To the Promised Land: Martin Luther King and the Fight for Economic Justice

Drawing on a new generation of scholarship about the civil rights era in America, To the Promised Land goes beyond the iconic view of Martin Luther King as an advocate of racial harmony to explore his profound commitment to the poor and working class, and his call for non-violent resistance to all forms of oppression, including economic injustice.

Phase one of that struggle led to the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts. In phase two, King organised poor people and demonstrated for union rights, while seeking a moral revolution to replace the self-seeking individualism of the rich with an overriding concern for the common good. To the Promised Land asks us to think about what it would mean to truly fulfil Kings legacy and move towards what he called the Promised Land in our own time.