Yikes. He really was a progressive leader. Makes you wonder in perspective how we are going to someday see people for supporting Gitmo or giving gays "some rights" but not all rights.

They don't show the five years between, despite his greater experience, awareness, and maturity. In those years he took on greater issues of a system that created so much poverty and created war.

I think they don't cover those years because those issues remain and would force them to take on current issues they don't want to. Since his earlier work is better publicized, I find learning about his later work teach me more about him, his work, those issues, and leadership. The Riverside Church speech against the war in Vietnam was an incredibly courageous speech I consider right on, displaying mastery of the issues, his audience, oratory, ... basically every element of leadership.

I think most of us know the answer to that question.

Sadly, history will also record that the ruling class of our age often acted to benefit their own self-serving interests, just like the ruling class of every age before us. We call them politicians and corporate executives rather than royalty and nobility, and we call ourselves middle class or working class rather than serfs or slaves, but the balance of power isn't so very different when you get right down to it.

The really insidious thing about our age, though, is that a significant fraction of the injustices are impersonal. People become victims of the The System, where no individual has ever personally chosen to harm them, yet harmed they are all the same. Even if the rich and powerful want to change The System for the better, it can be difficult for them to do so because of perceived consequences in terms of social norms or political fall-out. That in turn is partly because of the mistrust that has built up between the working classes and the ruling class, and the resulting apathy among (in a democratic set-up) the voters.

The remarkable thing about people like Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks was that they stood up and followed their beliefs despite the risks. That is why they are remembered as heroes. It's a shame that The System today has evolved, probably inadvertently, so that it's almost impossible for such heroes ever to reach positions of real power now. Blame it on the political machine, the military-industrial complex, media empires, or whatever you like; they're just different sides of the same problem.

Perhaps one day, history will record that a real leader did make it to the top against the odds, and they made statements of substance and honesty, and they adopted policies of justice and fairness, and they fought for causes worth fighting for, and that was when the damage of the past few years started to be undone. We can but hope.