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

Martin Luther King

University of California Press, 1992 - Biography & Autobiography - 704 pages

The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr. has become the definitive record of the most significant correspondence, sermons, speeches, published writings, and unpublished manuscripts of one of America's best-known advocates for peace and justice. Threshold of a New Decade, Volume V of the planned fourteen-volume series, illustrates the growing sophistication and effectiveness of King and the organizations he led while providing an unparalleled look into the surprising emergence of the sit-in protests that sparked the social struggles of the 1960s.

During this pivotal period of his career, King traveled to India in early 1959 to meet with Prime Minister Nehru and other associates of Mahatma Gandhi. After returning to Montgomery, King confronted the continuing ineffectiveness of his Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) by demanding personnel changes and agreeing to relocate to Atlanta at the beginning of 1960. King's move took place just before African American students in the South reclaimed the energy of the Montgomery bus boycott with their bold sit-in protests, which King predicted would become "an integral part of the history which is reshaping the world, replacing a dying order with modern democracy." He was arrested in October after participating in a sit-in protest in Atlanta. His resulting imprisonment led presidential candidate John F. Kennedy to phone his sympathies to King's wife, Coretta, a move many credit for providing the margin of victory in the close election of 1960.

Contents

• Introduction: 1
• Chronology: 43
• Editorial Principles and Practices: 63
• List of Abbreviations: 69
• Photographs: 77
• THE PAPERS: 97
• Calendar of Documents: 585
• Index: 645

About the author

Martin Luther King, Jr. was born on January 15, 1929 into a middle-class black family in Atlanta, Georgia. He received a degree from Morehouse College. While there his early concerns for social justice for African Americans were deepened by reading Henry David Thoreau's essay "Civil Disobedience." He enrolled in Crozer Theological Seminary and there became acquainted with the Social Gospel movement and the works of its chief spokesman, Walter Rauschenbusch. Mohandas Gandhi's practice of nonviolent resistance (ahimsaahimsa) later became a tactic for transforming love into social change. After seminary, he postponed his ministry vocation by first earning a doctorate at Boston University School of Theology. There he discovered the works of Reinhold Niebuhr and was especially struck by Niebuhr's insistence that the powerless must somehow gain power if they are to achieve what is theirs by right. In the Montgomery bus boycott, it was by economic clout that African Americans broke down the walls separating the races, for without African American riders, the city's transportation system nearly collapsed. The bus boycott took place in 1954, the year King and his bride, Coretta Scott, went to Montgomery, where he had been called to serve as pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. Following the boycott, he founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to coordinate civil rights organizations. Working through African American churches, activists led demonstrations all over the South and drew attention, through television and newspaper reports, to the fact that nonviolent demonstrations by blacks were being suppressed violently by white police and state troopers. The federal government was finally forced to intervene and pass legislation protecting the right of African Americans to vote and desegregating public accommodations. For his nonviolent activism, King received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. While organizing a "poor people's campaign" to persuade Congress to take action against poverty, King accepted an invitation to visit Memphis, Tennessee, where sanitation workers were on strike. There, on April 4, 1968, he was gunned down while standing on the balcony of his hotel. Clayborne Carson lives in Palo Alto, California.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Volume V: Threshold of a New Decade, January 1959–December 1960; Centennial book; Volume 5 of Martin Luther King Papers; Volume 5 of The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr, Clayborne Carson, ISBN 0520079515, 9780520079519; Volume 5 of “The” Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr: Threshold of a New Decade : January 1959-December 1960 / Volume Editors: Tenisha Armstrong, Susan Carson, Adrienne Clay, Kieran Taylor, Martin Luther King Junior Center for Nonviolent Social Change Martin Luther King Junior Papers Project
• Author: Martin Luther King
• Editors: Clayborne Carson, Peter Holloran, Ralph E. Luker, Penny A. Russell
• Edition: illustrated, reprint
• Publisher: University of California Press, 1992
• ISBN: 0520242394, 9780520242395
• Length: 704 pages
• Subjects: Biography & Autobiography / African American & Black; History / General; History / Social History; History / United States / General; History / World; Political Science / Civil Rights; Social Science / Cultural & Ethnic Studies / American / African American & Black Studies; Social Science / Race & Ethnic Relations