Sermons and speeches of Martin Luther King Jr.
Open-knowledge reference entry
The sermons and speeches of Martin Luther King Jr., comprise an extensive catalog of American writing and oratory – some of which are internationally well-known, while others remain unheralded and await rediscovery.
Martin Luther King Jr. was a prominent African-American clergyman, a leader in the civil rights movement and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
King himself observed, "In the quiet recesses of my heart, I am fundamentally a clergyman, a Baptist preacher."
Speechwriter and orator
The famous "I Have a Dream" address was delivered in August 1963 from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. Less well-remembered are the early sermons of that young, 25-year-old pastor who first began preaching at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1954. As a political leader in the Civil Rights Movement and as a modest preacher in a Baptist church, King evolved and matured across the span of a life cut short. The range of his rhetoric was anticipated and encompassed within "The Three Dimensions of a Complete Life," which he preached as his trial sermon at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in 1954 and every year thereafter for the rest of his life.
Sermons
1953 – "The Three Dimensions of a Complete Life"
1954 – "Rediscovering Lost Values", Sunday February 28, Detroit, Michigan.
1955 - "The Impassable Gulf (The Parable of Dives and Lazarus)", Sunday October 2, Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Montgomery, Alabama.
1956 - "The Death of Evil Upon the Seashore", Wednesday May 17, Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York City
1956 - "Living Under the Tensions of Modern Life", Sunday September (exact date unknown), Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Montgomery, Alabama.
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