In the first In the first biography of Martin Luther King to look at his life through the prism of his evolving faith, distinguished historian Paul Harvey examines Martin Luther King's life through his complex, emerging, religious lives.

Harvey will introduce many readers, perhaps for the first or only time, to the King of diverse religious and intellectual influences, of an increasingly radical cast of thought, and of a melange of intellectual influences that he aligned in becoming the spokesperson for the most important social movement of twentieth-century American history.

Not only does Harvey chronicle King's metamorphosis and its impact on American and African American life, but he seeks to explain his "afterlives"-how in American culture King became transformed into a mainstream civil saint, shorn of his radical religious critique of how power functioned in America. Harvey's concise biography will allow readers to see King anew in the context of his time and today.