Against the backdrop of beatings, killings, bombings, threats and imprisoning, emerged Martin Luther King, driven to uplift all Americans, even if it meant martyrdom.

This biography is a stellar introduction to the foremost leader of the civil rights movement. In gripping narrative style, it describes young Martin as son and grandson of formidable preachers, drawn to his calling as a minister too, but as one who would take on the entrenched racism of the South, and North, through a nonviolent movement that changed the course of American history.

King’s story is compelling, right from his early life in an insular community of blacks in Atlanta, to his education at Morehouse College, Crozer Theological Seminary and Boston University, to his courtship of Coretta Scott leading into the early days of the civil rights movement, and his role of leadership in the major demonstrations and sit-ins that took place, mainly in the South. We gain critical insight into the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations, as King negotiated with the presidents for equal rights for blacks.