Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Nearing Completion in Washington

Photo: AFP

A model of the "Stone of Hope" is seen inside a trailer at the construction site of the Martin Luther King National Memorial, 01 Dec 2010

Source: www.voanews.com

STEVE EMBER: Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English. I’m Steve Ember.

FAITH LAPIDUS: And I’m Faith Lapidus. This week on our program, we tell you about a memorial being built in Washington to honor Martin Luther King Junior. He was America's most influential civil rights leader of the twentieth century.

(MUSIC: ”Oh Freedom”/Odetta)

STEVE EMBER: The third Monday in January is a federal holiday in the United States observing the birthday of Martin Luther King. The new memorial to the civil rights leader is set to open this August on the National Mall. The dedication ceremony is set for August twenty-eighth. That was the day in nineteen sixty-three that he gave his "I Have a Dream" speech at the Lincoln Memorial.

MARTIN LUTHER KING: "Free at last, free at last. Thank God almighty we are free at last."

FAITH LAPIDUS: The memorial was twenty years in the planning. It will include a large statue of Martin Luther King. It will also include a wall of quotations from his writings and speeches.

HARRY JOHNSON: "And then you see that we have a crescent-shaped wall seven hundred feet long."

FAITH LAPIDUS: Harry Johnson heads the foundation that has been raising money for the project.

HARRY JOHNSON: "I think we are overjoyed here the Memorial Foundation, knowing, understanding and believing that this is going to come to fruition, and that we are soon going to have a Martin Luther King Memorial here on our nation’s Mall."

STEVE EMBER: In the nineteen sixties, Martin Luther King led protests against racial discrimination. He taught nonviolence. He was influenced by the teachings of India's independence leader, Mohandas Gandhi.

Dr. King's efforts helped lead to the nineteen sixty-four Civil Rights Act. That law barred discrimination based on race, sex, religion or national origin.

Martin Luther King was shot to death four years later, in nineteen sixty-eight, in Memphis, Tennessee.

FAITH LAPIDUS: The new memorial will occupy land close to the Washington Monument and other memorials. President Obama has been invited to speak at the ceremony.

Martin Luther King will be honored with a statue ten meters tall. The memorial will also include the Mountain of Despair, a granite structure weighing one thousand six hundred metric tons.

The lead sculptor for the memorial is Chinese artist Lei Yixin. Harry Johnson explains why the memorial foundation chose him for the project.

HARRY JOHNSON: "We chose him because we really believe that Dr. King’s message is true, that you should not judge a person by the color of his skin but by the content of his character. In these terms, we are thinking artistic character.”

STEVE EMBER: Mr. Johnson says the memorial will make a powerful statement about the progress the country has made in the area of civil rights.

HARRY JOHNSON: “If America was as prejudiced as they say, then would they ever put an African-American on the Mall? And the answer would be no. So now they say we have diversified. We have an America that looks like America when they look at the Mall. And I think visitors from around the world are going to say it is about time that you all, we all understand who Dr. King really was and what he means, not just to America, but indeed the world.”

(MUSIC: “I Shall Not Be Moved"/Johnny Cash)

FAITH LAPIDUS: Martin Luther King's life as a civil rights leader began with the famous protest by Rosa Parks in nineteen fifty-nine. The protest took place on a bus in the southern city of Montgomery, Alabama.

At that time, black people in Montgomery had to sit in the back of the bus. Rosa Parks took a seat near the front and refused to move. She was arrested.

STEVE EMBER: Such incidents had taken place before. Racial separation laws existed all over the southern states. Black people did not have the same rights as white people.

But this time a young black minister decided to organize a protest. Martin Luther King urged black people to boycott the buses in Montgomery. That protest marked the beginning of the civil rights movement in the United States.

FAITH LAPIDUS: Dr. King was born in Atlanta, Georgia, on January fifteenth, nineteen twenty-nine. His father was a Baptist minister. His mother was a former schoolteacher.

He attended Morehouse College, one of the few colleges in the South open to blacks. He studied Gandhi and the works of the American philosopher Henry David Thoreau. He thought their ideas about nonviolence and disobedience could be used together to win equal rights for black Americans.

Gandhi believed in peacefully refusing to obey unjust laws. Thoreau urged people to be willing to go to prison for their beliefs.

STEVE EMBER: After college, Martin Luther King continued his studies in religion. He also met Coretta Scott, who became his wife. He earned a doctorate in religion, and in nineteen fifty-four a church in Montgomery offered him a job.

Martin and Coretta King started a family and became involved in a number of activities to help the poor.

FAITH LAPIDUS: Many white people thought the Montgomery bus boycott would end if Dr. King was in prison or dead. He was arrested twice. His arrests made national news and he was released.

He continued to receive threats against his life. Finally, the United States Supreme Court ruled that racial separation in the Montgomery bus system was unconstitutional.

The boycott lasted three hundred eighty-two days. The victory gave black Americans a new feeling of pride and unity. They saw that peaceful protest could be used as a tool to win their legal rights.

The civil rights movement spread fast. A group of black churchmen formed an organization to guide it. Dr. King became president of this new group, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. He helped organize many protests in the South.

STEVE EMBER: In nineteen sixty-three, blacks in Birmingham, Alabama, refused to buy goods from local stores. They demanded more jobs. They also demanded to send their children to white schools. The situation became tense. Many protesters were beaten and arrested.

The protests brought unwanted attention to Birmingham. Soon, white politicians saw that it was easier to meet the demands of the protesters than to fight them. That victory for Dr. King and his followers marked another turning point for the civil rights movement.

Shortly after that, Dr. King organized the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. About two hundred fifty thousand people gathered in the capital. They heard Martin Luther King give his most famous speech. He talked about his dream for the future.

AP

Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his most famous speech in 1963 to two hundred fifty thousand people gathered in Washington D.C.

MARTIN LUTHER KING: “And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

"I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.

"I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.”

FAITH LAPIDUS: The following year, in nineteen sixty-four, Dr. King received the Nobel Peace Prize. After returning from the ceremony in Norway he led a voter registration campaign in Selma, Alabama.

Next he went north to Chicago, Illinois, to launch efforts to improve poor neighborhoods. But in the North he found that young blacks were not as interested in his methods of peaceful protest.

The civil rights leader turned his attention to other issues. His opposition to the Vietnam War cost him the support of white allies, including President Lyndon Johnson.

Dr. King also demanded a guaranteed income for American families as a way to fight poverty. He threatened to organize national boycotts.

STEVE EMBER: In nineteen sixty-eight, Martin Luther King was planning to lead a Poor People's March on Washington. But he never made it. He had gone to Memphis, Tennessee, to lead protests that grew out of a strike by black sanitation workers.

The workers were demanding safer working conditions, higher pay and union representation. But a march led by Dr. King turned violent. Some of the demonstrators broke the windows of businesses and people then stole goods.

FAITH LAPIDUS: A week later, on April fourth, nineteen sixty-eight, Dr. King was shot in the neck as he stood on the balcony of a Memphis motel.

James Earl Ray admitted in court that he shot Dr. King. Later, he declared that he was innocent. He died in prison in nineteen ninety-eight.

Dr. King's murder incited violence in cities across the country. But that same year, Coretta Scott King established the Martin Luther King Junior Center for Nonviolent Social Change. The King Center in Atlanta serves as a "living memorial" to Dr. King.

And today the Lorraine Motel where he was shot is the home of the National Civil Rights Museum.

(MUSIC:”We Shall Overcome"/Joan Baez)

STEVE EMBER: Our program was written and produced by Brianna Blake, with reporting by Jeff Swicord. I’m Steve Ember.

FAITH LAPIDUS: And I’m Faith Lapidus. You can comment on our programs and find transcripts and MP3s at voaspecialenglish.com. You can also find a video about the new Martin Luther King memorial in Washington. And we're on Facebook and Twitter at VOA Learning English. Join us again next week for THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English

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Family Album, 30

Source: Family Album USA

World War II Part I

The audio is available for part I and part II, tomorrow I am going to update the part II. Like this post? Twit it and share it for friends.





Search: Originally posted by Actual English magazine


On the Stage of Destruction Part I

I would seem like a suicide mission to ride a train, bound for its final destination, in a trajectory that would have to cross Germany – the last place a reasonable person would want to be travelling at that moment with the Great War already underway. Yet the man that rode that train car at the Zurich station in Switzerland on April 9, 1917, with a one-way ticket to his homeland, was not too worried about the war. He knew that the German government had a great deal of interest in guaranteeing that he arrived safe and sound two his destination and that he would complete the purpose of that trip: to lead a new revolution and bring down the Provisional Government that had governed Russia since the abdication of Czar Nicholas II in February of that same year. His name was Vladimir Lenin.

It seems ironic that Germany, in searching for a way to weaken the Russians and to force them to exit the First World War, would support a Bolshevik leader and further – although indirectly –contribute to the founding of the first communist state in the world – the Soviet Union –which would become the great nemesis of the Nazis two decades later. Likewise at the end of that First World War, the Allied Powers wanted to bury the bellicose military ambitions of the Germans once and for all, and, by means of the Treaty of Versailles, impose severe measures that would help to create the Stab-in-the-Back Legend and serve as an important factor in Adolf Hitler’s ascent to power.

As the historian Norman Davies mentioned, in Europe at war 1939-1945: No Simple Victory, “it’s right enough to see WWII as the final stage of a succession of wider conflicts that began in 1914…An opera in two acts with a long intermission is a perfectly viable concept. Because by large (though not completely) the Second World War came about due to unfinished business from WWI.” In other words, it was to have been the War to End All Wars, as US President Woodrow Wilson would have predicted, it served to set the groundwork for a conflict of proportions even more frightening. Even though there is not a consensus and the numbers, depending on the source, fluctuate a great deal, it is estimated that WWII has caused about 60 million deaths.

NOT THAT UNLIKE

One of the principle legacies of WWI was to have made possible the rise of Communism and Nazism – polar opposites in the ideological spectrum (left and extreme right); however, with many elements in common, such as heavy-handed leaders and pillars of support based on strong sentiments about being excluded from the international political scene. So, it was not for nothing that the Soviets and the Germans ended up making close ties

After the success of the Bolshevik Revolution by Lenin in 1917, the Russians sank into a period of civil war between the government and the new regime and their opponents. At the same time, the deterioration o the regime leader’s health brought about a dispute for the succession of power. When Lenin died in 1924, who emerged as leader of the communist nation was Joseph Stalin – who showed himself even more brutal than his predecessor, and pushed through an aggressive policy of expansion.

In the meantime, in Germany, Hitler as leader of the Nazi Party, embarked on a frustrate attempt to seize power in a military coup in 1923. With the failure, the future dictator decided to adopt a new strategy: to win popular support. “The Germans blamed both the great inflation of 1923, which eventually made German currency worthless and so brought economic life to a halt…(by) the vengeful policies of foreigners (at the end of WWI),” affirms historian R.A.C. Parker in the book The Second War –A Short History (Not yet published in Brazil).

As a result of his nationalistic discourse in 1933, the Nazi Party had already celebrated their victory at the polls and the nomination of Hitler as a chancellor – a year later he would become the Fuher. Up until then communism was considered the main factor of instability on the European political scene. A dictatorship from the far right was not new. After all, since 1922 Benito Mussolini controlled Italy: however, the rise of the Third Reich soon became a great source of concern for the other nations on the continent.

THE SCALE OF THE CONFLICT

“1938 was Hitler’s year. In March, be occupied and annexed Austria without firing a single shot, even receiving the enthusiasm of the mass of the Austrian people. Immediately he turned on Czechoslovakia, which he succeeded in breaking up, adding a large portion of it,” states historian John Lukacs in Five Days in London: May 1940 (Cinco Dias em Londres, Jorge Zahra, 2001). The next target was Poland. Before taking on the rest of the world, however, t would be necessary to guarantee the support of Stalin. In August 1939, the Nazis and Soviets signed a treaty, known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which paved the way for Hitler to invade Poland on the 1^st of September. Two days later Great Britain and France declared war on Germany. The USSR went after its part in the bargain –the eastern section of the Publish territory, the three Baltic States (Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia), and later Finland. A political and military crisis arose and once again the stage was set in Eastern Europe. In 1940, Germany launched a series of military actions that demonstrated the force of their Blitzkrieg. The Anglo-French troops failed at preventing the Nazi advance, which would win important victories in Norway, Denmark, Holland and Belgium. The biggest blow, however, was the fall of France. The surrender was announced on July 22, and, by Hitler’s insistence was signed in the same train car where the armistice of World War I was signed in 1918.  The next step was to invade the island of King George VI. Avoiding a clash with renowned Royal Navy –renowned to be superior, the Germans began a series of bombings on British soil right away in that same month, the campaign, however would drag on until October. Great Britain was able to resist, but came out of it somewhat weakened.

A little before the 10^th of July, Italy, which had maintained an agreement of mutual cooperation with Germany from the previous year, officially entered the conflict and declared war against Great Britain and France. On the 27^th of September, Japan signed the Tripartite Pact with the two other fascist powers, establishing the Axis Powers, which would be reinforced two months later by the addition of Hungary, Slovakia, and Romania. The USSR would also receive an offer to join the Axis Powers, but refused to join due to disputes and irreconcilable differences with Germans over territory and ideology. Faced with having to put off his definitive victory over the British, Hitler, who in his first speeches had said that Germany’s future lay to the east and not the west, decided on June 22, 1941 to launch an attack against the Soviets. It was the beginning of Operation Barbarossa.

Words and Their Stories: State Nicknames, Part 3

Source: www.voanews.com

Now, the VOA Special English program WORDS AND THEIR STORIES.

Today, we tell about more interesting nicknames of American states.

The mid-Atlantic state of Maryland is called theFree State. A Baltimore newspaper first called it that during the nineteen twenties when the manufacture and sale of alcohol were banned for a time.  Maryland said it wanted to be free from this prohibition.

Mississippi is the Magnolia State. It is named for a tree with big, beautiful white flowers that grows in that hot, southern state.

The midwestern state of Missouri is called the Show Me State. The people of that frontier state were once famous for not believing everything people told them.

If you visit the western mountain and plain state of Montana you will know why it is known as Big Sky Country.

Nebraska is the only state to have a nickname that honors sports teams!  The state university's athletic teams are nicknamed Cornhuskers in recognition of one of the area's chief crops.  The state borrowed theCornhusker nickname from the university.

The western desert state of Nevada is called the Silver State. It was once home to many silver mines and towns that grew up around them. Today, most of them are empty “ghost towns.”

New Hampshire, in the northeast area called New England, is the Granite State because of that colorful rock.

New Jersey is between the big cities of New York, New York and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  It got its nickname, the Garden State, because New Jersey truck farms once provided vegetables to those big cities.

New York, which always thinks big, was called the Empire State because of its natural wealth.  The most famous Manhattan skyscraper got its name from the state.  It is, of course, the Empire State Building.

If you get a chance to see a red sunset over the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of New Mexico, you will know why that southwestern state is called the Land of Enchantment.

North and South Carolina were one colony until seventeen twenty-nine.  South Carolina's nickname is the easier of the two: It is the Palmetto Statebecause of a fan-leafed palm tree that grows there.  North Carolina is theTar Heel State. That is because many of the men who worked to gather substances from trees wore no shoes. They would make turpentine from tar and get the black, sticky tar on the heels of their feet.

Next week, we will finish telling about the colorful nicknames of American states.

(MUSIC)

This VOA Special English program was written by Ted Landphair.  I'm Barbara Klein. You can find more WORDS AND THEIR STORIES at voaspecialenglish.com.

Family Album 29

Source: Family Album

THE SAN JUANS THE VIP ISLANDS

Source: Speak Up

Language level: Intermediate

Standard: American accent

THE SAN JUANS THE VIP ISLANDS

Only a short drive and ferry ride away from the North American mainland, the ancient evergreen forests, quaint farm valleys, romantic coastline and amazing wildlife of the San Juan Islands attract many visitors. From April through October, orca whales can be seen here, but Orcas Island, the largest and most spectacular of the San Juans, did not get its name from the whales. When a Spanish expedition led by the Mexican Viceroy discovery the San Juans in the 18^th century, each of the larger islands was given one of his names –“Horcasitas” was one of them

THE SOUND OF MUSIC

On Orcas, lovers of the old-fashioned lifestyle can stay at Rosario Resort and Spa, which is full of antique teak and mahogany furniture and arts-and-crafts designs. Part of the hotel is now a museum. It was built 100 years ago as a private residence by shipbuilder and former mayor of Seattle, Robert Moran, who moved here after being told by his doctors that he would be dead in two years. In actual fact he lived for another 38 years. In order to celebrate he would wake his guests up at 6 in the morning with a splendid self-playing Aeolian pipe organ, which is still in operation today (sound of organ music).  Moran sounds to have been a luck man; a native New Yorker, he had arrived in Seattle as a penniless 18 year-old in 1875, before going on to build a vast fortune.

THE PIG WAR…

The San Juan Islands may not have that many inhabitants, but they do have a colorful history. In 1859, for example, Britain and the United States, which both had claims to the area, nearly fought “the Pig War” after an American settler shot and killed a British pig. Fortunately peace came about, after mediation by Germany’s Kaiser Wilhelm, and the pig was the only victim. More importantly perhaps, the border between Canada (then a British colony) and the USA was subsequently re-drawn.

At the start of the 21^st century, the San Juan Islands face challenges of a different kind. Sandy Playa, who runs the beautiful timbered Spring Bay Inn on the eastern side of Orcas Island (with her husband Carl Burger) explains:

Sandy Playa

(Standard American accent):

Well, I think the big change has been brought on by technology. You know, now the internet and cell phone access has enabled people to live here that would only be able to vacation here in the past. I think all probably remote areas are going through that kind of change. When we first moved here, there were about 2.500 people, and now there’s about 5.000. but even so, that population when we first moved here was mostly mad of retired people, some families, but mostly retired. And then kind of the whole dot com thing, you know, was going, just, bananas and …so lots of people were able to be consultants and live here and work from their home here and then they’d maybe have an apartment in Seattle or whatever city that they were based in.

LOW PROFILE

The dot com bubble has burst, but the islands still has their fair share of famous residents. The co-founder of Microsoft, Paul Allen, owns one of them. Here in the San Juans, however, VIPs can live a quit life, says Carl Burger:

Carl Burger

(Standard: American accent)

Part of the personality, I think of the county is that so many folks are here trying to underplay or downplay of stay below the spotlight. We have some very high-powered people who live here, either full-time or part-time, but who want to be, I was gonna say, recognized just for the people they are, rather than the personalities that they are. So there’s…there are film directors here, from the technological world, there are consultants, there are politicians, but around here, they’re just island residents.

HOW TO GET TO THE SAN JUANS (no audio)

Flight to Seattle/Tacoma International via Miami, Toronto or New York. The Anacortes ferry terminal is a two-hour drive from airport.

WHERE TO STAY ON ORCAS ISLAND:

Rosario Resort & Spa, Eastsound, Tel (+1) 360 376 2222. http://www.rosarioresort.com Spring Bay Inn, Olga tel (+1) 360 376 5531, http://www.springbayinn.com .

Orcas Island Lodging Association, http://www.orcas-loadging.com .

WHAT TO DO:

Wildlife Cycles, 350 North Beach Rd., Eastsound, tel (+1) 360 376 4708, http://www.wildlifecycles.com rent out mountainbikes. A hike up Mount Constitution (730m): the highest point in the San Juans, combines wildlife-spotting with exercises.

A Gants Wildlife Hike can teach you about the edible plants on Orcas Islands and many other things, tel. 1 800 376 6566, http://www.orcasislandwhales.com offers whale watching.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

Washington State Tourism http://www.experiencewashington.com  

Rio flood death toll, hits 600

Source: www.maganews.com recommend for Brazilian teachers and students this wonderful magazine, available in CD, for more info, just keep in touch with the site.

Rio flood death toll hits 600

Death toll in the floods in Rio de Janeiro state hits 600. More than 5,000 people have been left homeless. The most affected areas include Teresopolis, Nova Friburgo and Petropolis

State governor Sergio Cabral has declared seven days of mourning for the victims of the disaster.   Local media reported rescuers had to reach worst-hit areas on foot because vehicles cannot cross blocked roads. Mountainous areas north of Rio de Janeiro have been hit by the heaviest downpours in 44 years. The rain caused rivers of mud to rush down the mountains and tear through towns, levelling houses and throwing cars over buildings. Forecasters have warned that the steady rainfall in the area will continue into next week.

Natural disasters:  prevention is the best weapon

Nature alone is not to blame for the large numbers of victims in Rio de Janeiro state.  Brazil has not yet learned how to deal with natural disasters. The best weapon in this case is prevention. Many deaths could have been avoided if the families had not built their houses close to rivers or streams. Local city halls could also contribute by banning house building in areas at risk, such as above or below hillsides that could slide.  

Picture (Nova Friburgo) - Valter Campanato/ABr