Newswise — New York University will host a screening of HBO’s “King in the Wilderness,” a documentary that explores the final years of the life of Martin Luther King Jr., on Mon., April 9, 6:30 p.m., at NYU Skirball (566 LaGuardia Place [betw. West 3rd Street and Washington Square South]). 

The screening of the film, directed by Peter Kunhardt (“Becoming Warren Buffett,” “Living with Lincoln,” “Nixon by Nixon: In His Own Words”), will be preceded by a panel discussion featuring Executive Producer Trey Ellis, Pulitzer-Prize-winning historian David Levering Lewis, and NYU’s Chief Diversity Officer Lisa Coleman.

The evening, part of NYU Skirball’s series “Skirball Talks,” is sponsored by the Center for the Study of Transformative Lives.

Martin Luther King Jr.’s leadership during the bus boycotts, the sit-ins, and the historic Selma to Montgomery marches are now legendary—but absent from our historic recollection is much of what happened afterward, during the last three years of his life. 

“King in the Wilderness” reveals a conflicted leader who, after the Voting Rights Act passed in 1965, faced an onslaught of criticism from multiple fronts; the Black Power movement saw his nonviolence as weakness and President Lyndon Johnson viewed his anti–Vietnam War speeches as irresponsible.

The film includes revelatory conversations with King’s inner circle of friends, unearthing a new perspective into the civil rights leader’s character, his doctrine of nonviolence, and his internal philosophical struggles prior to his assassination on April 4, 1968.

Tickets are free, but must be reserved in advance by going to: https://nyuskirball.org/events/skirball-talks-king-wilderness/. For more information, please call 212.998.4941.

The event is co-sponsored by the NYU Office of Global Inclusion, Diversity, and Strategic Innovation, NYU’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, and NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.

The Skirball Talks series is made possible in part by a Humanities New York Action Grant and by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Subways: A, B, C, D, E, F, M (W. 4th St.); R, W (8th St.-NYU).

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Center for the Study of Transformative Lives at New York University is dedicated to the study and teaching of the lives and accomplishments of extraordinary individuals who have made a profound contribution to the common good. For more, go to: http://www.transformativelives.org/

 

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