Inauguration of President Obama and the Legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King

History will be made when Barack Obama is inaugurated as the 44th President of the U.S. and the first one of African American heritage. On January 19, one day earlier, the nation will celebrate the annual birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King. Perhaps the most incisive comment on Mr. Obama's election actually came long ago. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. addressed the Hawaii Legislature in 1959, two years before Mr. Obama was born in Honolulu, and declared that the civil rights movement aimed not just to free blacks but "to free the soul of America."

Dr. King ended his Hawaii speech by quoting a prayer from a preacher who had once been a slave, and it's an apt description of the idea of America today: "Lord, we ain't what we want to be; we ain't what we ought to be; we ain't what we gonna be, but, thank God, we ain't what we was."

The inauguration brings with it the hope and zeal of a new era in America that starts with the promise and initiatives of real change in national and international policies with a Democratic Congress and President in a position empowered by the American people to create the change.

SIRS Leading Issues provides the content and unique five-step research process for students to learn more about the most important issues facing President Obama in the next few years: Outsourcing, Unemployment, Alternative Energy Resources, Economic Policy, Immigration, and Taxation.

Students should select one of these issues and write a report of at least 150 words or a presentation of at least two minutes and seven slides that cites at least three resources. Each of these issues already includes the essential questions for critical thinking that will guide student selection of the integrated editor-selected resources.

Pathfinder: Click Pro vs. Con section > More Issues > Selected Issue > My Analysis > Follow the SIRS five-step process

SIRS Leading Issues also provides four unique models that students and teachers can use to report/present their conclusions. These models are templates that correlate with the five-step process and can be accessed in Step 5 of My Analysis.

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