Martin Luther King, Jr.

MLK being arrested during Montomery, Alabama bus boycott campaign, 1955

The strategy of non-violence

Interview on British television show Face to Face, 1961

• Part 1

Removing a burned cross from his front yard while his son Martin looks on, 1960.

Watch King and NAACP leader Roy Wilkins face skeptical, if not hostile, questioning in his 1963 appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press," popular political TV show, before the March on Washington.

Delivering his "I Have a Dream" speech

An amazing online interactive site all about the speech and its larger context. Really worth spending some time here!

His "I Have Dream Speech" at the March on Washington

Artifacts and information about the march from the National Museum of American History

A rhetorical analysis of King's "I Have a Dream Speech"

Time Magazine's Man of the Year, 1963

The King Center's complete archive of MLK's papers is here.

A collection of NY Times articles about King on the 50th anniversary of his assassination is here.

Listen to King's oral history interview with Robert Penn Warren here. Highlights from the transcript here.

Selma to Montgomery, Alabama March, 1965

Watch a great documentary, Citizen King, covering the years 1963 to 1968, here. (This link is to part 1 of 13. At the end of this clip, click on Part 2, etc.)

First and only time meeting Malcolm X.
In US Capitol Building during Congress's debate over Voting Rights Act, August 1965

Watch King's 1965 appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press" political panel television show here.

Meeting with President Lyndon Johnson at the White House, March 1966

Watch King's interview on the Merv Griffin talk show, 1967 (part 2, discussing Vietnam War)

Watch King's interview on The Mike Douglas Show, 1967

• part 1
• part 2
• part 3

His last speech: "I've Been to the Mountaintop," April 3, 1968 (night before he was assassinated) in Memphis, Tennessee.

Listen to audio here.

Watch last 2:38 minutes of speech here.

Watch a documentary on the events surrounding the assassination of King, including the evidence of a government conspiracy to kill him and cover it up by framing James Earl Ray, here.

Some good books on Martin Luther King, Jr.:

• The Taylor Branch trilogy (Parting the Waters, Pillar of Fire, and At Canaan's Edge) is perhaps the gold standard of King biographies. Amazing original research, contextualization, beautiful writing.
• Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, by David J. Garrow is another good one.
• James H. Cone's Martin & Malcolm & America: A Dream or a Nightmare is a fascinating study of the diferences and overlooked similarities between King and Malcolm X.

MLK's wife and four children view his open casket

Watch a remarkable 60 Minutes interview with MLK's wife, Coretta Scott King, in December 1968, after his assassination.