From The New Yorker’s archive: a selection of pieces about the significance of Dr. King’s extraordinary work and devotion to principle. View in browser | Update your preferences
Honoring Martin Luther King, Jr.
The commemoration of the birth of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., comes just as the Senate, and the entire country, is embroiled in a battle over voting rights. Once more, ballot access is in peril, with members of racial minorities disproportionately affected. The future of the country as a multiracial democracy depends on this battle, one initiated long before Dr. King, but one that seemed to reach some measure of resolution under his leadership in the mid-sixties. Today we’re bringing you a selection of pieces about the significance of Dr. King’s extraordinary work and devotion to principle. In “The Selma March,” Renata Adler chronicles the march from Selma to Montgomery, in 1965, that galvanized President Lyndon Johnson, Congress, and the nation. In “When I Met Dr. King,” Charlayne Hunter-Gault writes about a chance meeting with King during the summer of 1961, several months after she became one of the very first Black students to enroll at the University of Georgia. In “The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi,” Calvin Trillin, who covered the movement for the magazine for many years, writes about an airline flight on which he witnessed King's debate with an opponent of civil rights. In “The Prophecies of George Floyd,” Michael Eric Dyson describes the aftermath of Floyd’s death and how that event resonated with King's prophecy of his own violent end. Finally, in “Death of a King,” Jelani Cobb examines the legacy of the Kerner Report, which examined the causes of American racial riots during the sixties, and King’s murder.
—David Remnick
From The New Yorker’s Archive
Letter from Selma
The Selma March
On the trail to Montgomery.
By Renata Adler | April 10, 1965
News Desk
When I Met Martin Luther King, Jr.
I will always remember that moment and what it taught me about Dr. King and one of his core values.
By Charlayne Hunter-Gault | April 4, 2018
Letter from Jackson
The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi
An encounter with Martin Luther King, Jr., during a summer of pressure.
By Calvin Trillin | April 29, 1964
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Cultural Comment
The Prophecies of George Floyd
The fact that Floyd could tell that his death was coming underscored the inevitability of violence in encounters between police officers and Black suspects.
By Michael Eric Dyson | January 17, 2021
Comment
Death of a King
This anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.,’s assassination falls amid the largest anti-gun-violence mobilization that we have seen since he departed.
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