Exactly a year before the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was gunned down in Memphis, he delivered a speech that alienated ordinarily sympathetic politicians, liberal commentators and even some of his fellow leaders in the civil rights movement...

"All the keepers of the conventional wisdom, especially in the New York Times and the Washington Post, simply vilified and condemned Martin," he said in a 2007 interview with Sojourners magazine. "They spoke about the fact that he had done ill service, not only to his country, but to 'his people.'"