Martin Luther King, Jr., was born in 1929, the year the Great Depression started and millions of Americans lost their jobs. He ended his schooling in 1954, the year of the historic Supreme Court decision declaring that segregation in the schools by race was unconstitutional.

Those landmark years set the themes of his life—jobs and equality for the black people of the United States. A minister who believed firmly in nonviolent resistance to injustice, Martin Luther King tried to achieve his goals by arousing the conscience of the nation to injustice and inequality.

With his voice and his words, he confronted Americans, both black and white, with the difference between the ideals of the Constitution and the reality that black people faced in a segregated society. As an orator, he had few equals in his time. He moved people to examine their consciences, and he moved government into action to banish inequality.

He lived and died in an age of violence in America. But he left behind proof that one courageous person, speaking out without fear in favor of justice and equality for all, can make a difference.

From the introduction