Martin Luther King Jr.

“What MLK Understood About ‘Anti-Zionism,'” Wall Street Journal, 30-31 December 2023, p. A12.

“Dr. King in Full,  The Spectator, May 2023, pp. 44-45. (Jonathan Eig, King: A Life).

“The Troubling Legacy of Martin Luther King,” Standpoint, June 2019, pp. 30-37.

“Looking Back at Martin Luther King, Jr.,” Telos 182 (Spring 2018): 195-213. (With Kenneth D. Johnson)

“Foreword” to Patrick Parr, The Seminarian: Martin Luther King Jr. Comes of Age (Chicago Review Press, 2018), pp. ix-x.

“When King Met Graham,” The Economist, 17 March 2018, p. 18.

“When Martin Luther King Came Out Against Vietnam,” New York Times, 4 April 2017.

“The Hunter Becomes the Hunted,” Washington Post Book World, 16 May 2010, p. B7. (Hampton Sides, Hellhound on His Trail).

“Measuring His Words,” Los Angeles Times, 6 April 2008, p. R3. (Jonathan Rieder, The Word of the Lord is Upon Me).

“Selling King’s—And Our—Legacy,” Los Angeles Times, 30 June 2006, p. B13.

“The Other Woman in King’s Life,” Los Angeles Times, 5 February 2006, pp. M1-M2.

“King Forged a Legacy in Pushing Her Husband’s,” Christian Science Monitor, 1 February 2006, p. 2.

“Journey’s End,” Los Angeles Times Book Review, 15 January 2006, pp. R4-R5. (Taylor Branch, At Canaan’s Edge).

“An Awkward Alliance,” Washington Post Book World, 16 January 2005, p. 4. (Nick Kotz, Judgment Days: Lyndon Baines Johnson, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Laws That Changed America).

“King: The March, the Man, the Dream,” American History, August 2003, pp. 26-35.

“The Dream and Beyond: Embrace All of King’s Wisdom, Including His Anti-Militarism,” Los Angeles Times, 20 January 2003, p. B13.

“How the Dream Unfolded,” Los Angeles Times Book Review, 20 January 2002, p. 9. (Marshall Frady, Martin Luther King, Jr.).

“The Man Who Was King,” New York Review of Books, 13 April 2000, pp. 40-43. (Michael Eric Dyson, I May Not Get There With You).

“Marching Through ’64,” Wilson Quarterly 22 (Spring 1998): 98-101. (Taylor Branch, Pillar of Fire).

“[James Earl Ray,] Triumphant in Death,” Salon Magazine, 28 April 1998.

“New ‘Leads’ in King Case Invariably Go Nowhere,” Atlanta Journal Constitution, 29 March 1998, pp. C1-C2.

“Save These Books–George McMillan, The Making of an Assassin,” Salon Magazine, 4 December 1997.

“A Shrinking [King] Legacy,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 4 April 1997, p. A23.

“The Assassin’s Name is James Earl Ray,” New York Times, 2 April 1997, p. A21.

“The Boycott That Made A Rights Hero,” Philadelphia Inquirer, 23 February 1997, pp. Q1, Q8. (Clayborne Carson et al., The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Vol. 3: Birth of A New Age).

“The Marketing of Martin [Luther King, Jr.],” Chicago Tribune, 20 January 1997, p. A15, and Washington Post, 28 January 1997, p. A13.

“To Be Young, Gifted and Black,” Washington Post Book World, 3 November 1996, p. 4. (Andrew Young, An Easy Burden).

“The Legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr.,” in Jack Salzman et al., eds., Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History (New York: Macmillan, 1996), pp. 1545-47.

“A Dream Deferred?,” Boston Globe, 4 April 1993, pp. 69, 71; Newsday, 4 April 1993, pp. 10-11.

“A Tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr.,” in Jeannine Swift, ed., Dream and Reality: The Modern Black Struggle for Freedom and Equality (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1991), pp. 13-17.

“King’s Plagiarism: Imitation, Insecurity, and Transformation,” Journal of American History 78 (June 1991): 86-92.

“Where Martin Luther King, Jr. Was Going: Where Do We Go From Here and the Traumas of the Post-Selma Movement,” Georgia Historical Quarterly 75 (Winter 1991): 719-736. (Reprinted in Faith and Freedom 2 [December 1993]: 26-32).

“Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Spirit of Leadership,” in Peter J. Albert & Ronald Hoffman, eds., We Shall Overcome: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Black Freedom Struggle (New York: Pantheon Books, 1990), pp. 11-34, 257-60.

“How King Borrowed: Reading the Truth Between Sermons and Footnotes,” Washington Post, 18 November 1990, pp. Cl, C5.

James Colaiaco, Martin Luther King, Jr.: Apostle of Militant Nonviolence, in The Historian 53 (February 1990): 348-49.

“Martin Luther King, Jr.,” in William Ferris & Charles R. Wilson, eds., Encyclopedia of Southern Culture (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989), pp. 216-17.

“Martin Luther King and the Fall of Birmingham,” in Paul D. Escott & David R. Goldfield, eds., Major Problems in the History of the American South, vol. 2 (Lexington, Mass.: D.C. Heath, 1989), pp. 566-590. (Adapted from Bearing the Cross).

“Preface” for Ira G. Zepp, Jr., The Social Vision of Martin Luther King, Jr. (New York: Carlson Publishing, 1989), pp. xi-xii. (Vol.18 of King and the Movement).

“Civil Rights Potpourri,” Dissent 36 (Winter 1989): 124-125. (Taylor Branch, Parting the Waters).

“The Misguided Sanitizing of King’s Image,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 22 October 1989, pp. H1-H2; The Oregonian, 22 October 1989, pp. K1, K7.

“Climbing to the Mountaintop With Martin Luther King,” Boston Globe, 15 October 1989, pp. B93-95. (Ralph Abernathy, And the Walls Came Tumbling Down).

“Martin Luther King, Jr.: The Making of an Orator,” Washington Post Book World, 15 January 1989, pp. 1, 4.

“’I March Because I Must’–King vs. Daley in Chicago,” Chicago History 17 (Spring-Summer 1988): 24-45. (Adapted from Bearing the Cross).

“King’s Economic Justice Goals Remain Unfulfilled,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 17 January 1988, pp. C1, C8; The Oregonian, 17 January 1988, pp. K1, K7.

“Martin Luther King, Jr.’s ‘I Have A Dream’ Speech,” in David Nasaw, ed., The Course of United States History, vol. 2 (Chicago: Dorsey Press, 1987), pp. 351-361.

James M. Washington, ed., A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings of Martin Luther King, Jr., in the Journal of Church and State 29 (Autumn 1987): 537-38.

“Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Spirit of Leadership,” Journal of American History 74 (September 1987): 438-447. (Reprinted in Patrick Allitt, ed., Major Problems in American Religious History [Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000], pp. 379-84, and in Francis G. Couvares, et al., eds., Interpretations of American History, 7th ed., Vol. 2 [New York: Free Press, 2000], pp. 326-35.)

“Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Cross of Leadership,” Peace and Change 12 (Spring 1987): 1-12. (Reprinted in Michael Perman, ed., Perspectives on the American Past, vol. 2 [Chicago: Scott, Foresman & Co., 1989], pp. 280-289, and in King and the Movement, Vol. 2, pp. 453-464).

“Evaluating King’s Life and Legacy,” Christian Century 104 (29 April 1987): 411.

“Happy Birthday Dr. King,” Democratic Left, January-February 1987, p. 2.

“Martin Luther King, Jr.,” in Leonard W. Levy, ed., Encyclopedia of the American Constitution, vol. 3 (New York: Macmillan, 1986), pp.1103-04. (Reprinted in Kenneth L. Karst, ed., Civil Rights and Equality [New York: Macmillan, 1989], pp. 233-34).

“Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Strategy of Protest,” in Jack Bass and Thomas E. Terrill, eds., The American South Comes of Age (NewYork: Alfred A. Knopf, 1986), pp. 208-212. (Adapted from Protest At Selma).

“The King We Should Remember,” Focus 14 (January 1986): 3-7.

“The Intellectual Development of Martin Luther King, Jr.: Influences and Commentaries,” Union Seminary Quarterly Review 40 (January 1986): 5-20. (Reprinted in King and the Movement, Vol. 2, pp. 437-452, and in John A. Kirk, ed., Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement [London: Palgrave, 2007], pp. 39-53).

“Martin Luther King, Jr.,” in Harold Josephson, ed., Biographical Dictionary of Modern Peace Leaders (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press,1985), pp. 504-07.

“The Helms Attack on King,” Southern Exposure 12 (March-April 1984): 12-15.

“Martin Luther King, Jr.: An Honorable Man,” Focus 12 (January 1984): 3-7.

Martin Luther King, Jr.: From Reformer to Revolutionary. New York & Los Angeles: Democratic Socialists of America, 1983, 1984. (Reprinted in King and the Movement, Vol. 2, pp. 427-436, and in John A. Kirk, ed., Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement [London: Palgrave, 2007], pp. 176-83).

“Helms vs. King: Are the Smears Only Ignorant?,” Charlotte Observer, 16 October 1983, p. D3.

“King’s Long Struggle: A Quest for Justice,” USA Today, 15 August 1983, p. A10.

Stephen Oates, Let the Trumpet Sound: The Life of Martin Luther King, Jr., in the South Atlantic Quarterly 82 (Summer 1983): 328-330.

“Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement: From Issues of Race to Class,” Social Science News Letter 68 (January-April 1983): 15-20.