I recently visited the website http://www.martinlutherking.org/ where I was presented with a thought provoking website. Although the web address and the home page seem to be an informational, unbiased site about the life of MLK, the opposite is true. The site has been hosted by Stormfront, a White Nationalist Community. If that doesn’t say enough about authoriteis of this site, perhaps their logo will tell you a little more, “White Pride World Wide.” By looking at the web address, I never would have known it was affiliated with a Nationalists party, but the .org domain does give a hint to the reader that the site may not be trustworthy. The content of this site is completely biased against the African American community and their civil rights struggles. As an adult, and educated college student, it took me a moment to grasp the fact that this was an unreliable website. It is very misleading, and I believe that many students could be tricked into believing the biased information presented by this site. For students to grasp that this information is invalid, they would have to have prior knowledge of the material. For this reason it is important to give students background knowledge on the information they are seeking. It is also important to educate them on gathering information from a variety of sources; including sources other than the internet. I would not use this website in my classroom because the information given would not relate to my curriculum; in less, of course, I was educating my students on the White Nationalist Parties and their views. This is not a website that should be used in schools to educate students on the life of MLK because it presents prejudice information.
Much to my dismay, when I searched Martin Luther King in Google, this was the second website presented on the results page. This website is most likely on the top of the list because people frequently visit it due to being mislead by it’s web address. The results page discription of this site is as follows, “The truth about Martin Luther King: Includes historical trivia, articles and pictures. A valuable resource for teachers and students alike.” Reading this discription, readers of all ages would be lead to believe this site is creditable, reputable, and that it contains valuable information about MLK. This website is a great example of why it is important to evaluate web resources.