Ring out freedom!: the voice of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the making of the Civil Rights Movement

Martin Luther King, Jr. was more than civil rights movement's most visible figure, he was its voice. This book describes what went into creation of that voice. It explores how King used words to define a movement. From a place situated between two cultures of American society, King shaped language that gave movement its identity and meaning. Fredrik Sunnemark shows how materialistic, idealistic, and religious ways of explaining world coexisted in King's speeches and writings. He points out roles of God, Jesus, church, and the Beloved Community in King's rhetoric. Sunnemark examines King's use of allusions, his strategy of employing different meanings of key ideas to speak to different members of his audience, and way he put into play international ideas and events to achieve certain rhetorical goals. The book concludes with an analysis of King's development after 1965, examining roots, content, and consequences of his so-called radicalization. Fredrik Sunnemark is Senior Lecturer in Cultural Studies at University Trollhattan-Uddevalla, Sweden.