Using Stanford University's voluminous collection of archival material, including previously unpublished writings, interviews, recordings, and correspondence,
King scholar Clayborne Carson has constructed a remarkable first-person account of Dr. King's extraordinary life. Beginning with his boyhood, the book portrays King's education as a minister, his ascendancy as a leader of the
Montgomery bus boycott, his pivotal role in the
civil rights demonstrations in Washington, D.C., and his complex relationship with the Kennedy brothers, LBJ,
Malcolm X, and numerous other leading figures of the day.
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Background Information
Martin Luther King Jr came to national prominence through the Montgomery Bus Boycott and remained the most influential Civil Rights leader until his assassination. Malcom X was a black American leader in the mid-twentieth century who joined and then left the Nation of Islam, afterwards to be assassinated by some of its adherents. The civil rights movement, which aimed to deliver the rights assured black Americans in the post-Civil-War amendments, reached its peak of activity in the 1960's.
