6 Chapter 2 School Days

Chapter 2 School Days Martin Luther King, Jr., was always a very good student. He loved to read and make speeches. He studied very hard and skipped two grades. At just fifteen years old, he graduated from high school. That summer, Martin worked in Simsbury, Connecticut. It was Martin's first time in the North. He had a job in the tobacco fields. He was surprised to see how different life was for blacks in the North. Black and white children went to the same schools. There were no separate restaurants. Martin dreamed that this could happen in the South, too. If only there was some way he could make this dream come true.

Martin returned to Atlanta to attend Morehouse College. This was the same college that his father had attended. All the students at the school were black. All the teachers were black, too. At first, Martin wasn't sure what he wanted to study. He knew that he wanted to spend his life helping black people. But what was the best way to do that? Perhaps he would follow in his father's footsteps and become a minister. Or maybe he would become a lawyer.

In college, Martin Luther King, Jr., read an essay by a man named Henry David Thoreau. The essay was written in 1849. In this essay, Thoreau said that people have the right to disobey unjust laws. In Thoreau's time, the United States still allowed slavery. Thoreau wanted to protest slavery. He felt the government was wrong to allow it. So he refused to pay his taxes. As a result, he was thrown in jail. But Thoreau did not mind being in jail. He was making a point. Martin

liked the way Thoreau thought. He also liked that Thoreau protested in a peaceful way. Two of Martin's favorite college teachers were ministers. Because of them, he decided to become a minister as well. As a minister, Martin could speak out against segregation. He could show his people how much he cared. When Martin Luther King, Jr., was only seventeen, he gave a sermon at his father's church.

He wasn't a minister yet, but the sermon was heartfelt and inspiring. His words not only touched the members of the congregation, but his father as well. The very next year, Martin became a minister and also an assistant in his father's church.

In 1948, Martin graduated from college. He was nineteen. Martin's father wanted him to stay at the Ebenezer Baptist Church. But Martin wanted to continue his education. In September, he entered