-
Your next favorite book
is waiting.
The Making of Martin Luther King Jr.
by Lerone Martin
From a preeminent King scholar, the origin story of the man, minister, and civil rights hero who would lead the nation and change the world.
We know who Martin Luther King, Jr. became, but who was he at the beginning of his life? How did his youth inform his outlook and his approach to activism and service?
Before Martin Luther King, Jr. was a civil rights leader, the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, and a global hero, he was an emotional boy, and a middling high school student devoted to fashion, dancing, and dating. As he headed to college, he left the Jim Crow South for a summer job that would test his oratory skills preaching in the tobacco fields of Connecticut and ultimately give him a sense of hope for a life of racial peace and harmony.
Lerone A. Martin, Centennial Professor at Stanford University and the Faculty Director of the Martin Luther King Institute, traces the youthful roots of this legendary American to reveal the makings of a mighty force. Filled with revelations and written with compassion, Young King offers a new understanding of the influential preacher and activist's emotional life, his youthful confusion about his future and career direction, his inspiration to fight for justice, his teenage missteps, and his first revelations of courage. As America undergoes another era of turmoil and change, this powerful biography offers encouragement for readers at a similar moment of life and provides an understanding of how greatness comes to light.
Martin illuminates both King's weaknesses and the social failures that shaped him, including the brutal racism he endured growing up. This vital and essential work is a testament to how history shapes a leader.
Young King includes rarely seen black-and-white photographs of an adolescent MLK from his high school days and college years.
"This revealing, vividly told biography illuminates a fact worth remembering: Our greatest leaders do not emerge fully formed in the moment in which they are most needed, but are molded by family, community and education." —BookPage (starred review)
"A vibrant and illuminating account of an icon's early years." —Kirkus Reviews
"Lerone Martin's searing and soaring Young King is a welcome exploration of Dr. Martin Luther King's formative years that is long overdue and right on time. Martin, arguably the foremost King scholar, fills in unexplored and compelling aspects of the Civil Rights icon's life that provide a blueprint for true leadership and the building of a remarkable journey." —Bakari Sellers, New York Times bestselling author of My Vanishing Country
"Young King opens the door to the world of a boy who didn't start out as an icon, but became one through struggle, imagination, community, and faith. Lerone Martin shows us how Martin Luther King Jr. discovered his calling, wrestled with who he was and who he might become, and learned to shape a life of meaning in a nation determined to diminish him. This book beautifully reminds us of King's humanity most of all, proving that the roots of his leadership grew long before the spotlight, when he was just a young boy learning how to live and dream." —Anna Malaika Tubbs, New York Times bestselling author of The Three Mothers and Erased
This information about Young King was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Lerone A. Martin is the Martin Luther King, Jr., Centennial Professor in Religious Studies and director of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University. Dr. Martin is an internationally recognized award-winning author and public speaker. His writing and commentary have been featured on the Today show, the History Channel, PBS, NPR, and C-SPAN as well as in the New York Times and the Boston Globe. He currently serves as senior editor of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Papers Project and was an adviser on the PBS documentary series Gospel. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
If you liked Young King, try these:
by Edouard Louis
Published 2025
An autobiographical novel from Édouard Louis, hailed as one of the most important voices of his generation—about social class, transformation, and the perils of leaving the past behind.
by Stephen Puleo
Published 2024
The groundbreaking biography of a forgotten civil rights hero.
The Office of Historical Corrections
by Danielle Evans
Published 2021
The award-winning author of Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self brings her signature voice and insight to the subjects of race, grief, apology, and American history.
Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought.
Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!
Can you name the title?
Test your book knowledge with our daily trivia challenge!
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
