''King in the Wilderness'' is an American documentary film about Martin Luther King Jr. that premiered on April 2, 2018 on

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American premium television network, which is the flagship property of namesake parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is ba ...

, focusing on the final two years of his life leading up to his assassination on April 4, 1968. The film includes some never-before-seen footage of interviews with some of those closest to King interspersed with historical archives during a period of his life. In addition to upsetting both President

Lyndon Johnson Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), often referred to by his initials LBJ, was an American politician who served as the 36th president of the United States from 1963 to 1969. He had previously served as the 37th vice ...

and the FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, as well as numerous other opposition groups, and despite King's own self-doubts as he was coming to terms with his possible death, he refused to back away from the civil rights and anti-war challenges of his times. The film focuses on events in King's life and the civil rights movement such as the Chicago Freedom Movement, the

James Meredith march The March Against Fear was a major 1966 demonstration in the Civil Rights Movement in the South. Activist James Meredith launched the event on June 5, 1966, intending to make a solitary walk from Memphis, Tennessee, to Jackson, Mississippi v ...

, the anti-Vietnam War protests and King's " Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence" speech, the 1967 riots, preparation for the

Poor People's Campaign The Poor People's Campaign, or Poor People's March on Washington, was a 1968 effort to gain economic justice for poor people in the United States. It was organized by Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference ( ...

, the Memphis sanitation strike, the " I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech, and King's assassination and

funeral A funeral is a ceremony connected with the final disposition of a corpse, such as a burial or cremation, with the attendant observances. Funerary customs comprise the complex of beliefs and practices used by a culture to remember and respect th ...

. ''King in the Wilderness'' won an Emmy for Outstanding Historical Documentary at the 40th News and Documentary Emmy Awards. Among King's colleagues and friends interviewed in the documentary are Bernard Lafayette, Andrew Young, Diane Nash, John Lewis, Dorothy Cotton, Joan Baez,

Xernona Clayton Xernona Clayton Brady (née Brewster, born August 30, 1930) is an American civil rights leader and broadcasting executive. During the Civil Rights Movement, she worked for the National Urban League and Southern Christian Leadership Conference, w ...

Jesse Jackson Jesse Louis Jackson (né Burns; born October 8, 1941) is an American political activist, Baptist minister, and politician. He was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988 and served as a shadow U.S. senator ...

, Mary Lou Finley, Cleveland Sellers, and C. T. Vivian.

References

External links

''King in the Wilderness''
on

* 2018 films American documentary films Films about Martin Luther King Jr. HBO documentary films 2018 documentary films 2010s English-language films Films directed by Peter Kunhardt 2010s American films {{civil-rights-movement-stub

See also

References

External links