Table of Contents On 13 April 1944, in his junior year at
Atlanta's Booker T. Washington High School, King, Jr., won an
oratorical contest sponsored by the black Elks. With the runner-
up at Washington High, Hiram Kendall, he won the right to
represent the school at the statewide contest held at First
Baptist Church in Dublin, Georgia. Kendall was a runner-up at
the state contest. The theme of both contests was "The Negro and
the Constitution." According to later accounts, during the bus
trip to the contest, King and his teacher, Sarah Grace Bradley,
were told by the driver to surrender their seats to newly
boarding white passengers. King resisted at first, but his
teacher finally persuaded him to leave his seat. They stood for
several hours during the bus ride to Atlanta. King's oration was
published in May 1944 at the end of his junior, and final, year
at Washington High in the school annual, The Cornellian. More
polished than other pieces that King wrote as a teenager, the
essay probably benefited from adul