What to watch
Martin Luther King by Trevor Mcdonald
ITV, 9.00PM
Martin Luther King changed American politics for good and his non-violent brand of civil-rights protest continues to influence today’s campaigners. Trevor Mcdonald presents this worthwhile profile, which, if a tad by the book, is bolstered by its host’s demonstrable commitment and a stellar list of contributors including Colin Powell, Harry Belafonte and civil-rights leaders Al Sharpton and Andrew Young. While the material regarding the “I have a dream” speech and the Montgomery bus boycott may be familiar to most, and the interview with a former KKK member resolutely unsurprising, the story of King’s early life and almost accidental involvement with the civil rights movement is fascinating.
Towards the end of his life, King jockeyed with the growing Black Power movement and fell out with US president Lyndon B Johnson over his public and, for the time, extraordinarily bold conflation of the Vietnam War with endemic racism and poverty. These issues don’t perhaps receive the attention they deserve in the UK. At its heart, this is a solid, straightforward look at one of the most significant figures of the previous century. Gabriel Tate