The Hidden King: The Disruptive Life of Martin Luther King, Jr.

By Jeanne Theoharis

A revelatory new biography of Martin Luther King Jr. that uncovers his long and misunderstood battle against structural racism beyond the South

Today, Martin Luther King Jr.'s activism is synonymous with his fight against Jim Crow. But King's freedom dreams had far wider horizons. In The Hidden King, historian Jeanne Theoharis reveals that the South was always only the beginning.

Though the national media regularly whitewashed King's work, preferring to focus on his southern campaigns, Theoharis reveals that, from the beginning, Martin and Coretta Scott King challenged the hypocrisy of northerners who sought change in the South but not at home. King spent years crisscrossing the north, networking with local Black activists and supporting direct action to expose police brutality and housing segregation. When Democratic leaders undermined him, he doubled down on disruption in pursuit of peace, economic opportunity, and Black political power. Theoharis uncovers a far more activist King than previously seen, a leader who battled through a physical disability, listened closely to local movements, and committed himself to the difficult work of challenging American liberal racism.

Packed with new revelations, The Hidden King offers a humanizing portrait of a strikingly modern activist and his prophetic program for confronting a nation more committed to order than justice.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1541605616
• ISBN13: 9781541605619
• Release Date: February 2026
• Publisher: Basic Books
• Length: 384 Pages
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.0" x 9.3"