Meet the Author
Martin Luther King Jr.
American · 1929–1968 · Minister and civil rights leader
Portrait: Associated Press, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
A Baptist minister from Atlanta and a leader of the civil rights movement, whose sermons, letters, and speeches argued for nonviolent protest.
2 StoryBites Editions2 Speeches & essays
Why read Martin Luther King Jr.?
King wrote and spoke like the preacher he was, blending the Bible, the nation’s founding documents, and careful argument. Letter from Birmingham Jail answers white clergymen who called his protests ‘unwise and untimely,’ and builds a patient case for acting now. I Have a Dream turns the promises of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution into a ‘promissory note’ the nation has yet to honor.
A life in six dates
- 1929Born in Atlanta, Georgia
- 1955Leads the Montgomery bus boycott
- 1957Helps found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
- 1963Writes Letter from Birmingham Jail
- 1963Delivers I Have a Dream at the March on Washington
- 1964Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
- 1968Assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee
Themes across the collection
The StoryBites Editions
Context that actually matters
The Birmingham campaignIn spring 1963, King and local activists led marches and sit-ins against segregation in Birmingham, Alabama, and King was arrested on Good Friday.
The March on WashingtonOn August 28, 1963, marchers gathered at the Lincoln Memorial to demand jobs and civil rights, and King spoke near the end of the program.
Nonviolent resistanceKing drew on Christian teaching, Gandhi, and Thoreau to argue that breaking an unjust law openly and accepting the penalty can wake a community’s conscience.