"Many of the old forms of discrimination that we supposedly left behind in the Jim Crow era are suddenly legal again once you’ve been branded a felon," says Michelle Alexander, author of "The New Jim Crow."

Watch more of our conversation with author Michelle Alexander about crime, the war on drugs, and the disproportionately high number of African-Americans in prison.

“American politics is broken today, and Dr. King’s message, his life, his values and virtues can offer us a strategy for healing what is broken.”

The president of Morehouse College speaks about Martin Luther King Jr.'s religious maturation and about the need for Americans to have "the moral will to act" in the face of economic disparities between blacks and whites.

We asked some of the first visitors to the MLK Memorial on the National Mall to share their thoughts on its significance and on the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

To mark his 70th birthday on May 24, we reprise an essay on religion, spirituality, and Bob Dylan, who once said, “There’s mystery, magic, truth, and the Bible in great folk music. I can’t hope to touch that. But I’m going to try.”

Despite America's trials and tribulations, one of the country's redeeming qualities is that somehow it eventually finds a way to "get it right."

Watch much more of our conversation with Rev. Robert Graetz, who calls the Montgomery bus boycott a spiritual movement based on love and nonviolence that transformed the hearts of people across the country.

When was the last time Pennsylvania Avenue and Times Square and countless other locations across the country were packed with crowds at 1:00 in the morning following a presidential election? The same nation that elected George Bush by the hanging chads of 2000 has just given the presidency to someone who was relatively unknown at that time.

April 4, 2008 is the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He was in Memphis to help striking sanitation workers get recognition for their union. We look at some of the very different ways African-American ministers today are trying to carry on the King legacy.