Based on years of original research, Never to Leave Us Alone is the first book-length treatment of the prayer life of the famed religious and civil rights leader. Drawing on personal prayers that King recited as a seminarian and graduate student, preacher, pastor, and then civil rights leader, award-winning historian Lewis Baldwin explains how King turned to both private prayer and meditation for his own spiritual fulfillment, and to public prayer as part of his sermonic discourse, as an aspect of his pastoral care, and as a way of moving, inspiring, and reaffirming people in the context of a crusade for equal rights, social justice, and peace. In the end, Baldwin argues, King's prayer life and reflections offer important keys not only to King the man but also to our own cultivation of core human values. The book includes photographs. "Baldwin's work will remain the most definitive about the man and his mission. In this work, Baldwin discovers the mystique of Martin Luther King Jr., and he carefully examines the key to King's strength of spirit against seemingly impossible odds. " --Wayatt Tee Walker, close aide to Martin Luther King Jr. "This intense probing of the prayer life of Martin Luther King Jr. by Lewis Baldwin brings depth and clarity to the concept of 'praying without ceasing'. In the tradition of an African griot, Baldwin unfolds the story of Dr. King, spirit-filled servant of God, who utilized the power of persistent prayer, plus a constant study of human inequities in an alien land and the search for truth, as all encompassing in the process of 'witnessing for the Lord!' This is not simply another collection of facts about the celebrated 'peaceful warrior.' It is a newly opened window into the heart and soul of a servant-preacher who continues to teach through his understanding and experience of the power of prayer. It should be required of all theological seminarians!" --Melva Costen, Helmer Nielsen Professor Emerita of Worship and Music, Interdenominational Theological Center, Atlanta, Georgia "Lewis Baldwin, the foremost chronicler of Martin Luther King Jr., traces his prayer life and its huge, enabling force in the fight for human rights. A wonderful book! Read it, and you will be inspired." --David Buttrick, Buffington Professor of Homiletics and Liturgics Emeritus, Vanderbilt University Divinity School "This intense probing of the prayer life of Martin Luther King Jr. by Lewis Baldwin brings depth and clarity to the concept of 'praying without ceasing'. In the tradition of an African griot, Baldwin unfolds the story of Dr. King, spirit-filled servant of God, who utilized the power of persistent prayer, plus a constant study of human inequities in an alien land and the search for truth, as all encompassing in the process of 'witnessing for the Lord!' This is not simply another collection of facts about the celebrated 'peaceful warrior.' It is a newly opened window into the heart and soul of a servant-preacher who continues to teach through his understanding and experience of the power of prayer. It should be required of all theological seminarians!" --Melva Costen, Helmer Nielsen Professor Emerita of Worship and Music, Interdenominational Theological Center, Atlanta, Georgia "Lewis Baldwin, the foremost chronicler of Martin Luther King Jr., traces his prayer life and its huge, enabling force in the fight for human rights. A wonderful book! Read it, and you will be inspired." --David Buttrick, Buffington Professor of Homiletics and Liturgics Emeritus, Vanderbilt University Divinity School Lewis V. Baldwin is professor emeritus of religious studies at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee. He is the author of There Is a Balm in Gilead: The Cultural Roots of Martin Luther King, Jr. (1991); To Make the Wounded Whole: The Cultural Legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. (1992); and Never to Leave Us Alone: The Prayer Life of Martin Luther King, Jr. (2010).