by Martin Luther King, Jr.

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-68) grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, where his father was pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church. As King was fond of pointing out, religion ran strongly in the family; his grandfather and greatgrandfather had also been Baptist preachers. After studies at Crozer Theological Seminary and Boston University (where he earned a Ph.D.), Dr. King himself became a pastor at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1954. In the late 1950s and early 1960s King emerged as the moral voice of the growing civil rights movement to overturn racial segregation in the South. The year 1963 became pivotal for the movement. In widely televised demonstrations in Birmingham, Alabama, that spring, King was arrested with others; after his release, he would lead peaceful protesters in facing violent crackdowns by...