Martin Luther King, Jr. Day: Videos

This video features Martin Luther King Jr.'s 'Mountaintop' speech from 1968.

The wildly disparate yet fatefully entwined stories of assassin James Earl Ray and his target, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
PBS, 2019

Eyes on the Prize is an American television series and 14-part documentary about the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. The documentary originally aired on the PBS network and also aired in the United Kingdom on BBC2. Created and executive produced by Henry Hampton at the film production company Blackside and narrated by Julian Bond, the series uses archival footage, stills and interviews of participants and opponents of the movement. The title of the series is derived from the folk song "Keep Your Eyes on the Prize," which is used in each episode as the opening theme music. A total of 14 episodes of Eyes on the Prize were produced in two separate parts. The first part, Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years 1954–1965, chronicles the time period between the United States Supreme Court ruling Brown v. Board of Education (1954) to the Selma to Montgomery marches of 1965. It consists of six episodes, which premiered on January 21, 1987 and concluded on February 25, 1987. The second part, Eyes on the Prize II: America at the Racial Crossroads 1965–1985, chronicles the time period between the national emergence of Malcolm X during 1964 to the 1983 election of Harold Washington as the first African-American mayor of Chicago.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is remembered as an American hero: a bridge-builder, a shrewd political tactician, and a moral leader. Yet throughout his history-altering political career, he was often treated by U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies like an enemy of the state. In this virtuosic film, award-winning editor, and director Sam Pollard lays out a detailed account of the FBI surveillance that dogged King's activism throughout the '50s and '60s, fueled by the racist and red-baiting paranoia of J. Edgar Hoover. In crafting a rich archival tapestry, featuring some revelatory restored footage of King, Pollard urges us to remember that true American progress is always hard-won.
2020

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s 1967 speech at Stanford. Here, he expounds on his nonviolent philosophy and methodology.

Program focuses on the philosophy and impact of the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Host Melvin Moore and guests Dr. Lawrence D. Reddick (Professor of American History at Harvard University and author of 'Crusade Without Violence'), Dr. Virgil Wood (from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference) and Rev. Earl Lawson (of the Emmanuel Baptist Church in Malden and with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference), all of whom knew King personally, discuss their relationships with King, their individual interpretations of King's philosophy, how King's philosophy related to the masses and other movements, and the impact of the Washington March. Program contains excerpts from Ely Landau's 1970 documentary film King: A Filmed Record, Montgomery to Memphis.
WGBH, 1978