Table of Contents

Foreword by William Julius Wilson
Introduction

Part I. The Long March
1. The Patriarchs
2. The Prophets of Justice
3. The City and the Church
4. The Torchbearer

Part II. The Campaign
5. The Pauper
6. An “American Commune”
7. A Counter-War on Poverty

Part III. The Vision
8. Facing Structural Injustice
9. A “Right Not to Starve”

Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index

About the Author

Sylvie Laurent is a French cultural historian who studies race and class in the United States and teaches American Studies at Sciences Po (Paris). She was previously a W. E. B. Du Bois fellow at Harvard University.

Reviews

“In her debut book, Laurent (American Studies/Paris Institute of Political Studies) draws on extensive research into Martin Luther King Jr.'s writings, speeches, and papers as well as archival and published sources to make a strong argument that his campaign for social justice went beyond race to encompass broad, transformative social and economic changes for all poor Americans. . . . King's analysis of social issues, as delineated in Laurent's useful reappraisal, seems as relevant today.”
*Kirkus Reviews*

"A meticulously researched look into the development of King’s thought. . . . As we commemorate King’s life and legacy, Laurent’s important new book highlights the depth of the wisdom and organizing skill he brought to the movement for economic justice."
*The Progressive*

“This powerful work invites a major reconsideration of American civil rights history, the significance of the Poor People’s Campaign of 1968, and especially of King’s deeply egalitarian socialist vision of society. The book transcends and negates traditional notions that King was a civil rights leader committed exclusively to the liberation of his African-American people. Without ever abandoning that objective, he expanded his range of activism in pursuing a vision of a fair and just society for all oppressed people. Laurent’s book above all restores King to his rightful and still profoundly under-recognized place in the history of militant African-American liberation figures.”
*Truthdig*

“The story [Laurent] tells is one that evokes the passions of the period known as the Sixties while carefully explaining the personalities and politics of the movement for economic and social justice at the time. Given the centrality of King to the Poor People’s Campaign, it is only natural that Laurent’s text makes King the centerpiece of her narrative.”
*CounterPunch*

"In her new book King and the Other America, historian Sylvie Laurent helps rescue the Poor People’s Campaign from this unfair reputation and makes a compelling case that it deserves to be not only better remembered but also more closely studied and emulated by the left today. . . . King and the Other America helps make another important argument. Situating the economic egalitarianism of the Poor People’s Campaign and Martin Luther King Jr.’s later years in a far longer history of black activism and social-democratic thinking, she helps map out the deeper intellectual and political roots of an entwined racial and economic egalitarianism that has been at the center of much of African-American politics for nearly a century. By doing so, Laurent offers us an elegant and timely history of how black intellectuals have long made a case for the intersections between class and race."
*The Nation*

“Engaging . . . . Our political scene is never far removed from Laurent’s narrative. . . .  A book for this moment, King and the Other America raises fresh questions about the validity of any historical sweep that fails to seriously consider the case of the Poor People’s Campaign and its legacy.”
*Black Perspectives*