Open Ended Questions

1. What happened on the day Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated? 

 

2. What happened when Martin Luther King Jr led the march on Washington? 

 

3. When and why did Martin Luther King Jr win the Nobel peace prize? 

 

4. What inspired Martin Luther King to become a civil rights activist? 

 

5. What was Martin's' greatest achievement? 

 

Answers 

1. He died in Memphis and was shot by James Earl Ray with a rifle on my balcony at the hotel he was staying at, The Lorraine Motel. After this tragic incident he was rushed to the hospital but sadly couldn't be saved. Even though the police had evidence of James Earl Ray being the assassin, some of his family members are in doubt and they think he might have been framed. They think that the FBI, Memphis police and the Mafia were involved in Martin's death. 

 

2. He led his march on Washington on August 28th 1963 and during it he presented his famous, well known 'I have a dream speech'. The reason he led his march on Washington was because he was trying to continue with the jobs and freedom campaign drawing attention to the hardships that black Americans are always facing. 

 

3. He won the Nobel peace prize in 1964. He won it because of his non-violent protests against racial injustice in America. He also won it at the age of 35 which was the youngest age any person ever received it. 

 

4. He was inspired to become a civil rights activist because as soon as he was old enough to realize how segregated America was he found it wrong. He felt like he needed to do something. So he started organizing peaceful protests against injustice and his first protest the Alabama bus boycott was very successful.  

 

5. His greatest achievement would have been the Alabama bus boycott arguing against how the buses were segregated. Even though it was for a small cause it was really important. It gave a lot of black Americans hope and was the first step to eliminating segregation.