Check out Malcolm’s collected speeches here. Browse these resources while listening to this playlist from Spike Lee’s Malcolm X. When purchasing any of the titles below, consider doing so from your nearest Black-owned bookstore.

BOOKS

Saladin Ambar: Malcolm X at Oxford Union: Racial Politics in a Global Era.

Maya Angelou: All God’s Children Need Travelling Shoes.

Richard Benson: Fighting for Our Place in the Sun: Malcolm X and the Radicalization of the Black Student Movement 1960–1973.

Jan Carew: Ghosts in Our Blood: With Malcolm X in Africa, England, and the Caribbean.

Clayborne Carson: Malcolm X: The FBI File.

Claude Andrew Clegg: The Life and Times of Elijah Muhammad.

Garrett Felber & Manning Marable: The Portable Malcolm X Reader: A Man Who Stands for Nothing Will Fall for Anything.

Garrett Felber: Those Who Know Don’t Say: The Nation of Islam, the Black Freedom Movement, and the Carceral State.

Peniel E. Joseph: The Sword and the Shield: The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.

Manning Marable: Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention.

Les Payne: The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X.

William W. Sales, Jr.: From Civil Rights to Black Liberation: Malcolm X and the Organization of Afro-American Unity.

Marika Sherwood: Malcolm X: Visits Abroad: April 1964 – February 1965.

Stephen Tuck: The Night Malcolm X Spoke at the Oxford Union: A Transatlantic Story of Antiracist Protest.

Richard Brent Turner: Islam in the African-American Experience.

Malcolm X: February 1965: The Final Speeches.

ARTICLES

Zaheer Ali: Malcolm X in Brooklyn.

The African American Intellectual Historical Society: An Open Letter to Netflix and the Producers and Directors of “Who Killed Malcolm X?”

Saladin Ambar: Interview with the author of Malcolm X at Oxford Union.

Ajamu Baraka: Why Embracing Anti-Colonialism Made Malcolm a Marked Man.

Josiah Bates: The Enduring Mystery of Malcolm X’s Assassination.

Maurice Berger: Malcolm X as Visual Strategist.

Keisha N. Blain: These Overlooked Black Women Shaped Malcolm X’s Life.

Keisha N. Blain & Eric McDuffie: On Louise Little, the Mother of Malcolm X.

 Grace Lee Boggs: On Malcolm X: “He Was a Person Always Searching to Transform Himself”

Gillian Brockell: MLK’s famous criticism of Malcolm X was a ‘fraud,’ author finds.

Lynn Burnett: The International Malcolm X.

Clayborne Carson: The Unfinished Dialogue of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X.

Code Switch (podcast): Not Just A ‘Black Thing’: An Asian-American’s Bond With Malcolm X.

Columbia University: collection of government documents on Malcolm.

Ben Crump: Attorney for Malcolm X’s Family: “We Refuse to Let Anybody Exterminate Black History”.

Angela Davis: Malcolm X at 98: Angela Davis on His Enduring Legacy & the “Long Struggle for Liberation”.

Ashley Farmer: The Many Women Mentors of Malcolm X.

Garrett Felber:

• Malcolm X in the Courtroom.
• Women’s Leadership in the Organization of Afro-American Unity.
• Reconsidering Malcolm X and Islam.
• The Missing Malcolm X: Our understanding of Malcolm X is inextricably linked to his autobiography, but newly discovered materials force us to reexamine his legacy. 
• Malcolm X assassination: 50 years on, mystery still clouds details of the case: Despite freedom of information act requests throughout the years, New York still will not release records to the public and claim files would endanger the safety of police officers and constitute unwarranted invasions of privacy

Kerri Greenidge: Beyond the Myth of Malcolm X: Understanding the humanity, and the communities, that shaped the brilliant, troubled, selfish, generous, sincere radical.

Chris Hedges: Malcolm X Was Right About America.

Laura Warren Hill: There is a Malcolm for Me.

Robin D.G. Kelley: The Riddle of the Zoot: Malcolm Little and Black Cultural Politics During World War II.

Ibram X. Kendi: The Antiracist Philosophy of Malcolm X.

Yuri Kochiyama (video): Yuri talks about holding Malcolm as he died in this interview.  Here, she talks about meeting him. 

Kyle T. Mays: Malcolm X warned us about the pitfalls of Black celebrities as leaders: Black celebrities using their platform to advocate for social justice is good, but they don’t speak for the Black masses.

Alaina Morgan: Writing and Re-writing the Legacy of Malcolm X.

National Trust for Historic Preservation: Built in 1874, this modest structure is the last known surviving boyhood home of Malcolm X. He shared the house with his half sister, Ella Little-Collins, whose son is the current owner.

Amy Ongiri: Malcolm X, The Lover.

PBS: Explore the strong friendship between Maya Angelou and Malcolm X in Ghana.

Russel Rickford:

• Malcolm X and Anti-Imperialist Thought.
• The Roots of “Malcolmology”.
• Marable’s Malcolm: A Revisitation.

Sydney Trent: Malcolm X’s family reveals letter they say shows NYPD, FBI assassination involvement.

Below are King’s most essential speeches, sermons, and short writings, with links to audio and video when available.  When dates are uncertain, a likely range of when a work was composed or performed is given. See also this collection of articles by MLK scholars about nearly every conceivable dimension of King’s life and thought, and this resource on books by and about King.

November, 1954: Transformed Nonconformist.

December 5, 1955: Address to the first mass meeting of the Montgomery bus boycott. Audio.

1956: The Violence of Desperate Men.

April 1956: Our Struggle.

March 18, 1956: When Peace Becomes Obnoxious.

May 7, 1956: The Death of Evil upon the Seashore. 

November 1956: Paul’s Letter to American Christians.    Audio.

January 1, 1957: Facing the Challenge of a New Age, Address Delivered at NAACP Emancipation Day Rally.

February 6, 1957: Nonviolence and Racial Justice.          

April 7, 1957: The Birth of a New Nation.  (On King’s travels to Ghana.) Audio.

May 17, 1957: Give Us the Ballot. Audio.

September 2, 1957: “A Look to the Future,” Address Delivered at Highlander Folk School’s Twenty-fifth Anniversary Meeting.

November, 1957: Loving Your Enemies.  Audio.

March 9, 1959: Farewell Statement for All India Radio. Audio.

March 22, 1959: Palm Sunday Sermon on Mohandas K. Gandhi.  

July 1959: My Trip to the Land of Gandhi.  

October 1959: The Social Organization of Nonviolence.  (A response to Robert Williams call for Black people to take up arms.)

April, 1960: Pilgrimage to Nonviolence.  

March 1961: The Man Who Was a Fool.     

1961: Interview on BBC’s “Face to Face.”  Video.

September 1962: Can A Christian Be a Communist?         

July 1962 – March 1963: Shattered Dreams. 

July 1962 – March 1963: Love In Action.

July 1962  – March 31, 1963: A Tough Mind and a Tender Heart.

July 1962 – March 1963: On Being a Good Neighbor.

July 1962 – March 1963: Our God is Able.

July 1962 – March 1963: Antidotes for Fear.

July 1962 – March 1963:The Answer to a Perplexing Question.

June, 1963: A Knock at Midnight. Audio.

June 23, 1963: Great March to Freedom Rally, Detroit. Audio.

August 28, 1963: I Have a Dream. Video.  Audio. 

September 18, 1963: Eulogy for the Martyred Children. (Funeral service for the children killed in the Birmingham bombing.) Audio.

December 10, 1964: Acceptance Address for the Nobel Peace Prize. Video.

January, 1965: MLK Playboy interview. (The interviewer is Alex Hayley.)

March 25, 1965: Address at the Conclusion of the Selma to Montgomery March.  Audio.  

March 28, 1965:  Interview on Meet the Press, immediately following the Selma to Montgomery March. Video.

June, 1965: The Bravest Man I Ever Met.

July 4, 1965: The American Dream. Audio (different version.)

May 31, 1966: “Buddhists and Martyrs of the Civil Rights Movement”: Joint statement by Martin Luther King, Jr., and Thich Nhat Hanh, International Committee of Conscience on Vietnam.

June 5, 1966: Guidelines for a Constructive Church.   Audio.

January 25, 1967: Letter from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. nominating Thich Nhat Hanh for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1967.

April 4, 1967: Beyond Vietnam.  Audio. 

April 9, 1967: The Three Dimensions of a Complete Life.   Audio.

April 14, 1967: The Other America.   Video.

August 27, 1967: Why Jesus Called a Man a Fool.   Audio.

August 16, 1967: “Where Do We Go From Here?,” Address Delivered at the Eleventh Annual SCLC Convention. Audio.

September 1, 1967: The Role of the Behavioral Scientist in the Civil Rights Movement.

October 26, 1967: What is Your Life’s Blueprint? Video. (No text version available.)

November/December 1967: The Impasse in Race Relations. Audio. (No text version available.)

November/December 1967: Conscience and the War in Vietnam. Audio.  (No text version available.)

November/December 1967: Youth and Social Action. Audio.  (No text version available.)

November/December 1967: Nonviolence and Social Change. Audio.

December 24, 1967: A Christmas Sermon on Peace (text incomplete.) Audio.

1967: Racism and the World House.            

1967: King interviewed on NBC.  Video.

1967: King interviewed on the Merv Griffin Show.  Video (Part 1 on civil rights, part two on Vietnam and Communism.)

February 4, 1968: The Drum Major Instinct. Audio.

February 23, 1968: Honoring Dr. Du Bois.

March 3, 1968: Unfulfilled Dreams. Audio (incomplete.)

March 18, 1968: All Labor Has Dignity.

March 31, 1968: Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution.  Audio.

April 3, 1968 (the day before King’s assassination): “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop.” Audio.

Books About King

For a deep dive into King’s life intertwined with a full history of the civil rights movement, see Taylor Branch’s magisterial trilogy, America in the King Years.  For powerful single-volume biographies, see David Garrow’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Bearing The Cross, and Thomas F. Jackson’s From Civil Rights to Human Rights.  For books exploring specific moments and dimensions of King’s life, see below. For books by King, see the second section halfway down the page.

Marc Andrus: Brothers in the Beloved Community: The Friendship of Thich Nhat Hanh and Martin Luther King Jr.

Lewis V. Baldwin:

• The Voice of Conscience: The Church in the Mind of Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Never to Leave Us Alone: The Prayer Life of Martin Luther King Jr.
• Toward the Beloved Community: Martin Luther King, Jr., and South Africa.

Lewis V. Baldwin & Rufus Burrow (editors). The Domestication of Martin Luther King Jr.: Clarence B. Jones, Right-Wing Conservatism, and the Manipulation of the King Legacy.

Lewis V. Baldwin & Vicki L. Crawford: Reclaiming the Great World House: The Global Vision of Martin Luther King Jr.

Lewis V. Baldwin & Paul R. Dekar (editors).  In an Inescapable Network of Mutuality: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Globalization of an Ethical Ideal.

Rufus Burrow Jr.: A Child Shall Lead Them: Martin Luther King Jr., Young People, and the Movement.

Clayborne Carson: Martin’s Dream: My Journey and the Legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.

Bidyut Chakrabarty: Confluence of Thought: Mahatma Gandhi And Martin Luther King, Jr.       

Michael Eric Dyson: I May Not Get There with You: The True Martin Luther King, Jr.

Mary Lou Finley, Bernard LaFayette Jr., James R. Ralph Jr., & Pam Smith (editors). The Chicago Freedom Movement: Martin Luther King Jr. and Civil Rights Activism in the North.

Drew D. Hansen: The Dream: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Speech that Inspired a Nation.

Vincent Harding: Martin Luther King: The Inconvenient Hero.

Michael K. Honey: Going Down Jericho Road: The Memphis Strike, Martin Luther King’s Last Campaign.

Michael K. Honey: To the Promised Land: Martin Luther King and the Fight for Economic Justice.

Luther D. Ivory: Toward a Theology of Radical Involvement: The Theological Legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Kenneth D. Johnson: Telos 182 (Spring 2018): Martin Luther King, Jr.: Fifty Years On.   

Clarence B. Jones: Behind the Dream: The Making of the Speech That Transformed a Nation.

Peniel E. Joseph: The Sword and the Shield: The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.

Christine King Farris: Through It All: Reflections on My Life, My Family, and My Faith.

Coretta Scott King: My Life with Martin Luther King, Jr.    

Dexter Scott King: Growing Up King: An Intimate Memoir.           

Martin Luther King, Sr. Daddy King: An Autobiography.   

Sylvie Laurent: King and the Other America: the Poor People’s Campaign and the Quest for Economic Equality.  

Richard Lischer: The Preacher King: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Word that Moved America.

David Margolick: The Promise and the Dream: The Untold Story of Martin Luther King, Jr. And Robert F. Kennedy.

Gerald McKnight: The Last Crusade: Martin Luther King Jr., The FBI, And The Poor People’s Campaign.

Keith D. Miller: Voice of Deliverance: The Language of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Its Sources.

Keith D. Miller: Martin Luther King’s Biblical Epic: His Final, Great Speech.

Patrick Parr: The Seminarian: Martin Luther King Jr. Comes of Age.         

Justin Rose: The Drum Major Instinct: Martin Luther King Jr.’s Theory of Political Service.

Joseph Rosenbloom: Redemption: Martin Luther King Jr.’s Last 31 Hours.

Tommie Shelby & Brandon M. Terry (editors): To Shape a New World: Essays on the Political Philosophy of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Tavis Smiley: Death of a King: The Real Story of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Final Year.

Jason Sokol: The Heavens Might Crack: The Death and Legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.

Andrew Young: An Easy Burden: The Civil Rights Movement and the Transformation of America.

Books By King: The King Legacy Series

A partnership between the Martin Luther King estate and Beacon Press, the King Legacy Series has published Martin Luther King’s three full-length books, as well as collections of speeches, sermons, and writings organized by theme. 

Full-Length Books by King

Introduction by Clayborne Carson: Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story.  

Afterword by Jesse Jackson: Why We Can’t Wait.

Foreword by Coretta Scott King, Introduction by Vincent Harding: Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?

Edited Collections  

Edited and with an introduction by Cornel West: The Radical King.

Introduction by Walter Dean Myers: A Time to Break Silence: The Essential Works of Martin Luther King, Jr., for Students.

Edited and with an introduction by Lewis V. Baldwin: In a Single Garment of Destiny: A Global Vision of Justice.     

Edited and with an introduction by Lewis V. Baldwin: “Thou, Dear God”: Prayers That Open Hearts and Spirits.

Foreword by Coretta Scott King, edited by Raphael G. Warnock: A Gift of Love: Sermons from Strength to Love and Other Preachings.

Edited by Michael K. Honey: “All Labor Has Dignity”.

Foreword by Coretta Scott King: The Trumpet of Conscience.      

Books by King: Stanford’s MLK Papers and Publications

Stanford’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Research & Education Institute has edited seven volumes of King’s collected papers, as well as four other volumes, under the directorship of Clayborne Carson.  

The Martin Luther King, Jr., Encyclopedia.            

The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.

A Call to Conscience: The Landmark Speeches of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

A Knock at Midnight: Inspiration from the Great Sermons of Reverend Martin.

The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr. Volume I: Called to Serve, January 1929-June 1951.

The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr. Volume II: Rediscovering Precious Values, July 1951-November 1955.

The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Volume III: Birth of a New Age, December 1955-December 1956.

The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Volume IV: Symbol of the Movement, January 1957-December 1958.

The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Volume V: Threshold of a New Decade, January 1959–December 1960.

The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Volume VI: Advocate of the Social Gospel, September 1948–March 1963.

The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Volume VII: To Save the Soul of America, January 1961–August 1962.

See also the resource pages on books by and about MLK, and on King’s speeches, sermons, and short writings.

Lauren K. Alleyne: Martin Luther King Jr. Mourns Trayvon Martin: A poem.

Brandon Ambrosino: How Martin Luther King Jr.’s faith drove his activism.

Marc Andrus: “I Have Always Felt His Support”: A look into the friendship of Thich Nhat Hanh and Martin Luther King Jr., two brothers working to build a Beloved Community.

Raymond Arsenault: The Tragedy of 1968: What Might Have Been if King and Kennedy Had Lived.

Jabari Asim, on Drew D. Hansen’s The Dream.  

James Baldwin: Malcolm and Martin: By the time each met his death, there was practically no difference between them.

Simon Balto:

• What Was Missing From Memphis on the 50th Anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s Assassination.
• Commemorations in Memphis Show That How We Remember Martin Luther King Jr. Is Changing.
• Concerning David Garrow’s allegations against Dr. King: No reason to trust latest King tape ‘reveal’ nor historian’s interpretation on a matter best settled by black women.

William Barber: A New Poor People’s Campaign.

Stephen Battaglio: He risked his career to interview Martin Luther King. It’s now streaming for the first time.

Jane Berger: Martin Luther King Jr. and Workers’ Rights in Baltimore.

Matt Berman: The Forgotten Martin Luther King: A Radical Anti-War Leftist. The great leader is not the safe-for-all-political stripes hero he is sometimes portrayed as — and it’s hard to imagine even President Obama fully embracing him.

David Bernstein: The Longest March: In August 1966, the Chicago Freedom Movement, Martin Luther King’s campaign to break the grip of segregation, reached its violent culmination. Fifty years on, the struggle continues.

DeNeen L. Brown: Martin Luther King Jr. met Malcolm X just once. The photo still haunts us with what was lost.

DeNeen L. Brown: Martin Luther King Jr. was stabbed by a deranged woman. At 29, he almost died. He described the attack a decade later in his last sermon, which he delivered the night before his assassination.

DeNeen L. Brown: The story of how Michael King Jr. became Martin Luther King Jr.

Paul Von Blum: review of King and the Other America: The Poor People’s Campaign and the Quest for Economic Equality.

Lynn Burnett:

• An Incomparable Loss: The Mourning of Martin Luther King’s Friends and Family.
• Why White Supremacists Support MLK’s Holiday.  
• The Montgomery Bus Boycott.
• The 1968 Memphis Strike, Part One: The Garbage Workers.
• Martin Luther King: the Assassination and the FBI.
• Black Americans Make Contact With Gandhi.

Jane Caffrey: Letters MLK Sent as a Teenager Show How Time in CT Influenced the Civil Rights Leader: Martin Luther King Jr. spent two summers working on a farm in Simsbury and wrote five letters home to his parents in Georgia.

Jonathan Capehart: The day Martin Luther King Jr. died.  

David Chappell: The radicalism of Martin Luther King Jr.’s nonviolent resistance: His most brilliant innovation was a tactic that managed to be forceful — and nonviolent.

Clayborne Carson (interview).  Understanding the Legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr.     

Gregory Clay: Bernard Lafayette Jr. was with King in Memphis just hours before he was killed: The two men met at the Lorraine Motel to discuss the start of the Poor People’s Campaign.

Ta-Nehisi Coates: Martin Luther King Makes the Case for Reparations: A rare clip of the famed civil-rights leader toward the end of his life.

Jelani Cobb: Martin Luther King, Jr.,’s History Lessons: King understood the nation’s challenges as part of a continuous narrative. Today, a narrow view of America’s past could imperil its future.

Peter Cole: Martin Luther King Jr., Labor Activist.

Arica L. Coleman: What Martin Luther King Overlooked About Gandhi.    

Joshua Clark Davis: Twitter thread on GOP opposition to MLK.

Drew Dellinger: The Last March of Martin Luther King Jr.: In the months leading up to his assassination, King’s greatest focus was on poverty and economic injustice.

Drew Dellinger: The Ecological King: A Vision For Our Times.

Matthew Desmond: Where Have All the Rioters Gone? Good jobs in black communities have disappeared, evictions are the norm, and extreme poverty is rising. Cities should be exploding—but they aren’t.

Martin Dobrow: How the FBI Tried to Block Martin Luther King’s Commencement Speech: The untold story of a government plot, a maverick college president, and the most important figure of the civil rights era.

Geoff Edgers: Why no major Martin Luther King Jr. artifacts will be at the new African American museum.

Peter Eisenstadt: Did a Mediocre Letter of Recommendation for Martin Luther King, Jr. Change the Course of History?  [On MLK and Howard Thurman.]

Peter Eisenstadt: Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Pilgrimage to Israel.   

Michael Eric Dyson: We Forgot What Dr. King Believed In.           

Eve L. Ewing: King Wanted More Than Just Desegregation: The civil-rights activist’s vision for education was far grander than integration alone. How disappointed he would be.

Ashley Farmer: “Dr. Martin Luther King’s Mother is Slain” and Lessons from Gendered History.

Abdallah Fayyad: The Unfulfilled Promise of Fair Housing: Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream of an integrated America was about creating a more equal society, but to many white homeowners, it was a threat.

Lena Felton: Rewriting My Grandfather’s MLK Story: In excavating the story of King’s visit to Harlem Hospital, I uncovered my grandfather’s own fight for civil rights—and realized I’d misunderstood his legacy as a black doctor all along.

Mary Lou Finley: The Chicago Freedom Movement and the fight for fair lending.

Daniel Fleming: The strategy for selling Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream: The civil rights icon’s words are available publicly — for a price.

Jeffrey Frank: When Martin Luther King Jr. and Richard Nixon Were Friends.      

Garance Franke-Ruta: Martin Luther King Jr.’s Amazing 1964 Interview With Robert Penn Warren.

LaToya Ruby Frazier: The Geography of Oppression: Shooting from a helicopter, the artist LaToya Ruby Frazier documented how King’s assassination affected the physical structures of cities.

Nishani Frazier: David Garrow, Martin Luther King Jr., and the Politics of History.

Beverly Gage: What an Uncensored Letter to M.L.K. Reveals. (History of the “suicide letter” the FBI sent to King.)

David Garrow:

• When Martin Luther King Came Out Against Vietnam.
• The FBI and Martin Luther King: Martin Luther King was never himself a Communist—far from it. But the FBI’s wiretapping of King was precipitated by his association with Stanley Levison, a man with reported ties to the Communist Party. Newly available documents reveal what the FBI actually knew—the vast extent of Levison’s Party activities.

Jacqui Germain: These Black Women Shaped MLK’s Ideas About Poverty. The National Welfare Rights Organization Wanted Economic Justice for Black Americans: In the 1950s and 1960s, Black single mothers founded the welfare rights movement and ignited a push for true economic justice.

Rosie Gillies: MLK’s Conservative Canonization: An MLK Day reading list on how his radicalism was erased.

Jeffrey Goldberg: The Chasm Between Racial Optimism and Reality: Five decades after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., equality, for many, remains a distant dream.

Justin Gomer & Christopher Petrella: Reagan Used MLK Day to Undermine Racial Justice.

Robert Greene II:

• Martin Luther King, Jr. and 1619.  
• The International MLK.

Paul Harvey: This Theologian Helped MLK See the Value of Nonviolence: Minister, theologian and mystic Howard Thurman had a profound influence on Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Maurice J. Hobson: The King of Atlanta: Martin Luther King Jr. and Public Memory.                   

Michael Honey:

• “The Uplift of All” Through Nonviolent Direct Action.
• Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Memphis Strike(Interview).
• Martin Luther King Jr.: 50 Years Later: Activists today are taking up Dr. King’s mantle and reviving the Poor People’s Campaign.
• The Second Emancipation: Until his assassination in 1968, Martin Luther King Jr led an unheralded struggle for economic justice.
• ‘All Labor Has Dignity’: Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Fight for Economic Justice.

Tera W. Hunter: Who Needs To Be Taught the Dignity of Work?

Vincent Intondi: Martin Luther King on Non-Violence and Disarmament.

Elahe Izadi: Why ‘Star Trek’ was so important to Martin Luther King Jr.

Ashawnta Jackson: Why MLK Believed Jazz Was the Perfect Soundtrack for Civil Rights: Jazz, King declared, was the ability to take the ‘hardest realities of life and put them into music, only to come out with some new hope or sense of triumph.’

Jesse Jackson: Jesse Jackson on Martin Luther King’s assassination: ‘It redefined America’.

C.L.R. James:  Letter on meeting Martin Luther King: After a lunch with the civil rights leader, CLR James wrote about how the Montgomery Bus Boycott compared to a recent mass action in Ghana.

Clarence B. Jones:

• A Guiding Hand Behind ‘I Have A Dream’.
• The true story behind MLK’s iconic ‘I Have a Dream’ speech.         
• How MLK’s famous letter was smuggled out of jail.

Peniel E. Joseph: Why Martin Luther King Jr.’s sharpest question remains unanswered.

Peniel Joseph (audio interview.) Black Power Scholar Illustrates How MLK And Malcolm X Influenced Each Other.

Ibram X. Kendi: The 1967 MLK and the Politics of Transcendence.

Randall Kennedy: Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy: a fraught relationship.

Bernice A. King: Martin Luther King Jr.’s Daughter Embraces His Hope for the Future: During another polarizing period in America’s history, Bernice A. King lays out three actions that she thinks her father would offer today.

Priyanka Kumar: What King Learned from Gandhi.

Patrick Lacroix: Martin Luther King’s activism points to a way forward for the left — but not how we might imagine: Liberals need to find religion again.

Sylvie Laurent: MLK’s Radical Alternative to Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty.

Eli Lee: Martin Luther King Jr. Changed a Nation in Only 13 Years: A Timeline

Kyle Longley: What LBJ Did When He Heard that MLK Had Been Killed.   

Emily Lordi: Nikki Giovanni: ‘Martin Had Faith in the People’: The day after King’s death, the writer-activist wrote a poem about what his loss meant to a movement. Fifty years later, she discusses how his model of leadership lives on.

Ralph Luker: On Martin Luther King’s Plagiarism.           

Alexis C. Madrigal: When the Revolution Was Televised: Martin Luther King Jr. was a master television producer, but the networks had a narrow view of what the black struggle for equality could look like.

Phillip Martin: Coretta Scott King quietly blazed trails of her own before meeting her future husband in Boston.

Dara T. Mathis: King’s Message of Nonviolence Has Been Distorted: In order to evaluate what Martin Luther King Jr.’s stance of nonviolence has contributed to our current view of protest, it bears noting that the concept of his nonviolence has been flattened.

Benjamin Mays: ‘Martin Luther King Jr.’s Unfinished Work on Earth Must Truly Be Our Own’: Five days after King was assassinated, his “spiritual mentor” Benjamin Mays delivered a eulogy for his former student.

Charles W. McKinney: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Grassroots Struggle in Memphis.

Marya McQuirter: Memorializing Martin Luther King Jr. in Washington, DC.       

Roberto Mighty (audio interview.) Boston Brought Them Together: Documentary Explores The Early Days Of MLK And Coretta Scott.

Donna Murch: Five myths about Martin Luther King.

Vann R. Newkirk II:

• How Martin Luther King Jr. Recruited John Lewis: The Georgia congressman on what it was like to know the iconic activist.
• King’s Death Gave Birth to Hip-Hop: The assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. led directly to hip-hop, an era of black American culture, politics, and art that is often contrasted with his legacy.
• The Whitewashing of King’s Assassination: The death of Martin Luther King Jr. wasn’t a galvanizing event, but the premature end of a movement that had only just begun.
• The Consequences of Martin Luther King Jr.’s Canonization: The civil-rights leader is now celebrated as a modern founding father, a celebration that gives those who oppose his policy agenda a claim to his legacy.

New York Times: Obituary of Martin Luther King.

Elizabeth M. Nix: The myth about the aftermath of Martin Luther King’s assassination: The uprisings were the consequence of urban decline, not the cause of it.

David B. Oppenheimer: Dr. King’s Dream of Affirmative Action.       

Patrick Parr:

• ‘We Were Madly, Madly in Love’: The Untold Story of MLK’s White Girlfriend.
• Dr. King as a Young Athlete.
• Martin Luther King Jr.’s L.A. Bomb Scare.
• The Young Man Who Became a Civil-Rights Icon: Before he led the Montgomery bus boycott or marched on Washington, Martin Luther King Jr. was a chain-smoking, pool-playing student at Crozer Theological College just discovering his passion for social justice.
• When a Nazi punched Dr. King: A story about radicalism, violence and helping unify America.
• Japan still has much to learn from Martin Luther King’s nonviolent struggle.
• How Coretta Scott King brought her husband’s message to Japan.
• MLK, Hiroshima, and the Fear of Nuclear Destruction.  
• MLK’s Japanese Friend, Makoto Sakurabayashi.  

Tyler Parry: Critical Race Theory and the Misappropriating of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Ben Railton: Considering History: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Legacies of Critical Patriotism.

Barbara Ransby: A Black Feminist’s Response to Attacks on Martin Luther King Jr.’s Legacy.

Victor Ray: The White moderates MLK warned us about.

Jay Reeves: Historic Coretta Scott home where she wed MLK is now forgotten.

Russell Rickford: It’s time to reclaim the true Martin Luther King: King was not celebrating American exceptionalism — he was challenging it.

Justin Rose: Martin Luther King Jr. on Making America Great Again.

Joseph Rosenbloom:

• How Memphis police leaders failed Martin Luther King Jr.: King’s fear for his safety in Memphis was well founded. Threats had poured in, and he was left vulnerable.
• Grace Under Pressure: Martin Luther King, 1968.    

Bayard Rustin:

• Martin Luther King’s Views on Gay People.           
• The King to Come: The holiday and the future racial agenda.

Patrick J. Sauer: This Black Woman Inspired King’s ‘I Have A Dream’ Speech: For women’s history month, we honor Prathia Hall, the SNCC preacher who inspired Martin Luther King, Jr’s exalted remarks at the March on Washington.

Betsy Schlabach: “Our Emancipation Day”: Martin Luther King Jr. in Chicago.

Pete Seeger (interview): “That Was the First Time I Met Reverend King…”

Tommie Shelby (interviewed).  The Philosopher King.

Anthony Siracusa: MLK’s Global Vision of Justice.

Tavis Smiley (interview): MLK’s Final Year.

Clint Smith: Martin Luther King Jr. Was Bailed Out by a Millionaire: Incarcerated people today aren’t so lucky.

Mychal Denzel Smith: Is King All That We Are Allowed to Become?  Americans both black and white often use the civil-rights leader’s memory more to chide black youth than to inspire them.

Jason Sokol:

• James Baldwin: ‘I Did Not Want to Weep for Martin, Tears Seemed Futile.’  In Memory of Martin Luther King Jr, a Look Back on His Funeral.
• Martin Luther King’s death tore America apart. We still can’t reckon with African American demands for justice.
• America Passed Gun Control in 1968. Can It Happen Again?

Mark Speltz: Martin Luther King Jr. and Milwaukee: 200 Nights and a Tragedy.

David Stein: The King who carried on the fight for economic justice: After her husband’s murder, Coretta Scott King carried forward the fight for economic equality.

David Stein: Coretta Scott King, The Archive, and Black Feminist Methods.  

Timothy Stewart-Winter: Martin Luther King’s Thoughts on a Future Black President.  

Thomas J. Sugrue: Restoring King: There is no figure in recent American history whose memory is more distorted than Martin Luther King Jr.

Alan Taylor: The Riots That Followed the Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

Alan Taylor: Remembering Martin Luther King Jr. in Photos.         

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor: Martin Luther King’s Radical Anticapitalism.

Brandon M. Terry: MLK Now.  With responses from:

• Barbara Ransby: King in Context: We Must Not Sanitize King.
• Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor: The Pivot to Class: King Articulated an Anti-Capitalist Analysis of the U.S.
• Andrew Douglas: Diagnosing Racial Capitalism: King Called for a Restructuring of the Whole of American Society.
• Jeanne Theoharis: A National Problem: King Challenged Injustice in the North, As Well.
• Elizabeth Hinton: Violence and Nonviolent Protests Were Intertwined Forces.
• Brandon M. Terry: (In response to the responses.)  A Revolution in Values: King Showed Respect Through Disagreement.

Brandon M. Terry:

• The Cost of Canonizing MLK.
• Was Martin Luther King a Socialist?
• The Casualties of War: Taking Up King’s Fight against Militarism.

Brandon M. Terry & Tommie Shelby (interview): The Political Philosophy of Martin Luther King Jr.

Matthew Teutsch: MLK And Lillian Smith.

Kanishk Tharoor: The Debt MLK Owed to India’s Anti-Colonial Fight: The campaign against Jim Crow was always embedded in a larger global battle against white supremacy.

Jeanne Theoharis:

• What King Said About Northern Liberalism:  “The white moderate” was more of an obstacle than “the Ku Klux Klanner.”
• MLK Would Never Shut Down a Freeway, and 6 Other Myths About the Civil Rights Movement and Black Lives Matter.
• 10 ways to be like Martin Luther King after Ferguson.
• We remember how Martin Luther King Jr. revolutionized the South. But we can’t forget his struggles in the North. Fifty years after King’s death, we still like an easy story of Northern good guys and Southern bad guys. But that’s not the reality he encountered.
• Comey Says FBI’s Surveillance of MLK Was “Shameful” — but Comey’s FBI Targeted Black Activists and Muslim Communities Anyway.
• Coretta Scott King and the Civil-Rights Movement’s Hidden Women.
• What Coretta Scott King Can Teach Democrats About A Jobs Guarantee.
• Don’t Forget That Martin Luther King Jr. Was Once Denounced as an Extremist.
• Martin Luther King and the ‘polite’ racism of white liberals.
• Martin Luther King Jr.’s Challenge to his Liberal Allies.
• Martin Luther King Knew That Fighting Racism Meant Fighting Police Brutality: Critics of Black Lives Matter have held up King as a foil to the movement’s criticisms of law enforcement, but those are views that King himself shared.
• Five ways to actually BE like Martin Luther King on what would have been his 94th birthday.

J. Phillip Thompson: Unfinished Revolution: Dr. King’s goal was full employment and universal health care.

J. Samuel Walker: We haven’t addressed the causes of the 1968 D.C. riots — which means they could happen again: The situation in our cities is still combustible. 

Linn Washington: It’s been 70 years since a lecture in Philadelphia inspired Dr. King’s civil rights journey.

Simon Waxman: Americans Love King Because They Don’t Understand Him.      

Jordan Weissmann: Martin Luther King’s Economic Dream: A Guaranteed Income for All Americans.  The civil rights leader laid out his vision for fighting poverty in his final book. 

Cornel West: The radical King we don’t know: Does America have the capacity to heed the radical Martin Luther King Jr., or must America sanitize King in order to evade and avoid his challenge?

Cornel West: Brother Martin Was a Blues Man.     

Michael Wilson: Before ‘I Have a Dream,’ Martin Luther King Almost Died. This Man Saved Him. The untold story of the patrolman who took charge when the civil rights leader was stabbed in Harlem.

Victoria W. Wolcott: The public has underestimated the radicalism of Martin Luther King Jr.’s early work: From the beginning of the 1950s, King embraced a utopian socialist vision of full equality.

Dagmawi Woubshet: Revisiting One of King’s Final and Most Haunting Sermons: Delivered two months before he died, “The Drum Major Instinct” saw the preacher give his own eulogy.

Andrew Young: ‘You’re going to heaven and leaving us in hell’: Every moment of April 4, 1968, stays fresh in the mind of the former top lieutenant for King.

Julian Zelizer: Dissent from the left can be patriotic. Martin Luther King Jr. proved it. The right charges that criticisms of the United States from the left are unpatriotic — but history says they’re wrong.