From LATIN today

Lower School
Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Sister Visits Latin
Feb 12, 2004, 09:55

Christine Farris King
Students in the Lower and Middle Schools had a special opportunity to see a more personal side of one of the most important figures in American history when Christine King Farris visited Latin in February.

Farris, the oldest sibling of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., shared her childhood memories of the civil rights leader and read from her recently published children's book, My Brother Martin: A Sister Remembers Growing Up with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

During a morning assembly in the Lower School and later in the Middle School, Farris, who is an associate professor at Spelman College in Atlanta, explained her reasons for writing about her brother as a child.

"I knew him longer than anyone else and I wanted kids to know that he was just an ordinary little boy," she said.

In fact, M.L, as he was known in his family, could be quite mischievous. The Lower School students especially enjoyed a story of a young Martin Luther King pulling a prank on his piano teacher.

Christine Farris King
Farris also spoke about poignant moments from her brother's childhood including his first experience with racism, when two white friends said that they could no longer play with M.L. and his brother A.D. because they were "Negroes." Shortly after this incident, Farris said, M.L. told his mother: "Mother dear, one day I'm going to turn this world upside down," a foreshadowing of what was to come that no one paid much attention to at the time.

Although Martin Luther King eventually did transform the world, he started out as child no different from other children, said Farris. As she concluded her visit to the School, Farris encouraged Latin students to also think of themselves as future leaders and to remember a line from a poem in her book that states: "You can be like Martin. Yes you can!"


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