Director of the MLK Jr. Institute at Stanford leads 2025 celebration
King’s Institute for Faith & Culture (IFC) begins its spring 2025 season with nationally recognized author, historian, and commentator Lerone Martin, Ph.D., and the annual celebration of the life of Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin is the Martin Luther King Jr., Centennial Professor in Religious Studies, African & African American Studies, and The Nina C. Crocker Faculty Scholar at Stanford University. He also serves as the Director of the Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford. He regularly appears on programs and networks including NBC’s TODAY Show, The History Channel, PBS, and NPR, as well as in numerous national print outlets. Currently, he serves as an advisor for the upcoming PBS documentary series “The History of Gospel Music & Preaching.”
Audiences have two opportunities to hear from Martin on Saturday, Jan. 18. At 11 a.m. community members are invited to “Martin Luther King Jr.: A Conversation with Dr. Lerone Martin.” At 6 p.m. he will present “A King for Our Times.” Both talks will be held at Lee Street Baptist Church in Bristol, Virginia, and are open to the public and free of charge.
Martin’s appearances are made possible through support from Eastman, First Horizon Bank, the Langston Centre, and the Institute for Faith & Culture.
“We are pleased to work with Eastman, First Horizon Bank, and the Langston Centre to bring Dr. Lerone Martin to the Tri-Cities,” said Martin Dotterweich, Ph.D., director of the IFC. “Not only is he a leading scholar on Dr. King’s religious and political legacy, he leads a vitally important center for research and teaching that bears that legacy across the world today. Dr. Martin exemplifies faith engaging culture, and we are delighted to welcome folks from across the region to celebrate with us.”
Martin is the author of “The Gospel of J. Edgar Hoover” and “Preaching on Wax: The Phonograph and the Making of Modern African American Religion.” Most recently, he became co-director of a million-dollar grant from the Henry Luce Foundation to fund “The Crossroads Project,” a four-year, multi-institution project to advance public understanding of the history, politics, and cultures of African American religions.
For his work he has received a number of prominent fellowships, including from the National Endowment for the Humanities, The American Council of Learned Societies, The Institute for Citizens and Scholars, The Teagle Foundation, Templeton Religion Trust, the Louisville Institute for the Study of American Religion, and the Forum for Theological Exploration.
Martin received his bachelor’s degree in Religious Studies from Anderson University in Anderson, South Carolina, his master’s in Divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary in Princeton, New Jersey, and his doctorate in Religion in U.S. History from Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.
