I have a dream,” declared the inspirational American civil rights leader, Martin Luther King. Although it is now 40 years since he stood in Washington before a quarter of a million people and outlined his vision of a world where “little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers”, his message of love, justice and non-violence is as powerful - and necessary - today as it was then.

The story of Martin Luther King, and the civil rights struggle that he led in the Southern states of the US, is a dramatic and simple one, through which even the youngest children can be introduced to ideas of fairness and equality, and how to stand up for your rights without harming others - concepts which, if introduced carefully, may live with them for the rest of their lives.

This is certainly true in the US, where a law was passed in 1983 declaring the third Monday in January Martin Luther King Day, a national holiday. Many thousands of elementary school teachers use this time of year to tell their students about the beliefs of a man who is seen as a towering modern hero.

Lindsay Denham, a 17-year-old Sussex sixth former, remembers learning about Martin Luther King 10 years ago when she was at school in Connecticut. Her second grade teacher told the class (age seven) that at one time black people in the UScouldn’t eat in the same restaurants as white people, and they had to sit at the back of buses.

“She told us about Rosa Parks, who one day sat in a ‘white’ seat and didn’t give it up when someone asked her, and how Martin Luther King fought for everyone to be equal. She showed us some pictures of him leading marches, and she played us a tape recording of him speaking. I remember it sounded as if the tape was running too slowly, but she said he was a preacher, and that’s how he spoke.

“Then we all drew around our hands on construction paper, cut them out, wrote our hopes on them and pinned them up in the hall outside the classroom.”

The national holiday was first celebrated in 1986, and in the years since then, US teachers have developed hundreds of different ways of teaching about Martin Luther King - many of which they have helpfully posted on the internet.

Kindergarten children explore ideas of equality by studying how the outside of things - brown and white eggs, or parcels wrapped in plain and patterned paper, for example - might look different, but inside they are exactly the same; or they learn songs about peace. Some teachers introduce ideas about citizenship, and talk about how even the youngest child can do things to help others. Older pupils make timelines of Martin Luther King’s life, write plays around incidents in the civil rights struggle or perform We Shall Overcome at school concerts.

“We were all given badges to wear, some blue and some red,” remembers Tom Bainton, a Kent 15-year-old who spent three years at school near New York. “It was in fifth grade, when we were 10. Then all the people wearing blue badges were treated much better than the people wearing red ones. The red ones were ignored, and put at the back of the class. Afterwards we had to talk about what it felt like to be one or the other. I was blue, so I was all right!” Here in the UK, decades later, the civil rights battles that took place in Mississippi and Alabama can seem a world away. Grainy photographs show men wearing pork-pie hats, marching alongside old-fashioned buses and cars. But ideas of peace and equality are universal, and ones that young children, with their innate sense of justice, respond to readily.

Teachers in the US say that when they tell their classes how protesters who held a sit-in at a segregated lunch counter in Jackson, Mississippi, had food and drink poured over them by angry whites, or how fire-hoses and police dogs were turned on marchers in Birmingham, Alabama, students listen with unbroken attention. And, since a major part of the civil rights story concerns the battles that had to be fought to allow black and white children to sit together in the same classroom, it is something most pupils can easily relate to - even though they may find it hard to believe that, in 1957, 1,000 paratroopers had to be drafted in to escort nine black students up the steps of the all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Martin Luther King was born in 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia, to a preacher father and teacher mother. He was an earnest little boy who rode on a segregated bus to school each morning, clutching his violin. He grew up to become a Baptist preacher, and by the time he was in his late 20s, he had already published his first book and was leading demonstrations across the South.

This was a time when official policies of discrimination, such as segregated seats on buses, went hand in hand with flagrant acts of illegal violence, perpetrated by groups such as the Ku Klux Klan. Blacks were “niggers” and if they “dared to get above themselves”, their churches were burned down and fiery crosses were staked on lawns. Although black soldiers had fought alongside whites in the Second World War, they had few rights in civilian life. Everyday life for African Americans in the South meant segregation - separate schools, churches and drinking fountains, restricted job rights and denial of the right to vote.

The violence had touched Martin Luther King. His house was fire-bombed and he was stabbed in a bookstore. By the 1960s, the civil rights movement was swelling, and King led protests for desegregated facilities and fair job opportunities, which led to a spell in jail.

In 1964, a year after the “dream” speech, he won the Nobel Peace Prize. He continued his protests, demonstrating for voting rights for African Americans, and leading another famous march from Selma to Montgomery in Alabama, until, in 1968, he was assassinated by an escaped white convict, James Earl Ray.

The span of his life, from a small frame house in Atlanta to an undistinguished motel balcony in Memphis, Tennessee, was short, but he packed into his 39 years enough thought, action and inspiration to fundamentally change the direction of his country. However, children need to know he was no saint, but an ordinary human being who had fights and affairs, didn’t always get on with his father and suffered from depressions.

Learning about this man, and this extraordinary era of history, can open many avenues, and not only those that explore moral issues. Identifying key towns and states of the South can increase pupils’ awareness of the size and variety of the US. Studying the Kennedy years, when much of the civil rights battle took place, can illuminate a key turning point in modern history.

Pupils can look at the mathematics of segregation - the numbers of people involved in marches, and the ratio of black people to white in the South - while reading about the struggle, with its protests, sit-ins and boycotts, will not only given them a vivid story, but also open up a whole new area of vocabulary and social awareness.

LESSON IDEAS

For younger children: Cut out a paper dove shape for each child, and ask them to write on it one thing they could do to make their class or school a more peaceful place.

Make “dream” mobiles. Give each child a clothes-hanger - the kind with a strut across the bottom. Get them to write “I Have a Dream” on a large, cloud-shaped piece of paper and attach it to the top of the hanger, with four of their own dreams on smaller clouds along the bottom.

Make a paper-doll freize and get each child to decorate one of the dolls and write on it something they can do to make life better.

Write some problems on small sheets of paper (for example, two people want to use the same book; someone pushed you in the playground; you have had an argument with your friend). Fold them up and put them in a bag. Each child chooses one, and tells the class how they would solve it peacefully.

For older children: Make an illustrated timeline of Martin Luther King’s life. Listen to extracts of his speeches. Play music from the 1950s and 1960s - peace songs and music by black entertainers such as Bessie Smith and Louis Armstrong. Discuss whether Martin Luther King’s dream has come true.

Set up a link with a school in the South of the USand find out more about life in the region today.

Talk about the Nobel Peace Prize, what it is and who has won it.

Make a peace “quilt” using paper squares. Get each child to draw something in the centre and write their dreams and hopes for a better world around the edge.

Study the “dream” speech, looking at not only the content, but the ways in which King used words to impress his message on his audience. Get pupils to write their own dream speeches, working on ideas and language.

Make a chart of important civil rights events and how they changed the lives of African Americans. Discuss what still needs to be changed today.

RESOURCES

There are many websites, books, videos and CD-Roms on this subject: Encarta has a good basic introduction (www.encarta.msn.com); www.mlkonline.com for biography, sound clips, speeches, quotes and links; www.martinlutherking.8m.com - be prepared to drown in information!

Books

Martin Luther King by Verna Wilkins, Famous People, Famous Lives series, published by Franklin Watts, pound;7.99.

Martin Luther King by Peggy Burns, Life Stories series, published by Wayland, pound;4.99.

Martin Luther King by James Riordan, Lifetimes series, published by Belitha Press, pound;9.99.

The following books are available from www.amazon.co.uk. Prices quoted are those given on the website.

A Picture Book of Martin Luther King, Jr by David Adler, published by Holiday House Inc, pound;11.74.

lDr Martin Luther King, Jr by David Adler, published by Holiday House Inc ,pound;10.35.

About Martin Luther King Day by Mary Fox, published by Enslow Publishers, pound;9.95.

Martin’s Big Words:The Life of Martin Luther King, Jr by Doreen Rappoport, published by Jump at the SunHyperion Books for Children, pound;10.05.

If You Lived at the Time of Martin Luther King by Ellen Levine, published by Scholastic Inc, pound;4.79.