Essays on Martin Luther King

January 10, 1957 – April 4, 1968

Martin Luther King Jr. was an American Baptist minister and activist who became the most visible spokesman and leader in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968.

Martin Luther King, Jr., influenced people around the world. He advocated for peaceful approaches to some of society’s biggest problems. He organized a number of marches and protests and was a key figure in the American civil rights movement. He was instrumental in the Memphis sanitation workers’ strike, the Montgomery bus boycott, and the March on Washington. An African American church leader, King advanced civil rights for people of color in the United States through nonviolence and civil disobedience.

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."
"Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase."

1. King Jr, M. L. (1992). Letter from Birmingham jail. UC Davis L. Rev., 26, 835. (https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/davlr26&div=31&id=&page=)
2. Selby, G. S. (2008). Martin Luther King and the rhetoric of freedom: the Exodus narrative in America's struggle for civil rights. Baylor University Press. (https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/170/book/4075)
3. Wills*, J. S. (2005). ‘Some people even died’: Martin Luther King, Jr, the civil rights movement and the politics of remembrance in elementary classrooms. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 18(1), 109-131. (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09518390412331318397)
4. Kirk, J. A. (2004). Martin Luther King, Jr. Journal of American Studies, 38(2), 329-347. (https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-american-studies/article/martin-luther-king-jr/21D5ABE466B6A9BEA01FD61D8671FE5E)
5. Smith, E., & Wilmore, G. S. (1983). The Ethics of Martin Luther King, Jr. (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/004057368304000218)
6. Nygren, T., & Johnsrud, B. (2018). What would Martin Luther King Jr. say? Teaching the historical and practical past to promote human rights in education. Journal of Human Rights Practice, 10(2), 287-306. (https://academic.oup.com/jhrp/article-abstract/10/2/287/5042965)
7. Fairclough, A. (1983, April). Was Martin Luther King a Marxist?. In History Workshop (pp. 117-125). Editorial Collective, History Workshop, Ruskin College. (https://www.jstor.org/stable/4288462)
8. Berry, M. F. (1996). Vindicating Martin Luther King, Jr.: The road to a color-blind society. The Journal of Negro History, 81(1-4), 137-144. (https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/JNHv81n1-4p137?journalCode=jnh)