The Hit Song that Gave Us MLK Day

March 29th, 1923. A new play opens in Berlin, and quietly changes the future. Onstage are workers who never tire, never complain, and never stop. They’re faster, stronger, and more efficient than humans in every way. They’re called robots. A sci-fi play born out of war and indust ...  Show more

March 18, 1879. A crowd gathers around an indoor track in Brooklyn, NY, as an Irish immigrant named Bartholomew O’Donnell attempts a strange feat: walking 80 miles in 26 hours. Newspapers claim he’s eighty years old. Lap after lap, he circles the track: smoking a pipe, sipping ho ...  Show more

Martin Luther King Jr. talks about leadership, his childhood, and the civil rights struggle in America. This amazing recording of King from 60 years ago is just as relevant today as it was then. This BBC interview was recorded about seven years before MLK's death in 1961. Speaker ...  Show more

The peaceful figurehead of the Civil Rights movement in the early 1960s, Dr Martin Luther King had inspired hundreds of thousands to demand equal rights for African Americans. But by 1968, the once uniting leader seemed to be losing popularity, both amongst activists and in the p ...  Show more

The Daily Show unpacks the many ways Americans have found to misunderstand and misappropriate Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Leslie Jones confronts people on the streets about how they’re celebrating. Dulce Sloan reminds us our heroes aren’t perfect, they’re people. Roy Wood Jr. on ...  Show more

Some of the most enduring photos of the civil rights movement were taken by Ernest Withers. A native of Memphis, Tennessee, Withers earned the trust of Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders. But as it turns out, he was secretly taking photos for the federal gov ...