Learn English words about Martin Luther King Jr Day in the US
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| Hi everybody, my name is Alicia, welcome back to weekly words. Today we're going to be talking about another holiday, the holiday for today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day. So let's get into it. |
| 1. Martin Luther King Jr. Day |
| The first word of course is Martin Luther King Jr. Day. |
| This day is celebrated on the third Monday in every January and it's used to recognize a very important civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., perhaps you've heard of him. In a sentence, my school has the day off for Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Martin Luther King Jr. Day is actually a national holiday in the US so you might have the day off work if you live in America, or you might have the day off school because of his holiday. |
| 2. Martin Luther King Jr. |
| Martin Luther King Jr. was a civil rights leader, he was very very famous for his "I have a dream" speech. He helped bring people together who wanted to ensure equal rights for people regardless of race. So in a sentence, Have you ever seen Martin Luther King Jr's I have a dream speech? |
| 3. Civil rights |
| The idea behind the civil rights movement is that all people had certain rights in their life so they should be able to pursue the same goals in their life, that was the point of the civil rights movement, without being bound by issues of race or gender or sexual orientation, for example. So in a sentence, let's keep working towards realizing civil rights for all people. |
| 4. Non-violent protest |
| A non-violent protest means a protest which does not use violence, or another way to say, it is a peaceful protest. There were a lot of non-violent protest you might have heard of, a sit in protest, in these cases members of the protest with simply for example sit at a cafe or sit at a restaurant and if asked to move would not move so the phrase non-violent protest is particularly related to Martin Luther King jr. because he advocated, he wanted to use the non-violent protest style. There were other people during this time who used violent protests but Martin Luther King Jr. chose to encourage people to protest non-violently so that's why this is a particularly important phrase on Martin Luther King Junior Day. Martin Luther King Jr. advocated for non-violent protests. |
| 5. To assassinate |
| To assassinate, this is a verb you might know the word to murder, or perhaps, to kill; but if a famous person or a person, for example in politics in the government a very very significant person is killed it's called an assassination or we use the verb to assassinate. Martin Luther King Jr., as you may know, was assassinated, and so that's why this word has particular relevance on this holiday. So maybe one of the nuances are one of the implications of the word assassinate is that there's a political nuances, there's a political reason why the person is assassinated. So for example, in a sentence, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated due to his role in the civil rights movement. So he was a very important figure in the movement and there were people who oppose Martin Luther King Jr. and his viewpoint in his approach, as a result he was assassinated. |
| So those are some key phrases and keywords that are related to the holiday Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Thank you very much for joining us for this episode of holiday words and we'll see you again. Bye! |
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