The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was a man of his time, present at both the awakening of a civil rights movement in this country and the advent of the overwhelming influence of mass media. King had what historian Allan Nevins called “an instinct for the spirit and needs of a critical time.” He was unabashedly religious, a Christian minister who preached the gospel of love from church pulpits and steps of government buildings, and marched in demonstrations for the civil rights and antiwar movements of the 1960’s. His intellect and good looks were combined with a preacher’s charisma—and television ate it up. His “I have a dream” speech in front of hundreds of thousands of people in Washington D.C. and millions more watching television remains electrifying to this day. He wasn’t a billionaire, he wasn’t an entrepreneur, he stood for something other than his “brand” and for this he was attacked, harassed, arrested and jailed numerous times. His Letter from a Birmingham Jail is instructive in the above. Martin Luther King, Jr., and John F. Kennedy were the two preeminent political icons of the 1960’s in the USA.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
