Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was, during his lifetime, an inspiration and an example; today his influence on American life is stronger than ever. This book is a pictorial record of Dr. King's leadership in the nonviolent movement for racial equality and human dignity from the boycott of segregated busing in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955 until his assassination in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1968. The commentary accompanying the photographs includes a chronology of Dr. King's career and the texts of his major addresses.

As a young photojournalist just out of college in the early fifties, Flip Schulke moved to Miami and began covering social issues. In 1958, while working as a freelancer for Jet and Ebony, he was assigned to photograph Martin Luther King. Afterwards, the two men talked late into the night about King's philosophy. Schulke became convinced that King's plans would change the face of the country. At King's invitation, he began photographing behind the scenes at Southern Christian Leadership Conference meetings and eventually became committed to covering King and the growing civil rights movement. For a decade before King's death, Schulke was as close to him and his inner circle as a photographer could be. He was privy to momentous events public and private, and always he was photographing. This book is the result.