| Summary: | The Preacher King investigates Martin Luther King, Jr.'s religious development from a precocious "preacher's kid" in segregated Atlanta to the most influential America preacher and orator of the twentieth century. To give the most accurate and intimate portrait possible, Richard Lischer draws almost exclusively from King's unpublished sermons and speeches, as well as tape recordings, personal interviews, and even police surveillance reports. By returning to the raw sources, Lischer recaptures King's truest preaching voice and, consequently, something of a the real King himself. He shows how, as the son, grandson, and great-grandson of preachers, King absorbed early on the poetic cadences, traditions, and power of the pulpit, and was therefore more profoundly influenced by his fellow African-American preachers than by Gandhi and the classical philosophers. Lischer also reveals a later phase of King's development that few of his biographers or critics have addressed: the prophetic rage with which he condemned American religious and political hypocrisy. During the last three years of his life King accused his country of genocide, warned of long host summers in the ghettos, and called for a radical redistribution of wealth. 25 years after its initial publication, The Preacher King remains a critical study that captures a crucial aspect of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s identity. Human, complex, and passionate, King was the consummate American preacher who never quit trying to reshape the moral and political character of the nation." --
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