Released
2004
A riveting PBS "American Experience" entry, Bagwell and Walker's film commemorates the Southern minister's courageous campaign to fight racial injustice through non-violent means, in spite of ongoing harassment from FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, bitter disagreements with other Christian and student leaders, and near-daily death threats. Accentuated by the music of Nina Simone, we glimpse rare, intimate moments of King at home with his family. Dynamic yet dignified, King seems smaller, more serious, and infinitely sadder here than one remembers, but his soaring oratory still resounds like no one else's.