“The history books may write it Rev. King was born in Atlanta, and then came to Montgomery, but we feel that he was born in Montgomery in the struggle here, and now he is moving to Atlanta for bigger responsibilities.”Member of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, November 1959

Preacherthis simple term describes the twenty-five-year-old Ph.D. in theology who arrived in Montgomery, Alabama, to become the pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in 1954. His name was Martin Luther King Jr., but where did this young minister come from? What did he believe, and what role would he play in the growing activism of the civil rights movement of the 1950s?

In Becoming King: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Making of a National Leader, author Troy Jackson chronicles Kings emergence and effectiveness as a civil rights leader by examining his relationship with the people of Montgomery, Alabama. Using the sharp lens of Montgomerys struggle for racial equality to investigate Kings burgeoning leadership, Jackson explores Kings ability to connect with the educated and the unlettered, professionals and the working class. In particular, Jackson highlights Kings alliances with Jo Ann Robinson, a young English professor at Alabama State University; E. D. Nixon, a middle-aged Pullman porter and head of the local NAACP chapter; and Virginia Durr, a courageous white woman who bailed Rosa Parks out of jail after Parks refused to give up her bus seat to a white person.

Jackson offers nuanced portrayals of Kings relationships with these and other civil rights leaders in the community to illustrate Kings development within the community. Drawing on countless interviews and archival sources, Jackson compares Kings sermons and religious writings before, during, and after the Montgomery bus boycott. Jackson demonstrates how Kings voice and message evolved during his time in Montgomery, reflecting the shared struggles, challenges, experiences, and hopes of the people with whom he worked.

Many studies of the civil rights movement end analyses of Montgomerys struggle with the conclusion of the bus boycott and the establishment of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Jackson surveys Kings uneasy post-boycott relations with E. D. Nixon and Rosa Parks, shedding new light on Parkss plight in Montgomery after the boycott and revealing the internal discord that threatened the movements hard-won momentum. The controversies within the Montgomery Improvement Association compelled King to position himself as a national figure who could rise above the quarrels within the movement and focus on attaining its greater goals.

 Though the Montgomery struggle thrust King into the national spotlight, the local impact on the lives of blacks from all socioeconomic classes was minimal at the time. As the citizens of Montgomery awaited permanent change, King left the city, taking the lessons he learned there onto the national stage. In the crucible of Montgomery, Martin Luther King Jr. was transformed from an inexperienced Baptist preacher into a civil rights leader of profound national importance.

Without question, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is the face of the civil rights revolution that reshaped the social and political landscape of the United States. Although many biographers and historians have examined Dr. Kings activism, few have recognized the pivotal role that the people of Montgomery, Alabama, played in preparing him for leadership. King arrived in Montgomery as a virtually unknown doctoral student, but his activities therefrom organizing the Montgomery bus boycott to building relationships with local activists such as Rufus Lewis, E. D. Nixon, and Virginia Durrestablished him as the movements most visible leader.

Becoming King: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Making of a National Leader illustrates how the people of Montgomery influenced King as much as he influenced them. In Montgomery, brave citizens, both black and white, spearheaded a protest movement that also launched Kings public ministry. Author Troy Jackson demonstrates that spending his formative years in the city of Montgomery gave King the skills and experience to become a hero to generations of Americans.

Troy Jackson is an editor of The Papers of Martin Luther King Jr., Volume VI: Advocate of the Social Gospel, September 1948–March 1963. After receiving his Ph.D. at the University of Kentucky, he became Senior Pastor at University Christian Church in Cincinnati, Ohio.