Dr. Martin Luther King: A Historical Perspective

Narrated by Arthur Berghardt, this biographical overview of Dr. Martin Luther King's extraordinary life and legacy briefly touches on King's early years--his upbringing as a minister's son, his college years and study of Gandhi's philosophy of non-violent protest, and his marriage to Coretta Scott King in 1953--before launching into an examination of the landmark series of events that would link King to the forward movement of the Civil Rights struggle. Combining film clips with overlaid narration, the film traces King's involvement in such seminal campaigns as the 1956 bus boycott in Montgomery; the 1963 Birmingham march, and the march on Washington later that year where King would deliver his brilliant "I Have a Dream" speech. Awarded the Nobel Peace prize in 1964 and named Time's "Man of the Year," King would eventually clash with the more militant factions of the Black Power movement--both earlier with Malcolm X's Nation of Islam followers and later with activists such as Stokely Carmichael and H. Rap Brown. He would further split his adherents when he became one of the first public figures to speak out against the Vietnam War in 1967. On April 3rd, 1968, King addressed a group of sanitation workers on strike in the eerily prescient "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech. The following day he was assassinated. The generous samples of King's speeches once again remind us both of the powerful combination of wisdom and eloquence in his words, and the unassailable logic of his arguments. Dr. Martin Luther King: A Historical Perspective reinforces the lesson that words are more powerful than fists or guns. Libraries without a good biography of King (such as Martin the Emancipator or King: From Montgomery to Memphis) should consider this one, which is also available in a one-hour abridgment for $29.95 ($59.95 w/PPR). Recommended. (R. Pitman)