National holiday in US

Eighty-one years ago civil rights leader, the Reverend Martin Luther King was born in the US.
Although arrested 30 times and harassed by the FBI, he was eventually awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, informs Euronews.
But in 1968 the man who delivered the stirring “I have a dream” speech was assassinated in Memphis.
Since then his life and work have been celebrated annually in the US with a public holiday.
This year President Barack Obama invited civil rights veterans to the White House, where he gave them his thoughts on the significance of the movement. He told them:
“Part of what the civil rights movement was all about was changing people’s hearts and minds and breaking out of old customs and habits. That’s what I think is an important lesson for all of us on this day.”
Later Obama, who as the first black US president might have more than most to thank the Reverend for, took his family to help out in a soup kitchen.

20.01.10