From Birminghamms Jail to Beyond the Riverside Church: Martin Luther Kinggs Global Authority

Abstract

From critical jurisprudential examinations of his Letter from the Birmingham Jail, from his Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Address and his Nobel Lecture, and from his path-breaking speech at the Riverside Church, all in wider context, this article discusses how Martin Luther King's public ministry, post-Montgomery, should be reinterpreted as a global ministry with global authority. It was a ministry based on his early incorporation of Pan-Africanist perspectives, and his conscious merging, including on the most prominent global stage, the American Civil Rights Narrative, the International Human Rights Narrative, and the International Peace Narrative. Prominent in King's evolution of his global ministry, and the evolution of its community authority, is King's commitment to the need to critically and normatively address questions of law and justice, and the relationship of international human rights law to America's foreign policy obligations. His reflections on justice in this regard were, among many other pathways of their influence, compelling in helping to shape judicial opinions of several American cases. This is, finally, a meditation through Dr. King's global ministry on race and the intersection of international and domestic legal narratives.