Abstract

As if anticipating the thesis that we live at the end of history, Martin Luther King, Jr., argued that we live in perpetual struggle against evil and injustice. In his last monograph, King outlined six challenges facing black Americans seeking justice. These six challenges may be generalized into a nonviolent theory of social struggle applicable to various contexts. King's six challenges are reviewed: somebodyness, group identity, existing freedoms, powerful action programs, continuing organization, and a revolution of values. In this framework, we see how King understood civil rights activism in a complex context of liberation, not confined to "protest."