To celebrate Martin Luther King Day, UK Government files relating to the US civil rights leader have been made available on an educational website set up by The National Archives in Kew. King’s battle over equal rights for African-Americans is documented through correspondence between the British Consulate in Washington and the UK Government, as well as letters and files about US Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson. The Learning Curve site includes confidential telegrams from the British Ambassador in Washington, Sir Harold Caccia, to the Foreign Office in September 1957. They cite the infamous stand-off between armed forces and local authorities in Little Rock, Arkansas, over the admission of black students into desegregated high schools. Other heroes and villains featured on the site are Winston Churchill, John F Kennedy, Benito Mussolini, Joseph Stalin and Harry Truman.
www.learningcurve.gov.ukheroesvillains