Orval prophet biography of martin luther king

Clayborne Carson: King was a prophet for all of humanity

Stanford scholar's Gittler Prize lecture challenges traditional thinking on MLK

By Charles A.

RadinFeb. 15, 2012

The foremost scholar of the life of Martin Luther King Jr. spent much of his career puzzling over the apparent conflict between the civil rights movement as a grassroots, bottom-up phenomenon and the top-down movement that it became.

“It has been the great task of my life to reconcile these opposing views,” Clayborne Carson, professor of history and director of Stanford University’s Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute, said during a lecture in Rapaporte Treasure Hall.

Finally, Carson said, he came to the understanding that King was not a civil rights leader, but a prophet, and his vision was not for Montgomery, Alabama, or the United States, but for all humanity.

Carson was at Brandeis to accept the Joseph B.

and Toby Gittler Prize, which he shared th