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| Sunday, 5 June 2005 |
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Junior Observer |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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Martin Luther King : Campaigner of civil rights
Martin Luther King, Jr. was born on January 15, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia in the United States. His father was the minister (priest) of the Ebenezer Baptist Church. "M.L.", as the young boy was called, lived with his parents, sister and brother in Atlanta. Martin's father worked hard to break down the barriers between the races. He believed African-Americans should register their complaints by voting. As M.L. grew up, he found that not everyone followed his parents' principles. He noticed that "black" people and "white" people were treated differently. He saw that he and his white friends could not drink from the same water fountains, and could not use the same restrooms. M.L.'s best friend was a white boy and as children, they played happily together. But when they reached school-going age, the friends found that even though they lived in the same neighbourhood, they could not go to the same school, M.L.'s friend would go to a school for "white" children only, and M.L. was sent to a school for "black" children. After the first day of school, M.L. and his friend were never allowed to play together again. When M.L. was ready for college, he decided to follow his father and become a minister. While attending the Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania, he became familiar with the concepts of Mahatma Gandhi, who had struggled to free the people of India from British rule by a "peaceful revolution". It was also at college that M.L. met a young woman named Coretta Scott whom he eventually married. In 1954 M.L. received his PhD. and accepted the job of pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. Martin Luther King, Jr. would now be addressed as "Dr. King". Dr. King's involvement with the civil rights movement began with the arrest of Mrs. Rosa Parks on December 1, 1955. Mrs. Parks, an African-American seamstress on her way home from work, was arrested for not giving her seat in the bus to a white person. Dr. King and the other African-American community leaders felt that a protest was needed. The African-American residents of the city were asked to boycott the bus company by walking or driving to their destinations instead. The United States Supreme Court ended the boycott, which lasted 381 days, by declaring that Alabama's state and local laws requiring segregation on buses were illegal. The boycott was a success and Dr. King had showed that peaceful mass action could bring about change. In January 1957, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) was formed with Dr. King as its president. Dr. King had become the undisputed leader of the civil rights movement. Dr. King and the SCLC organised drives for African-American voter registration, de-segregation, and better education and housing throughout the South. Dr. King was asked constantly to speak. So, to spend more time with his family, he wrote his first book, Stride Toward Freedom, which was a success. In February 1959 he went to India and studied Satyagraha, Gandhi's principle of non-violent persuasion. Dr. King was determined to use Satyagraha as his main instrument of social protest. After his return to America, Dr. King returned home to Atlanta, where he shared the ministerial duties of the Ebenezer Baptist Church with his father. The move also brought Dr. King closer to the centre of the growing civil rights movement. In January 1963, Dr. King announced that he and the Freedom Fighters would go to Birmingham to fight the segregation laws. An injunction was issued forbidding any demonstrations and Dr. King and the others were arrested. Upon his release, there were more peaceful demonstrations. All this happened in the presence of television news cameras. It would be the first time the world would see the brutality that the southern African-Americans endured. 1964 was a good year for Dr. King and the civil rights movement. He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and after receiving it, divided the prize money, $54,000, among various civil rights organisations. Dr. King believed that poverty caused much of the unrest in America; not only poverty among African-Americans, but also among whites, Hispanics and Asians. He believed that the United States' involvement in Vietnam was also a factor and that the war poisoned the atmosphere of the whole country and made the solution of local problems of human relations unrealistic. This caused friction between King and the African-American leaders who felt that their problems deserved priority and that the African-American leadership should concentrate on fighting racial injustice at home. But by early 1967, Dr. King had become associated with the anti-war movement. In April 1968, Dr. King went to Memphis, Tennessee to help the sanitation workers who were on strike. On April 3, he addressed a mass rally, which was his last speech. The following day, April 4, 1968, as he was leaving his motel room, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot and killed. ########### J. K. Rowling : The dream weaver
The world famous author of the Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling will launch the book on July 16. Rowling is the creator of probably the most famous - and certainly the best-loved - character in contemporary fiction. On the one hand, there is J.K. Rowling, who wrote, and continues to write, the Harry Potter novels, a literary phenomenon. On the other, there is Joanne Rowling, a quiet, dreamy, rather shy woman whose brilliance in translating her dreams into prose transformed her own life. Joanne Rowling was born in 1965 in Chipping Sodbury, Gloucestershire in the UK. From the age of nine, she and her family lived in a charming stone cottage in the village of Tutshill in Gloucestershire. She started to write stories from an early age. One of her first stories was about a rabbit, which she also illustrated herself. Joanne has described her early character as being slightly insecure and bossy, and very similar to Hermione in the Harry Potter books. Joanne modelled Hermione on herself. After primary school, Joanne went to the local secondary school. She then went to Exeter University, and briefly taught in Portugal, before returning to Britain. The idea for Harry Potter came to Joanne quite suddenly. She was making a train journey from Manchester to London. During that journey she visualised Harry very clearly. She had no writing materials with her. As she got off the train, her mind was seething with ideas, and she was in a state of elation. As soon as she could, she began to write down those ideas, which subsequently became assembled into the books. It took about five years for Joanne to get her first book ready for publication. She imagined Harry Potter's world in great detail. There is one page of notes with an alphabetic listing of characters. She described the process of writing her books, as one of editing and assembling this information. There is a mass of detailed background information about Harry's world in these notes, that will not appear in the books.Joanne also made very competent drawings of characters and scenes as she imagined them. The literary experts advising all the major publishers judged that Harry Potter would not be successful, and they all rejected it. However, the success of the books was beyond belief. |
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| Politics | Produced by Lake House |
Martin Luther King fought for the rights of the black people and led
many civil rights campaigns. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. 
From little children to adults - all are eagerly waiting for one book -
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince which will bring forth the next
adventure of the boy wizard. 
