Profiles in Power
01 Jun 05

Nearly fifty years after the Montgomery bus boycott, which launched the civil rights movement, and Martin Luther King Jr as one of its leaders, it is a timely point to publish this new book that moves beyond the all-too-often oversimplified story of King's life and times, to provide an innovative analytical framework for understanding the role played by one of the United States' most important historical figures.

Combining insights from the larger scholarly literature of King biography and movement histories, Profiles in Power: Martin Luther King Jr is a critical analysis of King's leadership and its relationship to the rest of the civil rights movement.

John A Kirk pin-points, analyses and assess the leadership qualities of King to show what he did—and didn't—contribute to the movement as a whole . Looking at the sources of King's power in the black community and its relationship to the wider American society, focusing particularly on the role of the black church, the philosophy of non-violence and issues of leadership, the book also pays due attention to the voices of King's critics and detractors and to the limitations of his power. Kirk weighs the role that King played in the movement alongside the contributions of other civil rights organizations, leaders and local civil rights activists.

Kirk delivers a fresh perspective on the relationship between ‘the man and the movement, arguing that it is the interaction between national and local movement concerns that is essential to understanding King's leadership and black activism in the 1950s and 1960s.

	Profiles in Power: Martin Luther King Jr
	Author	John A Kirk
	Pub Date	10 November 2004
	Price	£14.99
	Publisher	Longman
	ISBN	0582414318
		Click here for further information or to purchase Profiles in Power: Martin Luther King Jr.

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