Martin Luther King Libri

Celebrated Stanford University historian Clayborne Carson is the director and editor of the Martin Luther King Papers Project; with thousands of King's essays, notes, letters, speeches, and sermons at his disposal, Carson has organized King's writings into a posthumous autobiography. In an early student essay, King prophetically penned: "We cannot have an enlightened democracy with one great group living in ignorance.... We cannot have a nation orderly and sound with one group so ground down and thwarted that it is almost forced into unsocial attitudes and crime." Such statements, made throughout King's career, are skillfully woven together into a coherent narrative of the quest for social justice. The autobiography delves, for example, into the philosophical training King received at Morehouse College, Crozer Theological Seminary, and Boston University, where he consolidated the teachings of Afro-American theologian Benjamin Mays with the philosophies of Locke, Rousseau, Gandhi, and Thoreau. Through King's voice, the reader intimately shares in his trials and triumphs, including the Montgomery Boycott, the 1963 "I Have a Dream Speech," the Selma March, and the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize. In one of his last speeches, King reminded his audience that "in the final analysis, God does not judge us by the separate incidents or the separate mistakes that we make, but by the total bent of our lives." Carson's skillful editing has created an original argument in King's favor that draws directly from the source, illuminating the circumstances of King's life without deifying his person. --Eugene Holley Jr.

Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever.

2013 Reprint of 1959 Edition. Exact facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. In August 1958 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., preached two sermons, "What is Man?" and "The Dimensions of a Complete Life," at the first National Conference on Christian Education of the United Church of Christ at Purdue University. In response to demands made by conference attendees, King allowed publication of the addresses. With King's consent, the sermons were published by the Christian Education Press in a short book entitled, "The Measure of a Man." The press and King arranged for proceeds to be shared evenly, after the former had recovered its costs of publication. King first developed the theme of "What Is Man?" during his seminary days. King believed the sermon's title to be "one of the most important questions confronting any generation," proposing that man is many things: "a biological being," "a being of spirit" who is "made in the image of God" and "sinners in need of God's divine grace."

Explains the Afro-American's dissatisfaction with the slow progress in attaining equal rights that are long overdue

"We've got some difficult days ahead," civil rights activist Martin Luther King, Jr., told a crowd gathered at Memphis's Clayborn Temple on April 3, 1968. "But it really doesn't matter to me now because I've been to the mountaintop. . . . And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land." These prohetic words, uttered the day before his assassination, challenged those he left behind to see that his "promised land" of racial equality became a reality; a reality to which King devoted the last twelve years of his life. These words and other are commemorated here in the only major one-volume collection of this seminal twentieth-century American prophet's writings, speeches, interviews, and autobiographical reflections. A Testament of Hope contains Martin Luther King, Jr.'s essential thoughts on nonviolence, social policy, integration, black nationalism, the ethics of love and hope, and more.

Dr. King's sermons blend Christian teachings with his revolutionary concepts of love and nonviolence, advocating these principles as powerful tools against hate and oppression. This collection highlights his profound insights and moral philosophy, emphasizing the importance of compassion and peaceful resistance in the struggle for justice and equality. Through his eloquent words, readers are invited to reflect on the transformative power of love in the face of adversity.