"The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Volume V" - author event with Clayborne Carson, head of MLK Papers Project

author event -- speaking and book signing

"The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr." has become the definitive record of the most significant correspondence, sermons, speeches, published writings, and unpublished manuscripts of one of America's best-known advocates for peace and justice. "Threshold of a New Decade, Volume V" illustrates the growing sophistication and effectiveness of King and the organizations he led while providing an unparalleled look into the surprising emergence of the sit-in protests that sparked the social struggles of the 1960s.

In this pivotal period of his career, King traveled to India in early 1959 to meet with Prime Minister Nehru and other associates of Mahatma Gandhi. After King returned to Montgomery, African American students in the South reclaimed the energy of the Montgomery bus boycott with their bold sit-in protests, which King predicted would become "an integral part of the history which is reshaping the world, replacing a dying order with modern democracy." He was arrested in October after a sit-in protest in Atlanta. His resulting imprisonment led presidential candidate John F. Kennedy to phone his sympathies to King's wife, Coretta, a move many credit for providing the margin of victory in the close election of 1960.

Clayborne Carson holds a PhD from UCLA, and currently is a professor of History at Stanford University. He is the director and executive editor of the Martin Luther King Jr. Papers Project at Stanford.