King in the Wilderness

From award-winning director/producer Peter Kunhardt, King in the Wilderness follows Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. during the volatile last three years of his life, from the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 to his assassination in April 1968. Drawing on revelatory stories from his inner circle of friends, the film provides a clear window into the civil-rights leader's character, showing him to be a man with an unshakeable commitment to peaceful protest in the face of an increasingly unstable country. Illuminating and poignant, the documentary -- which is tied to the 50th anniversary of King's death -- reveals a conflicted leader whose successes were punctuated in his final years by an onslaught of criticism from both sides of the political spectrum, whether the Black Power movement, who saw his nonviolence as weakness, or President Lyndon B. Johnson, who viewed his anti-Vietnam War speeches as irresponsible. With compassion and clarity, King in the Wilderness unearths a stirring new perspective into Dr. King's character, his radical doctrine of nonviolence, and his internal philosophical struggles prior to his death, inviting a sense of penetrating intimacy and insight into one of the most profound thinkers of our time.