More than 100 schools in the US are named after Martin Luther King Jr. His statue stands next to the National Mall in Washington DC, between the Jefferson and Lincoln memorials. In 1983 Ronald Reagan approved an annual national holiday that marks King’s birthday on 15 January. King was not only canonised posthumously; he was intermittently cherished in his lifetime. In December 1963 he was named Time magazine’s Man of the Year. A year later he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize: aged 35, he was the youngest person to receive the prize, and the second black American (after the...