The sermons and speeches of Martin Luther King Jr., comprise an extensive catalog of American writing and oratory – some of which are internationally well-known, while others remain unheralded and await rediscovery. Martin Luther King Jr. was a prominent African-American clergyman, a leader in the civil rights movement and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate. King himself observed, "In the quiet recesses of my heart, I am fundamentally a clergyman, a Baptist preacher."

Speechwriter and orator

The famous "I Have a Dream" address was delivered in August 1963 from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. Less well-remembered are the early sermons of that young, 25-year-old pastor who first began preaching at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1954. As a political leader in the Civil Rights Movement and as a modest preacher in a Baptist church, King evolved and matured across the span of a life cut short. The range of his rhetoric was anticipated and encompassed within "The Three Dimensions of a Complete Life," which he preached as his trial sermon at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in 1954 and every year thereafter for the rest of his life.

Sermons

Speeches