Last week, I bought a new Martin Luther King book called From Civil Rights To Human Rights--Martin Luther King And The Struggle For Economic Justice. It was written by Thomas Jackson ,who is an Associate Professor of History at the University of North Carolina in Greensboro.

This book discusses Reverend King's economic views and his role as a fighter for a broad array of rights beyond racial equality. This larger focus is often forgotten in what is recalled about Dr. King.

Here is a review of the book from the Texas Observer.

From the review---

Jackson describes King as a democratic socialist—one who believes that economic and political power should be distributed equitably among all the people of a polity. From his teens, when King wrote of his “anti-capitalist feelings,” throughout his college, graduate school, and seminary years, and finally into his life as a public figure, his beliefs were strikingly consistent. (Pastor King was thrust onto the national scene during the Montgomery bus boycott at the age of 26; he became the youngest person ever to win the Nobel Peace Prize at 35 and was assassinated at 39.) To gain a wider audience, King resisted labeling his prescription for what ailed America. “Call it democracy, or call it democratic socialism,” Jackson quotes him as saying, “but there must be a better distribution of wealth within this country for all God’s children.” Nonetheless, King emerges from this portrait as a democratic socialist, first, last, and always, who also happened to be a civil rights leader. For King, the right to vote was no more or less essential than the right to a job and a decent place to live. Human beings had a natural claim to all of them.

I look forward to reading this book. I've read so many books about King that I have to be convinced that any new title is worth the time. Hopefully, I've made a good call to buy the book.

Updates for WTO will be forthcoming as I read.