“Fascinating and instructive…King’s philosophy, speaking to us through the written word, may turn out to constitute his most enduring legacy.” —Annette Gordon-Reed, New York Review of Books
Martin Luther King, Jr., is one of America’s most revered figures, yet despite his mythic stature, the significance of his political thought remains underappreciated. In this indispensable reappraisal, leading scholars—including Cornel West, Martha Nussbaum, and Danielle Allen—consider the substance of his lesser known writings on racism, economic inequality, virtue ethics, just-war theory, reparations, voting rights, civil disobedience, and social justice and find in them an array of compelling challenges to some of the most pressing political dilemmas of our time.
“King was not simply a compelling speaker, but a deeply philosophical intellectual…We still have much to learn from him.” —Quartz
“A compelling work of philosophy, all the more so because it treats King seriously without inoculating him from the kind of critique important to both his theory and practice.” —Los Angeles Review of Books
Tommie Shelby is Caldwell Titcomb Professor of African and African American Studies and of Philosophy at Harvard University. In addition to Dark Ghettos he is the author of We Who Are Dark: The Philosophical Foundations of Black Solidarity and coeditor with Brandon M. Terry of To Shape a New World: Essays on the Political Philosophy of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Brandon M. Terry is John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences at Harvard University and codirector of the Institute on Policing, Incarceration, and Public Safety at the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research. He is the coeditor, with Tommie Shelby, of To Shape a New World: Essays on the Political Philosophy of Martin Luther King, Jr. and editor of Fifty Years Since MLK.
Table of Contents
Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication Epigraph Contents Introduction. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Political Philosophy PART I. Traditions 1. The Du Bois–Washington Debate and the Idea of Dignity 2. Moral Perfectionism 3. The Roots of Civil Disobedience in Republicanism and Slavery 4. Showdown for Nonviolence: The Theory and Practice of Nonviolent Politics PART II. Ideals 5. From Anger to Love: Self-Purification and Political Resistance 6. The Prophetic Tension between Race Consciousness and the Ideal of Color-Blindness 7. Integration, Freedom, and the Affirmation of Life 8. A Vindication of Voting Rights PART III. Justice 9. Prisons of the Forgotten: Ghettos and Economic Injustice 10. Gender Trouble: Manhood, Inclusion, and Justice 11. Living “in the Red”: Time, Debt, and Justice 12. The Costs of Violence: Militarism, Geopolitics, and Accountability PART IV. Conscience 13. The Path of Conscientious Citizenship 14. Requiem for a Dream: The Problem-Space of Black Power 15. Hope and Despair: Past and Present Afterword. Dignity as a Weapon of Love Notes������������ Acknowledgments Contributors Index������������
