During this multimedia course, Clayborne Carson, the editor of The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr. and The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the director of the World House Project, will examine the lives of Martin and Coretta Scott King. We will follow Dr. King’s unexpected emergence as an internationally known nonviolence and human rights advocate. We will learn about the successes and challenges he experienced as the preeminent leader of the civil rights movement, and we will discuss the central role that Coretta Scott King played as a partner and activist during Martin’s life and afterward.

This course will highlight the crucial events that influenced Coretta’s and Martin’s lives, such as the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott, the 1960 sit-ins, the 1963 Birmingham Campaign and the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, as well as the 1965 Selma to Montgomery March. Further, we will look at the Kings’ involvement in the 1966 Chicago Freedom Movement Campaign and their effort to mobilize the 1968 Poor People's Campaign, which brought Martin to Memphis in the Spring of 1968. Finally, we will examine Coretta’s transformation from Martin’s partner into a leader of the movement to shape his legacy. In each session, Mira Foster, the director of education for the World House Project, will provide rich and rarely seen historical material, on-location filming, and other audiovisual documents, to help us understand what inspired and motivated these two remarkable people.