.

"Lions prefer an easy meal. We can use this to our advantage. I will go find a friend who can help." The owl flew away but soon returned with a vulture.

"We need your help, vulture," said the owl with humility .

"When the lioness chases the deer, you must fly some distance away. Circle around. The lion will think you have found a dead animal. He will come looking for his easy meal."

The next day, the deer led the lioness off. The vulture led the lion away. The animals drank plenty of water and saved some for the deer and the vulture.

Day after day, the plan worked. Finally the rains returned, and the animals did not need to go to the water hole.

Game

Concept Vocabulary

The concept word for this lesson is declaration. Declaration means "the act of making something known." How is a declaration an important step in taking a stand?
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Genre

Comprehension Strategy: Making Connections

As you read, make connections between what you are reading and what you already know from past experience or previous reading.
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Focus Questions

How is the story of Cesar Chavez influenced by Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.? What role does organization play in taking a stand?

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Harvesting Hope

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Until Cesar Chavez was ten, every summer night was like a fiesta. Relatives swarmed onto the ranch for barbecues with watermelon, lemonade, and fresh corn. Cesar and his brothers, sisters, and cousins settled down to sleep outside, under netting to keep mosquitoes out. But who could sleep--with uncles and aunts singing, spinning ghost stories, and telling magical tales of life back in Mexico?

Cesar thought the whole world belonged to his family. The eighty acres of their ranch were an island in the shimmering Arizona desert, and the starry skies were all their own.

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Many years earlier, Cesar's grandfather had built their spacious adobe house to last forever, with walls eighteen inches thick. A vegetable garden, cows, and chickens supplied all the food they could want. With hundreds of cousins on farms nearby, there was always someone to play with. Cesar's best friend was his brother Richard; they never spent a day apart.

Cesar was so happy at home that he was a little afraid when school started. On his first day, he grabbed the seat next to his older sister, Rita. The teacher moved him to another seat--and Cesar flew out the door and ran home. It took three days of coaxing for him to return to school and take his place with the other first graders.

Cesar was stubborn, but he was not a fighter. His mother cautioned her children against fighting, urging them to use their minds and mouths to work out conflicts.

Then, in 1937, the summer Cesar was ten, the trees around the ranch began to wilt. The sun baked the farm soil rock hard. A drought was choking the life out of Arizona. Without water for the crops, the Chavez family couldn't make money to pay its bills.

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Cesar's old life had vanished. Now he and his family were migrants-- working on other people's farms, crisscrossing California, picking whatever fruits and vegetables were in season.

When the Chavez family arrived at the first of their new homes in California, they found a battered old shed. Its doors were missing and garbage covered the dirt floor. Cold, damp air seeped into their bedding and clothes. They shared water and outdoor toilets with a dozen other families, and overcrowding made everything filthy. The neighbors were constantly fighting, and the noise upset Cesar. He had no place to play games with Richard. Meals were sometimes made of dandelion greens gathered along the road.

Cesar swallowed his bitter homesickness and worked alongside his family. He was small and not very strong, but still a fierce worker. Nearly every crop caused torment. Yanking out beets broke the skin between his thumb and index finger. Grapevines sprayed with bug-killing chemicals made his eyes sting and his lungs wheeze. Lettuce had to be the worst. Thinning lettuce all day with a short-handled hoe would make hot spasms shoot through his back. Farm chores on someone else's farm instead of on his own felt like a form of slavery.

The Chavez family talked constantly of saving enough money to buy back their ranch. But by each sundown, the whole family had earned as little as thirty cents for the day's work. As the years blurred together, they spoke of the ranch less and less.

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The towns weren't much better than the fields. WHITE TRADE ONLY signs were displayed in many stores and restaurants. None of the thirty-five schools Cesar attended over the years seemed like a safe place, either. Once, after Cesar broke the rule about speaking English at all times, a teacher hung a sign on him that read, I AM A CLOWN. I SPEAK SPANISH. He came to hate school because of the conflicts, though he liked to learn. Even he considered his eighth-grade graduation a miracle. After eighth grade he dropped out to work in the fields full-time.

His lack of schooling embarrassed Cesar for the rest of his life, but as a teenager he just wanted to put food on his family's table. As he worked, it disturbed him that landowners treated their workers more like farm tools than human beings. They provided no clean drinking water, rest periods, or access to bathrooms. Anyone who complained was fired, beaten up, or sometimes even murdered.

So, like other migrant workers, Cesar was afraid and suspicious whenever outsiders showed up to try to help. How could they know about feeling so powerless? Who could battle such odds?

Yet Cesar had never forgotten his old life in Arizona and the jolt he'd felt when it was turned upside down. Farmwork did not have to be this miserable.

Reluctantly, he started paying attention to the outsiders. He began to think that maybe there was hope. And in his early twenties, he decided to dedicate the rest of his life to fighting for change.

Again he crisscrossed California, this time to talk people into joining his fight. At first, out of every hundred workers he talked to, perhaps one would agree with him. One by one--this was how he started.

At the first meeting Cesar organized, a dozen women gathered. He sat quietly in a corner. After twenty minutes, everyone started wondering when the organizer would show up. Cesar thought he might die of embarrassment.

"Well, I'm the organizer," he said--and forced himself to keep talking, hoping to inspire respect with his new suit and the mustache he was trying to grow. The women listened politely, and he was sure they did so out of pity.
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But despite his shyness, Cesar showed a knack for solving problems. People trusted him. With workers he was endlessly patient and compassionate. With landowners he was stubborn, demanding, and single-minded. He was learning to be a fighter.

In a fight for justice, he told everyone, truth was a better weapon than violence. "Nonviolence," he said, "takes more guts." It meant using imagination to find ways to overcome powerlessness.

More and more people listened.

One night, 150 people poured into an old abandoned theater in Fresno. At this first meeting of the National Farm Workers Association, Cesar unveiled its flag--a bold black eagle, the sacred bird of the Aztec Indians.

La Causa --The Cause--was born.

It was time to rebel, and the place was Delano. Here, in the heart of the lush San Joaquin Valley, brilliant green vineyards reached toward every horizon. Poorly paid workers hunched over grapevines for most of each year. Then, in 1965, the vineyard owners cut their pay even further.

Cesar chose to fight just one of the forty landowners, hopeful that others would get the message. As plump grapes drooped, thousands of workers walked off that company's fields in a strike, or huelga .

Grapes, when ripe, do not last long.

The company fought back with everything from punches to bullets. Cesar refused to respond with violence. Violence would only hurt La Causa .

Instead, he organized a march--a march of more than three hundred miles. He and his supporters would walk from Delano to the state capitol in Sacramento to ask for the government's help.

Cesar and sixty-seven others started out one morning. Their first obstacle was the Delano police force, thirty of whose members locked arms to prevent the group from crossing the street. After three hours of arguing--in public--the chief of police backed down. Joyous marchers headed north under the sizzling sun. Their rallying cry was Si Se Puede, or "Yes, It Can Be Done."

The first night, they reached Ducor. The marchers slept outside the tiny cabin of the only person who would welcome them.

Single file they continued, covering an average of fifteen miles a day. They inched their way through the San Joaquin Valley, while the unharvested grapes in Delano turned white with mold. Cesar developed painful blisters right away. He and many others had blood seeping out of their shoes.

The word spread. Along the way, farmworkers offered food and drink as the marchers passed by. When the sun set, marchers lit candles and kept going.

Shelter was no longer a problem. Supporters began welcoming them each night with feasts. Every night was a rally. "Our pilgrimage is the match," one speaker shouted, "that will light our cause for all farmworkers to see what is happening here."

Another cried, "We seek our basic, God-given rights as human beings ... iViva La Causa!"

Eager supporters would keep the marchers up half the night talking about change. Every morning, the line of marchers swelled, Cesar always in the lead.

On the ninth day, hundreds marched through Fresno.

The long, peaceful march was a shock to people unaware of how California farmworkers had to live. Now students, public officials, religious leaders, and citizens from everywhere offered to help. For the grape company, the publicity was becoming unbearable.

And on the vines, the grapes continued to rot.

In Modesto, on the fifteenth day, an exhilarated crowd celebrated Cesar's thirty-eighth birthday. Two days later, five thousand people met the marchers in Stockton with flowers, guitars, and accordions.

That evening, Cesar received a message that he was sure was a prank. But in case it was true, he left the march and had someone drive him all through the night to a mansion in wealthy Beverly Hills. Officials from the grape company were waiting for him. They were ready to recognize the authority of the National Farm Workers Association, promising a contract with a pay raise and better conditions.

Cesar rushed back to join the march.
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On Easter Sunday, when the marchers arrived in Sacramento, the parade was ten-thousand-people strong.

From the steps of the state capitol building, the joyous announcement was made to the public: Cesar Chavez had just signed the first contract for farmworkers in American history.

The parade erupted into a giant fiesta. Crowds swarmed the steps, some people cheering, many weeping. Prancing horses carried men in mariachi outfits. Everyone sang and waved flowers or flags. They made a place of honor for the fifty-seven marchers who had walked the entire journey.

Speaker after speaker, addressing the audience in Spanish and in English, took the microphone. "You cannot close your eyes and your ears to us any longer," cried one. "You cannot pretend that we do not exist."

The crowd celebrated until the sky was full of stars.

The march had taken its toll. Cesar's leg was swollen and he was running a high fever. Gently he reminded everyone that the battle was not over: "It is well to remember there must be courage but also that in victory there must be humility."

Much more work lay ahead, but the victory was stunning. Some of the wealthiest people in the country had been forced to recognize some of the poorest as human beings. Cesar Chavez had won this fight--without violence--and he would never be powerless again.

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