martin luther king jr phd in

In What Field Was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. a Doctor?

Martin Luther King Jr. earned a doctorate in systematic theology from Boston University in 1955. He’d previously earned a Bachelor of Arts from Morehouse College and a Bachelor of Divinity from Crozer Theological Seminary. His dissertation , “A Comparison of the Conception of God in the Thinking of Paul Tillich and Henry Nelson Wieman,” examined the two religious philosophers’ views of God in comparison to each other, and to King’s own concept of a "knowable and personal" God.

In 1989, some three decades after King had earned his doctorate, archivists working with The Martin Luther King Papers Project discovered that King’s dissertation suffered from what they called a “problematic use of sources.” King, they learned, had taken a large amount of material verbatim from other scholars and sources and used it in his work without full or proper attribution, and sometimes no attribution at all.

In 1991, a Boston University investigatory committee concluded that King had indeed plagiarized parts of his dissertation, but found that it was “impractical to reach, on the available evidence, any conclusions about Dr. King's reasons for failing to attribute some, but not all, of his sources.” That is, it could have been anything from malicious intent to simple forgetfulness—no one can determine for sure today. They did not recommend a posthumous revocation of his degree, but instead suggested that a letter be attached to the dissertation in the university library noting the passages lacked quotations and citations.

Have you got a Big Question you'd like us to answer? If so, let us know by emailing us at [email protected] .

Introduction

Martin Luther King, Jr., made history, but he was also transformed by his deep family roots in the African-American Baptist church, his formative experiences in his hometown of Atlanta, his theological studies, his varied models of religious and political leadership, and his extensive network of contacts in the peace and social justice movements of his time. Although King was only 39 at the time of his death, his life was remarkable for the ways it reflected and inspired so many of the twentieth century’s major intellectual, cultural, and political developments.

The son, grandson, and great-grandson of Baptist ministers, Martin Luther King, Jr., named Michael King at birth, was born in Atlanta and spent his first 12 years in the Auburn Avenue home that his parents, the Reverend Michael King  and Alberta Williams King, shared with his maternal grandparents, the Reverend Adam Daniel (A. D.)  Williams  and Jeannie Celeste Williams. After Reverend Williams’ death in 1931, his son-in-law became  Ebenezer Baptist Church ’s new pastor and gradually established himself as a major figure in state and national Baptist groups. The elder King began referring to himself (and later to his son) as Martin Luther King.

King’s formative experiences not only immersed him in the affairs of Ebenezer but also introduced him to the African-American  social gospel  tradition exemplified by his father and grandfather, both of whom were leaders of the Atlanta branch of the  National Association for the Advancement of Colored People  (NAACP). Depression-era breadlines heightened King’s awareness of economic inequities, and his father’s leadership of campaigns against racial discrimination in voting and teachers’ salaries provided a model for the younger King’s own politically engaged ministry. He resisted religious emotionalism and as a teenager questioned some facets of Baptist doctrine, such as the bodily resurrection of Jesus.

During his undergraduate years at Atlanta’s  Morehouse College  from 1944 to 1948, King gradually overcame his initial reluctance to accept his inherited calling. Morehouse president Benjamin E.  Mays  influenced King’s spiritual development, encouraging him to view Christianity as a potential force for progressive social change. Religion professor George  Kelsey  exposed him to biblical criticism and, according to King’s autobiographical sketch, taught him “that behind the legends and myths of the Book were many profound truths which one could not escape” ( Papers  1:43 ). King admired both educators as deeply religious yet also learned men and, by the end of his junior year, such academic role models and the example of his father led King to enter the ministry. He described his decision as a response to an “inner urge” calling him to “serve humanity” ( Papers  1:363 ). He was ordained during his final semester at Morehouse, and by this time King had also taken his first steps toward political activism. He had responded to the postwar wave of anti-black violence by proclaiming in a letter to the editor of the  Atlanta Constitution  that African Americans were “entitled to the basic rights and opportunities of American citizens” ( Papers  1:121 ). During his senior year King joined the Intercollegiate Council, an interracial student discussion group that met monthly at Atlanta’s Emory University.

After leaving Morehouse, King increased his understanding of liberal Christian thought while attending  Crozer Theological Seminary  in Pennsylvania from 1948 to 1951. Initially uncritical of liberal theology, he gradually moved toward Reinhold  Niebuhr ’s neo-orthodoxy, which emphasized the intractability of social evil. Mentored by local minister and King family friend J. Pius  Barbour , he reacted skeptically to a presentation on pacifism by  Fellowship of Reconciliation  leader A. J.  Muste . Moreover, by the end of his seminary studies King had become increasingly dissatisfied with the abstract conceptions of God held by some modern theologians and identified himself instead with the theologians who affirmed  personalism , or a belief in the personality of God. Even as he continued to question and modify his own religious beliefs, he compiled an outstanding academic record and graduated at the top of his class.

In 1951, King began doctoral studies in systematic theology at  Boston University ’s School of Theology, which was dominated by personalist theologians such as Edgar  Brightman  and L. Harold  DeWolf . The papers (including his  dissertation ) that King wrote during his years at Boston University displayed little originality, and some contained extensive plagiarism; but his readings enabled him to formulate an eclectic yet coherent theological perspective. By the time he completed his doctoral studies in 1955, King had refined his exceptional ability to draw upon a wide range of theological and philosophical texts to express his views with force and precision. His capacity to infuse his oratory with borrowed theological insights became evident in his expanding preaching activities in Boston-area churches and at Ebenezer, where he assisted his father during school vacations.

During his stay in Boston, King also met and courted Coretta  Scott , an Alabama-born Antioch College graduate who was then a student at the New England Conservatory of Music. On 18 June 1953, the two students were married in Marion, Alabama, where Scott’s family lived.

Although he considered pursuing an academic career, King decided in 1954 to accept an offer to become the pastor of  Dexter Avenue Baptist Church  in Montgomery, Alabama. In December 1955, when Montgomery black leaders such as Jo Ann  Robinson , E. D.  Nixon , and Ralph  Abernathy  formed the  Montgomery Improvement Association  (MIA) to protest the arrest of NAACP official Rosa  Parks  for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white man, they selected King to head the new group. In his role as the primary spokesman of the year-long  Montgomery bus boycott , King utilized the leadership abilities he had gained from his religious background and academic training to forge a distinctive protest strategy that involved the mobilization of black churches and skillful appeals for white support. With the encouragement of Bayard  Rustin , Glenn  Smiley , William Stuart  Nelson , and other veteran pacifists, King also became a firm advocate of Mohandas  Gandhi ’s precepts of  nonviolence , which he combined with Christian social gospel ideas.

After the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed Alabama bus segregation laws in  Browder v. Gayle  in late 1956, King sought to expand the nonviolent civil rights movement throughout the South. In 1957, he joined with C. K.  Steele , Fred  Shuttlesworth , and T. J.  Jemison  in founding the  Southern Christian Leadership Conference  (SCLC) with King as president to coordinate civil rights activities throughout the region. Publication of King’s memoir of the boycott,  Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story  (1958), further contributed to his rapid emergence as a national civil rights leader. Even as he expanded his influence, however, King acted cautiously. Rather than immediately seeking to stimulate mass desegregation protests in the South, King stressed the goal of achieving black voting rights when he addressed an audience at the 1957  Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom .

King’s rise to fame was not without personal consequences. In 1958, King was the victim of his first assassination attempt. Although his house had been bombed several times during the Montgomery bus boycott, it was while signing copies of  Stride Toward Freedom  that Izola Ware  Curry  stabbed him with a letter opener. Surgery to remove it was successful, but King had to recuperate for several months, giving up all protest activity.

One of the key aspects of King’s leadership was his ability to establish support from many types of organizations, including labor unions, peace organizations, southern reform organizations, and religious groups. As early as 1956, labor unions, such as the  United Packinghouse Workers of America  and the United Auto Workers, contributed to MIA, and peace activists such as Homer  Jack  alerted their associates to MIA activities. Activists from southern organizations, such as Myles Horton’s  Highlander Folk School  and Anne  Braden ’s Southern Conference Educational Fund, were in frequent contact with King. In addition, his extensive ties to the  National Baptist Convention  provided support from churches all over the nation; and his advisor, Stanley  Levison , ensured broad support from Jewish groups.

King’s recognition of the link between segregation and colonialism resulted in alliances with groups fighting oppression outside the United States, especially in Africa. In March 1957, King traveled to  Ghana  at the invitation of Kwame  Nkrumah  to attend the nation’s independence ceremony. Shortly after returning from Ghana, King joined the  American Committee on Africa , agreeing to serve as vice chairman of an International Sponsoring Committee for a day of protest against South Africa’s  apartheid  government. Later, at an SCLC-sponsored event honoring Kenyan labor leader Tom  Mboya , King further articulated the connections between the African American freedom struggle and those abroad: “We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality” ( Papers  5:204 ).

During 1959, he increased his understanding of Gandhian ideas during a month-long visit to  India  sponsored by the  American Friends Service Committee . With Coretta and MIA historian Lawrence D.  Reddick  in tow, King met with many Indian leaders, including Prime Minister Jawaharlal  Nehru . Writing after his return, King stated: “I left India more convinced than ever before that non-violent resistance is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom” ( Papers  5:233 ).

Early the following year, he moved his family, which now included two children— Yolanda King  and Martin Luther King, III —to Atlanta in order to be nearer to SCLC headquarters in that city and to become co-pastor, with his father, of Ebenezer Baptist Church. (The Kings’ third child, Dexter King , was born in 1961; their fourth, Bernice King , was born in 1963.) Soon after King’s arrival in Atlanta, the southern civil rights movement gained new impetus from the student-led lunch counter  sit-in  movement that spread throughout the region during 1960. The sit-ins brought into existence a new protest group, the  Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee  (SNCC), which would often push King toward greater militancy. King came in contact with students, especially those from Nashville such as John  Lewis , James  Bevel , and Diane  Nash , who had been trained in nonviolent tactics by James  Lawson . In October 1960, King’s arrest during a student-initiated protest in Atlanta became an issue in the national presidential campaign when Democratic candidate John F.  Kennedy  called Coretta King to express his concern. The successful efforts of Kennedy supporters to secure King’s release contributed to the Democratic candidate’s narrow victory over Republican candidate Richard  Nixon .

King’s decision to move to Atlanta was partly caused by SCLC’s lack of success during the late 1950s. Associate director Ella  Baker  had complained that SCLC’s Crusade for Citizenship suffered from lack of attention from King. SCLC leaders hoped that with King now in Atlanta, strategy would be improved. The hiring of Wyatt Tee  Walker  as executive director in 1960 was also seen as a step toward bringing efficiency to the organization, while the addition of Dorothy  Cotton  and Andrew  Young  to the staff infused new leadership after SCLC took over the administration of the Citizenship Education Program pioneered by Septima  Clark . Attorney Clarence  Jones  also began to assist King and SCLC with legal matters and to act as King’s advisor.

As the southern protest movement expanded during the early 1960s, King was often torn between the increasingly militant student activists, such as those who participated in the  Freedom Rides , and more cautious national civil rights leaders. During 1961 and 1962, his tactical differences with SNCC activists surfaced during a sustained protest movement in Albany, Georgia. King was arrested twice during demonstrations organized by the  Albany Movement , but when he left jail and ultimately left Albany without achieving a victory, some movement activists began to question his militancy and his dominant role within the southern protest movement.

As King encountered increasingly fierce white opposition, he continued his movement away from theological abstractions toward more reassuring conceptions, rooted in African-American religious culture, of God as a constant source of support. He later wrote in his book of sermons,  Strength to Love  (1963), that the travails of movement leadership caused him to abandon the notion of God as “theologically and philosophically satisfying” and caused him to view God as “a living reality that has been validated in the experiences of everyday life” ( Papers  5:424 ). 

During 1963, however, King reasserted his preeminence within the African-American freedom struggle through his leadership of the  Birmingham Campaign . Initiated by SCLC and its affiliate, the  Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights , the Birmingham demonstrations were the most massive civil rights protests that had yet occurred. With the assistance of Fred Shuttlesworth and other local black leaders, and with little competition from SNCC and other civil rights groups, SCLC officials were able to orchestrate the Birmingham protests to achieve maximum national impact. King’s decision to intentionally allow himself to be arrested for leading a demonstration on 12 April prodded the Kennedy administration to intervene in the escalating protests. The widely quoted “ Letter from Birmingham Jail ” displayed his distinctive ability to influence public opinion by appropriating ideas from the Bible, the Constitution, and other canonical texts. During May, televised pictures of police using dogs and fire hoses against young demonstrators generated a national outcry against white segregationist officials in Birmingham. The brutality of Birmingham officials and the refusal of Alabama’s governor George C.  Wallace  to allow the admission of black students at the University of Alabama prompted President Kennedy to introduce major civil rights legislation.

King’s speech  at the 28 August 1963  March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom , attended by more than 200,000 people, was the culmination of a wave of civil rights protest activity that extended even to northern cities. In his prepared remarks, King announced that African Americans wished to cash the “promissory note” signified in the egalitarian rhetoric of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. Closing his address with extemporaneous remarks, he insisted that he had not lost hope: “I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream ... that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’” He appropriated the familiar words of “My Country ’Tis of Thee,” before concluding, “When we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: ‘Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!’” (King, “I Have a Dream”).

Although there was much elation after the March on Washington, less than a month later, the movement was shocked by another act of senseless violence. On 15 September 1963, a dynamite blast at Birmingham’s Sixteenth Street Baptist Church killed four young school girls. King delivered the eulogy for three of the four girls, reflecting: “They say to us that we must be concerned not merely about who murdered them, but about the system, the way of life, the philosophy which produced the murderers” (King,  Eulogy for the Martyred Children ).

St. Augustine, Florida  became the site of the next major confrontation of the civil rights movement. Beginning in 1963, Robert B.  Hayling , of the local NAACP, had led sit-ins against segregated businesses. SCLC was called in to help in May 1964, suffering the arrest of King and Abernathy. After a few court victories, SCLC left when a biracial committee was formed; however, local residents continued to suffer violence.

King’s ability to focus national attention on orchestrated confrontations with racist authorities, combined with his oration at the 1963 March on Washington, made him the most influential African-American spokesperson of the first half of the 1960s. He was named  Time  magazine’s “Man of the Year”  at the end of 1963, and was awarded the  Nobel Peace Prize  in December 1964. The acclaim King received strengthened his stature among civil rights leaders but also prompted  Federal Bureau of Investigation  (FBI) director J. Edgar Hoover to step up his effort to damage King’s reputation. Hoover, with the approval of President Kennedy and Attorney General Robert  Kennedy , established phone taps and bugs. Hoover and many other observers of the southern struggle saw King as controlling events, but he was actually a moderating force within an increasingly diverse black militancy of the mid-1960s. Although he was not personally involved in  Freedom Summer  (1964), he was called upon to attempt to persuade the  Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party  delegates to accept a compromise at the Democratic Party National Convention.

As the African-American struggle expanded from desegregation protests to mass movements seeking economic and political gains in the North as well as the South, King’s active involvement was limited to a few highly publicized civil rights campaigns, such as Birmingham and St. Augustine, which secured popular support for the passage of national civil rights legislation, particularly the  Civil Rights Act of 1964 .

The Alabama protests reached a turning point on 7 March 1965, when state police attacked a group of demonstrators at the start of a march from Selma to the state capitol in Montgomery. Carrying out Governor Wallace’s orders, the police used tear gas and clubs to turn back the marchers after they crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge on the outskirts of Selma. Unprepared for the violent confrontation, King alienated some activists when he decided to postpone the continuation of the  Selma to Montgomery March  until he had received court approval, but the march, which finally secured federal court approval, attracted several thousand civil rights sympathizers, black and white, from all regions of the nation. On 25 March, King addressed the arriving marchers from the steps of the capitol in Montgomery. The march and the subsequent killing of a white participant, Viola Liuzzo, as well as the earlier murder of James  Reeb  dramatized the denial of black voting rights and spurred passage during the following summer of the  Voting Rights Act of 1965 .

After the march in Alabama, King was unable to garner similar support for his effort to confront the problems of northern urban blacks. Early in 1966 he, together with local activist Al  Raby , launched a major campaign against poverty and other urban problems, and King moved his family into an apartment in Chicago’s black ghetto. As King shifted the focus of his activities to the North, however, he discovered that the tactics used in the South were not as effective elsewhere. He encountered formidable opposition from Mayor Richard Daley and was unable to mobilize Chicago’s economically and ideologically diverse black community. King was stoned by angry whites in the Chicago suburb of Cicero when he led a march against racial discrimination in housing. Despite numerous mass protests, the  Chicago Campaign  resulted in no significant gains and undermined King’s reputation as an effective civil rights leader.

King’s influence was damaged further by the increasingly caustic tone of black militancy in the period after 1965. Black radicals increasingly turned away from the Gandhian precepts of King toward the  black nationalism  of  Malcolm X , whose posthumously published autobiography and speeches reached large audiences after his assassination in February 1965. Unable to influence the black insurgencies that occurred in many urban areas, King refused to abandon his firmly rooted beliefs about racial integration and nonviolence. He was nevertheless unpersuaded by black nationalist calls for racial uplift and institutional development in black communities. 

In June 1966, James  Meredith  was shot while attempting a “March against Fear” in Mississippi. King, Floyd  McKissick  of the  Congress of Racial Equality , and Stokely  Carmichael  of SNCC decided to continue his march. During the march, the activists from SNCC decided to test a new slogan that they had been using,  Black Power . King objected to the use of the term, but the media took the opportunity to expose the disagreements among protesters and publicized the term.

In his last book,  Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?  (1967), King dismissed the claim of Black Power advocates “to be the most revolutionary wing of the social revolution taking place in the United States,” but he acknowledged that they responded to a psychological need among African Americans he had not previously addressed (King,  Where Do We Go , 45–46). “Psychological freedom, a firm sense of self-esteem, is the most powerful weapon against the long night of physical slavery,” King wrote. “The Negro will only be free when he reaches down to the inner depths of his own being and signs with the pen and ink of assertive manhood his own emancipation proclamation” (King, “Where Do We Go From Here?”).

Indeed, even as his popularity declined, King spoke out strongly against American involvement in the  Vietnam War , making his position public in an address, “ Beyond Vietnam ,” on 4 April 1967, at New York’s Riverside Church. King’s involvement in the anti-war movement reduced his ability to influence national racial policies and made him a target of further FBI investigations. Nevertheless, he became ever more insistent that his version of Gandhian nonviolence and social gospel Christianity was the most appropriate response to the problems of black Americans.

In December 1967, King announced the formation of the  Poor People’s Campaign , designed to prod the federal government to strengthen its antipoverty efforts. King and other SCLC workers began to recruit poor people and antipoverty activists to come to Washington, D.C., to lobby on behalf of improved antipoverty programs. This effort was in its early stages when King became involved in the  Memphis sanitation workers’ strike  in Tennessee. On 28 March 1968, as King led thousands of sanitation workers and sympathizers on a march through downtown Memphis, black youngsters began throwing rocks and looting stores. This outbreak of violence led to extensive press criticisms of King’s entire antipoverty strategy. King returned to Memphis for the last time in early April.  Addressing  an audience at Bishop Charles J. Mason Temple on 3 April, King affirmed his optimism despite the “difficult days” that lay ahead. “But it really doesn’t matter with me now,” he declared, “because I’ve been to the mountaintop.... and I’ve seen the Promised Land.” He continued, “I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land,” (King, “ I’ve Been to the Mountaintop ”). The following evening, the  assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. , took place as he stood on a balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. A white segregationist, James Earl Ray, was later convicted of the crime. The Poor People’s Campaign continued for a few months after King’s death, under the direction of Ralph Abernathy, the new SCLC president, but it did not achieve its objectives.

Until his death, King remained steadfast in his commitment to the transformation of American society through nonviolent activism. In his posthumously published essay, “A Testament of Hope” (1969), he urged African Americans to refrain from violence but also warned: “White America must recognize that justice for black people cannot be achieved without radical changes in the structure of our society.” The “black revolution” was more than a civil rights movement, he insisted. “It is forcing America to face all its interrelated flaws—racism, poverty, militarism, and materialism” (King, “Testament,” 194).

After her husband’s death, Coretta Scott King established the Atlanta-based Martin Luther King, Jr., Center for Nonviolent Social Change (also known as the  King Center ) to promote Gandhian-Kingian concepts of nonviolent struggle. She also led the successful effort to honor her husband with a federally mandated  King national holiday , which was first celebrated in 1986. 

Introduction, in  Papers  1:1–57 .

King, “An Autobiography of Religious Development,” 12 September 1950–22 November 1950, in  Papers  1:359–363 .

King, Eulogy for the Martyred Children, 18 September 1963, in  A Call to Conscience , ed. Carson and Shepard, 2001.

King, “I Have a Dream,” Address Delivered at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, 28 August 1963, in  A Call to Conscience , ed. Carson and Shepard, 2001.

King, “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop,” Address Delivered at Bishop Charles Mason Temple, 3 April 1968, in  A Call to Conscience , ed. Carson and Shepard, 2001.

King, “Kick Up Dust,” Letter to the Editor,  Atlanta Constitution , 6 August 1946, in  Papers  1:121 .

King, “My Trip to the Land of Gandhi,” July 1959, in  Papers  5:231–238 .

King, “Pilgrimage to Nonviolence,” 13 April 1960, in  Papers  5:419–425 .

King, Remarks Delivered at Africa Freedom Dinner at Atlanta University, 13 May 1959, in  Papers  5:203–204 .

King,  Strength to Love , 1963.

King, “A Testament of Hope,” in  Playboy  (16 January 1969): 193–194, 231–236.

King, “Where Do We Go From Here?,” Address Delivered at the Eleventh Annual SCLC Convention, 16 August 1967, in  A Call to Conscience , ed. Carson and Shepard, 2001.

King,  Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? , 1967.

MLK Jr Receives PhD

in Leaders February 28th, 1955

Martin Luther King, Jr., receives his PhD from Boston University. After receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, he presents his papers to the Special Collections (now called the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center).

• Melissa L. Gilliam, Boston University’s Eleventh President
• Ethicist and Theologian Named MLK Professor of Religion & Black Studies
• Boston University Removes the Myles Standish Name from Dorm
• Boston University

What Was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. a Doctor of?

Early Education

Martin Luther King, Jr., born January 15, 1929, began his schooling in Atlanta, Georgia, at the Yonge Street Elementary School and later attended the David T. Howard Elementary School. As a young man, he went to the Atlanta University Laboratory School and finished his secondary education at Booker T. Washington High School.

Skipping both the 9th and 12th grades, Dr. King never formally graduated high school, instead enrolling in Morehouse College in Atlanta after his junior year of high school.

King graduated from Morehouse in 1948 with a B.A. in Sociology. He later attended and graduated from Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania, where he not only earned a Bachelor of Divinity in 1951, but was also awarded a graduate fellowship that allowed him to pursue his doctorate.

Doctoral Education

King enrolled in Boston University’s School of Theology and began his doctoral studies which were: “ Influenced by his increasing interest in personalism, a philosophy that emphasizes the necessity of personal religious experience in understanding God.”

Under the tutelage of several notable theologians including Edgar S. Brightman, L. Harold DeWolf and Jannette E. Newhall, King expanded his studies to include :

Several classes on the history of philosophy that examined the works of Reinhold Niebuhr, Alfred North Whitehead, Plate, and Hegel [and] . . . culminated with the completion of his dissertation, entitled “A Comparison of the Conceptions of God in the Thinking of Paul Tillich and Henry Nelson Weiman.”

Although later (1991) a committee would determine that King had “plagiarized” portions of his dissertation, other scholars characterized these as “ faulty citation practices [that] were rooted in the notecards he created while conducting research . . . . ” Nonetheless, even the committee found the sloppy citations justified no real penalty, and rather felt that “ no thought should be given to the revocation of Dr. King’s doctoral degree .”

In any event, while at BU, King relied on the mentorship and spiritual guidance of the Marsh Chapel’s dean, Howard Thurman, who introduced King to, among other things Mohandas Gandhi and the effectiveness of non-violent protest.

Systematic Theology

In this discipline, theological topics are addressed “one by one” and the student “ attempts to summarize all the biblical teaching ” on that subject into one work: “ The goal is to present the major themes (i.e. doctrines) of the Christian faith in an organized and ordered overview that remains faithful to the biblical witness.”

In addition to relying on the Bible, the field also investigates “ the development of Christian doctrine over the course of history, particularly through philosophy, science and ethics .”

By applying the discipline of orderly reasoning to his studies, King developed his personal theology which included his view that:

Without immortality the universe would be somewhat irrational. But by having faith in the immortal life we are assured that God will vindicate the righteous. . . . The Christian faith in its emphasis on immortality assures us that the ambiguities of this life will be meaningful in the life to come. . . . [But yet] the solution to the problem surrounding any tragedy is ultimately practical, not theoretical.

Practical Application

Shortly after graduating the Reverend Doctor began his civil rights work with the Montgomery Bus Boycott (December 5, 1955 – December 20, 1956), where African Americans, taking a page out of Gandhi’s book, peacefully refused to ride the Alabama city’s buses until they were integrated.

The Reverend Doctor organized and participated in other acts of nonviolent protests over the next decade, but perhaps his greatest contribution to the cause of civil rights came through his fiery rhetoric that stirred action, something he saw as a minister’s noble duty :

Who is it that is supposed to articulate the longings and aspirations of the people more than the preacher? Somewhere the preacher must have a kind of fire shut up in his bones, and whenever injustice is around he must tell it. Somehow the preacher must be an Amos, who said, “When God Speaks, who can but prophesy?”

I Have a Dream…

More than 200,000 people attended the March on Washington on August 28, 1963, where the Reverend Doctor’s oratory on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial served as the rally’s grand finale :

In spite of the difficulties of the moment, I still have a dream . . . deeply rooted in the American dream. . . . That one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.” . . . That one day . . . the sweltering heat of injustice and oppression will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice [and that] . . . my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

• I’ve Been to the Mountaintop

On April 3, 1968, the Reverend Doctor gave his final, and one of his most memorable , speeches:

The nation is sick, trouble is in the land, confusion all around. . . . But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough can you see the stars. And I see God working in this period of the twentieth century . . . . I’ve been to the mountaintop . . . . And I’ve looked over and I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know . . . I’m happy tonight; I’m not worried about anything; I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.

The next day, the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, shot while standing on the balcony of his motel in Memphis, Tennessee. Some in attendance at his final speech believe that he had a premonition of his upcoming demise :

[He] knew he wouldn’t get there, but he wouldn’t tell us that. That would have been too heavy for us, so he softened it. . . . He preached himself through the fear of death. He just got it out of him. He just . . . dealt with it. And . . . it was like, what did he know that we didn’t know?

If you liked this article, you might also enjoy our new popular podcast, The BrainFood Show ( iTunes , Spotify , Google Play Music , Feed ), as well as:

• 20 Interesting Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Facts
• Jane Elliot and the Blue-Eyed Children Experiment
• Dr. Seuss Wrote “Green Eggs and Ham” on a Bet that He Couldn’t Write a Book with 50 or Fewer Words
• The Great Frederick Douglass
• The First Legal Slave Owner in What Would Become the United States was a Black Man

Bonus Facts:

• In the second half of the 20th century, the United States passed a variety of laws, including affirmative action to address historical wrongs, to ensure that all Americans enjoyed the rights and freedoms promised by the Constitution. These included the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Civil Rights Act of 1968.
• Sadly, the effects of centuries of discrimination and racism continue to plague African Americans. Only “ 54% of African Americans graduate from high school, compared to more than three quarters of white and Asian students. ” In addition, African American 12th graders read, on average, at the same level as white 8th graders, and only 14% of African American 8th graders read at proficient levels. Furthermore, African American boys were 2.5 times more likely to be suspended from school as white students, and according to a recent report, one out of every three black men will spend time in prison (compared to 1 of 17 white men).
• In recent years state legislatures have passed laws that limit early voting and same-day registration, and require photo I.D.s. Why is this significant? According to the NAACP, “ 25 percent of African-American voting age citizens (more than six million people) and 16 percent of Latino voting age citizens (nearly three million people) do not possess valid identification .”
• In October 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, gutted the voting rights act , allowing lawmakers in states with a history of discriminating against voters to change their voting rules without first getting permission from Uncle Sam. Since then, eight of the 15 states with a history of discrimination, “ passed or implemented voting restrictions ” that have the effect of making it hard for “low-income voters, young people, and minorities” to vote.
• 1 in 3 Black Males Will Go to Prison
• “A Comparison of the Conceptions of God in the Thinking of Paul Tillich and Henry Nelson Wieman”
• Boston U. Panel Finds Plagiarism by Dr. King
• Fact Sheet: Outcomes for Young Black Men
• “I Have a Dream . . .”
• Last Week’s Affirmative Action Setback Could Be a Boost to Voting Rights
• Lincoln Memorial
• March on Washington
• Martin Luther King, Jr.: A Biographical Sketch
• Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Global Freedom Struggle
• Modern Barriers to Voting
• Montgomery Bus Boycott
• Qualifying Examination Answers, Systematic Theology
• Remembering MLK’s Prophetic “Mountaintop” Speech
• Sonya Sotomayor Schuette dissent
• The Supreme Court Gutted the Voting Rights Act
• Systematic theology (Theopedia)
• Systematic theology (Wikipedia)

13 comments

Why do you say 1 in 3 black males will go to prison and 54% graduated HS because of racism? What evidence do you have to show that most of those arrests and dropouts are related to racism and not poor choices of the black community in general?

This is the 21st Century, not the 19th Century. All Americans now have equal opportunity, but must take advantage of our free education starting from kindergarten up through the 12th grade. This is the job of the students: to learn in order to be a productive member of society; in order to earn a decent living and to provide guidance for THEIR future generations. The job of parents is to see that the students avail themselves of the opportunities of the public education system and take full advantage of it. If those students do not choose to take advantage of this free public education which is available to ALL races, so be it. Do not then cry later on that you cannot get a job, or that your poor language skills inhibit you from mainstream society’s occupational opportunities.

MLK was a hero to many, especially for the Negro. However, that does not excuse him, nor Boston College from allowing him to keep the awarded “doctorate” degree because it was obtained under false premises. Had he been any other race than Negro, the doctorate would have been rescinded.

As far as the constant charge of restricting voting rights for Negroes, if the biggest problem MLK had had to confront was to simply apply, and obtain, a photo identification card in order to vote….which is, or at least should be, the case today..yet liberal democrats continue to oppose for their dishonest purposes….then he would have had a much easier road to walk.

Americans “bend over backward” to continually show that they are not racist by giving, and allowing, Negroes advantages and constant “help” to meet, or simply bypass, requirements for jobs, schools, etc, that other races have to meet…yet Negroes still lag far behind all other races in all fields tested.

Most Negroes won’t admit it, and white liberals dishonestly deny it, but today, as per MLKs “hope,” people, including Negroes, are “…not (be) judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”…and they are found sorely lacking.

That fact is no one’s fault but their own.

I am getting sick & tired of hearing about this guy exspecially the DR. part , I’d like to know if he really was a “dr.” then what part of the body did he work on ? Was he a dentist? a foot dr. ? a ear nose & throat dr. ? I could go on & on & on .

I honestly can not believe how hateful and ignorant the comments are in this thread.

@Stacy Thomas You’re so “sick and tired of hearing about this guy”, that you actually took the time to click on an article about the guy. The other half of your comment is just too dumb to address.

14% of Americans are black, 38% of the people locked up are black. MLK didn’t graduate high school. Today if you don’t graduate high school you cannot enter college. MLK stole college work from others .They are the worst at school because they don’t care and complain it’s the white people are to blame. They should look in the mirror and blame the person they see.

• Request Transcript
• Business Management
• Early Childhood Education & Adolescent Development
• Criminal Justice Management
• Emergency Services Management
• Maternal Child Health: Human Lactation
• Social Work
• Applied Nutrition & Dietetics
• Clinical Mental Health Counseling
• Health & Wellness
• Human Lactation Studies
• Design your own MBA
• Cybersecurity
• Health Care Leadership
• Organizational Leadership
• Integrative Learning
• Montessori Integrative Learning
• All But Dissertation (ABD)
• Educational Justice & Equity
• Ethical & Creative Leadership
• Humanities & Culture
• Public Policy & Social Change
• Martin Luther King Jr. Studies
• Doctoral Certificates
• All But Dissertation (EdD – ABD)
• Applied Nutrition and Health Education
• Educational Leadership (Pre-K-12)
• Higher Education
• Alcohol & Drug Abuse Counseling
• Cannabis Studies
• California Teacher Permit
• Health Education
• Online Teaching & Learning
• Creativity Studies
• History & Culture
• Literature & Writing
• Leadership in Public Service
• Social Justice
• ETSA Catalog
• Ed2Go Catalog
• U4U! Early College Program
• University Catalog
• Tuition & Fees
• Payment Options
• Scholarships
• Financial Aid Overview
• Federal Work Study
• Net Price Calculator
• How to Register
• Transfer Students Overview
• Certified Learning
• Transfer Partnerships
• International Students
• Military Students
• Accreditation
• Board of Trustees
• Hispanic-Serving Institution
• Leadership & Offices
• Rankings & Awards
• Giving to Union
• Share Your Story
• Union Store
• University Calendar
• What’s Happening
• 2023 Commencement
• Academic Services
• Career Services
• Disability Services
• Mental Health Services
• Online Library
• Military at Union

Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Studies Martin Luther King Jr. Studies

Discover the creative & intellectual legacy.

Union’s Martin Luther King Jr. Studies Specialization supplements your primary work in Educational Studies, Ethical & Creative Leadership, Humanities & Culture, or Public Policy & Social Change to explore Dr. King’s ideas, ideals, practices, and their meaning for today’s complex world. You will be encouraged to be visionary in your thinking, and research our world and how it might be changed for the better.

the curriculum overview

MLK scholars take core and advanced seminars on MLK’s leadership and legacy, encompassing intellectual, spiritual, moral, political, psychological and policy dimensions. They conduct a semester-long internship related to MLK’s legacy of social change and culminate their studies with the MLK capstone seminar. A required workshop and presentations by students and faculty enrich every Ph.D. residency.

Internships of our Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Studies Students

• Interviewing civil rights icons
• Researching the MLK Papers collection at Morehouse College
• Developing a boys-to-men program for African American adolescents
• Policy review and advocacy for felons returning from prison
• Initiating a local food bank & developing area church feeding programs
• Researching the Underground Railroad & collecting video interviews
• Leadership program for lay leaders in a local church
• Advocacy work for women's reproductive rights
• Academic skill-building for challenged youth
• Poetry and creative writing for high school students

Meet Our Faculty

Stewart Burns

Michael Simanga

Nancy Boxill

Hear What Our Students Are Saying

"My very valuable experience in the MLK Studies Program challenged me not just to know and teach MLK Studies, but to commit to contribute to the continuum of vital works which improve the quality of life for those impacted by oppression."

Audrea Nanabray

Student in ethical & creative leadership & mlk specialization.

"The MLK program has provided me with the opportunity to think deeply about ways that I might unite theories of social justice to real world advocacy and activism. Most importantly, it has distinguished my academic course work among others who study theories within black intellectual traditions."

Marlon Smith

Student in humanities & cultures & mlk specialization.

"Out of my Ph.D. studies, I developed Heroes and Dreams Academy, currently serving nearly 250 families in at-risk environments. Union afforded me the opportunity to reflect on my own "heroic journey" and to add robust scholarship to understand the impact of America's greatest social prophet, not only to my life, but to the lives of those I serve."

Owen Cardwell

Funding your future.

Explore your financial aid & scholarship options. We strive to make college affordable. See what makes Union the best value.