A full-page newspaper advertisement published in the New York Times on March 29, 1960. It was paid for by the Committee to Defend Martin Luther King and the Struggle for Freedom in the South.

“Heed Their Rising Voices”: Annotated

In 1960, an ad placed in the New York Times to defend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and other civil rights activists touched off a landmark libel suit.
Dr Martin Luther King Jr (1929 - 1968) waves to the crowd of more than 200,000 people gathered on the Mall after delivering his 'I Have a Dream' speech at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, Washington DC, 28th August 1963.

“I Have A Dream”: Annotated

Martin Luther King, Jr.'s iconic speech, annotated with relevant scholarship on the literary, political, and religious roots of his words.
President Lyndon Baines Johnson with some members of the Kerner Commission in the Cabinet Room of the White House, Washington, D.C., 1967

The Kerner Commission Report on White Racism, 50 Years On

In 1968, the Kerner Commission “explicitly identified white racism as the principal cause of the civil disorder evidenced across hundreds of U.S. cities."
Martin Luther King, Jr.

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.”
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. speaking at Duke University on November 13, 1964

Colleges’ Reluctant Embrace of MLK Day

The push for a national Martin Luther King holiday prompted a fierce political tug-of-war, on campus and off.
Martin Luther King in 1957

The African Roots of MLK’s Vision

“Ghana tells us that the forces of the universe are on the side of justice… An old order of colonialism, of segregation, discrimination is passing away now.”
I Am a Man

How the Memphis Sanitation Strike Changed History

How the Memphis Sanitation Strike, with its iconic “I AM A MAN” signs, helped deepen Martin Luther King, Jr.'s radicalism in the last months of his life.
Martin Luther King Jr and LBJ

Martin Luther King Jr. in His Own Words

The writings of Martin Luther King, not so well known as his speeches and acts of civil disobedience, are a rich source for those researching his life.
Wrinkle in Time Cover

What Time is it When You Pass Through A Wrinkle in Time?

Do we need two distinct conceptions of time, chronos (clock time) vs. kairos (real time), to understand Madeleine L’Engle’s classic novel?
Photograph of Septima Clark, ca. 1960, Avery Photo Collection, 10-9, Courtesy of the Avery Research Center.

How Septima Poinsette Clark Spoke Up for Civil Rights

The daughter of a slave, Septima Clark graduated from college, became a teacher, and became a fierce advocate for social and cultural change.