at Oakton Community College in Skokie, Illinois.

King’s "Letter From Birmingham City Jail," was written as a response to eight local white clergymen who had demanded an end to the nonviolent demonstrations for desegregation in restrooms, lunch counters and stores. It is now considered a classic of world literature. This student guide was created by Michael Wilson as part of his honors thesis while attending Stanford University.

Read a biographical essay on Martin Luther King, Jr., prepared by King Institute director Clayborne Carson and the Institute staff, extensively cross-referenced with links to the King Online Encyclopedia.

Quotes taken from the speeches and publications of Martin Luther King, Jr.

King's impassioned address speaking out against the Vietnam War illustrates his commitment to nonviolence abroad as well as at home.

On 1 December 1955, Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger on a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama. This single act of nonviolent resistance sparked the Montgomery bus boycott.

In honor of our upcoming conference on global peace, social justice, and sustainability in July 2010, this week's featured document contains the classic "Pilgrimage to Nonviolence" that details King's gradual acceptance of nonviolence. King writes, "More and more I have come to the conclusion that the potential destructiveness of modern weapons of war totally rules out the possibility of war ever serving again as a negative good. If we assume that mankind has a right to survive then we must find an alternative to war and destruction." This version comes from the April 1960 Christian Century issue. (5/4/10)

King's first book gives an account of the 381-day Montgomery Bus Boycott and nonviolence's role in it.