Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. used disciplined organizing tactics to win civil rights

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. developed a disciplined philosophy of nonviolence

Dr. King defined nonviolence as a discipline: resistance to injustice, love over hate, redemptive suffering, and faith in justice—drawing moral guidance from the Christian Gospel and strategic methods from Mahatma Gandhi.

See the individuals who inspired the ideology and practice of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

This resource examines how Dr. King drew inspiration from figures such as Thomas Carlyle, Henry David Thoreau, and Mahatma Gandhi, integrating global literature, moral philosophy, and nonviolence into his speeches and activism.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. shifted his focus toward economic justice in his final years

In the late 1960s, Dr. King increasingly emphasized economic inequality, labor rights, and poverty, culminating in the Poor People’s Campaign, which argued that civil rights gains were incomplete without financial security.

Listen to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. read his famous Letter from Birmingham Jail

Written in 1963 while jailed for nonviolent protest, Dr. King’s letter defends civil disobedience, rejects calls for patience, and argues that unjust laws must be confronted to expose injustice and force meaningful change.

Creating Martin Luther King Jr. Day took 15 years of political advocacy

After Dr. King’s assassination, activists—including his wife Coretta Scott King—spent 15 years pushing Congress to create a federal holiday in his honor, facing repeated resistance before it was finally signed into law in 1983.

The FBI ran a covert campaign to discredit Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

From 1963 to 1968, the FBI surveilled Dr. King with wiretaps, hotel bugs, informants, and anonymous threats, citing concerns about Communist influence—an effort later revealed through declassified files and documented in the film MLK/FBI.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was an avid fan of Star Trek

Dr. King praised the show’s vision of an integrated future and convinced African-American actress Nichelle Nichols to remain on the show, arguing her role offered a rare, powerful image of racial equality on American television.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. survived a near-fatal assassination attempt in 1958

In 1958, Dr. King was stabbed in the chest by a woman at a Harlem book signing. The blade lodged near his aorta, requiring emergency surgery to save his life.

Martin Luther King Jr. invoked the Declaration to demand equality

This article examines how Martin Luther King Jr. drew on the language and ideals of the Declaration of Independence to frame the Civil Rights Movement as a continuation of the nation’s founding promises.

Hear the story of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s 'I Have a Dream' speech

This podcast traces Dr. King’s path into the Civil Rights movement and the buildup to the 1963 March on Washington, unpacking how his speech became a defining moment in US history.

Learn about the life of Coretta Scott King in her own words

Coretta Scott King, married to Martin Luther King Jr. in 1953, was a civil rights leader, author, and organizer who advanced the principles of nonviolence, racial equality, and women’s rights—founding The King Center to promote education and social justice worldwide.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. became the youngest Nobel Peace Prize laureate in 1964

At the age of 35, Dr. King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his nonviolent leadership in the Civil Rights movement, making him the youngest recipient at the time.

Malcolm X’s relationship with Dr. King gradually became less contentious over time

Malcolm X initially rejected Martin Luther King Jr.’s nonviolent approach and integrationist strategy. Still, he gradually acknowledged shared goals, signaling a late-life openness to cooperation within the broader Civil Rights movement.

The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a 1955-56 mass protest against bus segregation

Organized in 1955, the Montgomery Bus Boycott mobilized tens of thousands of Black bus riders to boycott city buses for 381 days, crippling the system and ultimately leading to desegregation through a Supreme Court ruling. A 26-year-old Martin Luther King Jr. was an organizer.

Learn about political conventions held before the Civil War by Black Americans to organize for civil rights

Beginning in 1830, free Black men and women across the US and Canada held "Colored Conventions"—state and national political meetings that served as a cornerstone of 19th-century Black organizing for civil and human rights.

What business leaders can learn from Stephen King

Stephen King's "On Writing" is one of the definitive craft books, a subgenre of nonfiction aimed at writers looking to learn from the titans of literature. This podcast explores the book's lessons from a business perspective, gleaning lessons in leadership from King's famous text.

The rise of the campaign speech

What compels an audience shifts over time, meaning yesterday's popular speeches might not go over the same way if delivered today. However, impactful campaign speeches across time share some qualities, including taking the audience seriously, inviting listeners to engage with or respond to presented materials, and using everyday, informal language. Additionally, US political candidates typically promote themselves in their speeches, an approach initially considered vulgar in Australia and Britain.

One of Nike’s most transformational executives started out as its lawyer

Rob Strasser helped settle a lawsuit against Onitsuka Tiger when Blue Ribbon Sports became Nike and stopped distributing the Japanese shoes. Strasser then became a powerhouse at Nike credited with saving the company from going under in the 1970s, before leaving the company in 1987.

Guerilla warfare was a significant part of the success of the Americans

Francis Marion, also known as the Swamp Fox, was a Patriot general who used guerrilla warfare tactics in the Carolinas during the Revolutionary War’s southern campaigns. Also called “maneuver warfare,” the approach focuses on disorienting the enemy and exploiting their weaknesses while avoiding their strengths.

'If the time is not ripe, we have to ripen the time.'

- Activist Dorothy Height (1912-2010)

Marketers often use psychological tactics to sway consumer action

From making someone feel as though a resource is scarce (“only one item left in stock!”) to invoking a sense of authority (“top dentists recommend this toothpaste”), marketers use a variety of psychological tactics to elicit a desired response from their target audience.

Activist investors use large ownership positions to influence companies

By holding large ownership positions, which often come with leveraged access to a company's board or the ability to force a shareholder vote, activist shareholders can change a company's corporate governance, leadership, and overall direction. Critics argue that activist shareholders hurt companies in the long term by prioritizing short-term higher shareholder returns over sustainability and growth efforts.

Thomas Hofeller was the GOP strategist known as the 'master of gerrymandering'

Republican consultant Thomas Hofeller quietly shaped US politics for decades by engineering partisan maps nationwide. His files, released after his death, revealed strategies to maximize GOP advantage and diminish Democratic influence.

Walt Disney's 1957 corporate strategy document

From TV to music to amusement parks, Disney is widely regarded as one of the most successful American companies of all time. That's partly because Walt Disney was carefully building a corporate strategy from day one that accounted for the company's publications, merchandise licensing, comic strips, and more. See his 1957 corporate strategy document for yourself (spoiler alert, it's covered in Mickey Mouse illustrations).

Lenin’s “dictatorship of the proletariat” meant power held by workers, not elites

Lenin argued that capitalism concentrated power in a small ruling class, and only transferring authority to industrial workers could eliminate exploitation and class hierarchy. This five-minute explainer outlines how he envisioned that revolutionary shift.

Gerrymandering works through two techniques: cracking opposing voters across districts to dilute their power, and packing them into a few to waste their votes in lopsided majorities.

The story of Dollree Mapp, whose legal challenge over her 1957 conviction for possessing "obscene material" led to a major strengthening of the Fourth Amendment

Exploring the Larry Bird punch that almost changed March Madness

Abraham Lincoln was almost assassinated weeks before his inauguration as he traveled from Illinois to DC through Baltimore in 1861; it took two independent claims for Lincoln to be convinced the threat was real

US intelligence allegedly pursued more than 600 schemes to assassinate Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro.

Studies suggest when you sleep is as important as how much you get, and syncing with your circadian rhythms may lead to less fatigue and improved long-term health outcomes

The identity of the Tank Man in the iconic photo from the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests remains unknown and was possibly killed.

See the most iconic photos from four decades of LIFE magazine

Astronauts have repaired genetic damage in space using CRISPR—a molecular tool that can make precise changes to DNA and is used in single-celled organisms to attack invasive viruses.

Legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed the SC Johnson headquarters in Wisconsin, aiming to make a cathedral-like workplace

Warren Buffett's former professor Benjamin Graham is known as the 'father of value investing,' a strategy in which investors seek to buy stocks trading below their intrinsic worth.

SpongeBob exemplifies Aristotle's philosophy for living well because he understands that happiness doesn't come from external factors like money, recognition, or power.

Learn how monoclonal antibodies, which mimic the body's antibodies, can fight diseases like Ebola.

After the Boston Tea Party, colonists switched to coffee, which became the main morning drink for revolutionaries.

In 2025, four executives from large tech companies were given positions in the US Army Reserves—including Palantir Chief Technology Officer Shyam Sankar, which reinforced Palantir's ties with the US military and its role as a leading defense partner.

A small portion of The Winstons' 'Amen, Brother,' an obscure '60s gospel record, is the basis for thousands of hip-hop tracks, making it one of the most sampled records ever that's informally known as 'the Amen break.'

How Amazon operates a 'flywheel' business model, a self-reinforcing cycle that drives continuous growth

Against his wishes, Albert Einstein's brain was removed before his cremation, and the pathologist responsible stored it for decades in mason jars within a beer cooler.

American dance legend Martha Graham, sometimes called 'the Picasso of dance,' refused to perform at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin and conceived the piece 'Chronicle' in response to the experience.

The Brothers Grimm were lawyers before they were storytellers, but became interested in fairy tales as they began investigating how rules and customs had been passed down through cultures.

Listen to an in-depth conversation on the links between Parkinson's disease and herbicide exposure and the challenging pace of scientific investigation.

Up to a million Girl Scouts sell about 200 million cookie boxes every spring, generating $800 million, largely because refusing a child is frowned upon

In recent years a child anxiety expert has created and tested a novel phobia and anxiety treatment approach for children, focused on changing how parents respond to the fears.

The American Society of Civil Engineers' infrastructure report card gave the US a C in 2025, its highest grade since the project launched in 1998.