Martin Luther King left an indelible mark on 20th-century American history through his leadership of the non-violent civil rights campaigns of the 1950s & 1960s. The election of Barack Obama as Americas first black president in November 2008 has spawned a renewed interest in Kings role as an agent & prophet of political change in the United States. Writing with verve & clarity but also with acute insight Godfrey Hodgson traces Kings life & career from his birth in Atlanta in 1929 through the campaigns that made possible the Civil Rights Act of 1964 & the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to his assassination in Memphis in 1968. Hodgson sheds light on every aspect of an extraordinary life: the Black Baptist milieu in which King grew up his theology & political philosophy his physical & moral courage his insistence on the injustice of inequality his campaigning energy his repeated sexual infidelities. Martin Luther King is a rounded & fascinating portrait of a Christian prophet & the most brilliant orator of his age the central message of whose life & ministry was that Americans would never be fully free until they accepted that black & white Americans must be equal.