There is more to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy than the recognizable “I Have a Dream” speech. One hidden gem of Dr. King’s legacy is in the depths of his 10,000+ journals, diaries, sermons, letters, and notebooks left behind.
Together, these journals and writings provide an intimate glimpse of the youngest person (up until 1964) to receive the Nobel Peace Prize at the age of 35. Like Benjamin Franklin and other great journal keepers, Dr. King maintained this habit throughout his short but remarkable life.
It is hard to separate the Dr. King we know today from his habit of reading, writing, and journaling.
Below are the lessons we can learn from Dr. King’s journals, diaries, notebooks, and letters.
Key takeaway: King’s notebooks and papers show private drafting behind public courage. Use the page to rehearse values and arguments before the moment demands them out loud.
Set up your environment to encourage journaling
Dr. King put an enormous effort into developing his mind. One way he did that was to set up his work environment to encourage journaling — and activities that support deep thinking. This rare picture of Dr. King’s office provides a glimpse of how his sophisticated mind developed — surrounded by countless pieces of writing, notebooks, books, journals, and letters.
Journaling or writing did not remain confined to the comfort of home or office — he even journaled while in jail or from his hotel while traveling.
This habit of reflection and supporting environment is also shared by other successful people who kept journals — like Einstein and Leonardo da Vinci.
Today’s environments are full of distractions — TV, emails, social media, internet browsing, and instant messaging. Would Martin Luther King Jr., Einstein, or Leonardo da Vinci allow such distractions in their work environment? Most definitely not.
Reflect on the following questions in your journal to improve your environment:
- Does my environment encourage more journaling time? If not, what is a small improvement I can make to my environment?
- Do I have an outlet for journaling when it is most needed — during meetings, changes in emotion, decision-making, or reflecting on an event?
Collect your rejections and use them to persevere
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s son, Martin Luther King III, was denied admission to a school due to being the “first formal Negro (applicant)…”. This letter of rejection by the school and a draft of the reply by Mrs. Coretta King was found in Dr. King’s collection — hinting that he kept that rejection as a reminder of why he was fighting to progress civil rights.
Caption: This photo released by Sotheby’s shows a draft reply from Dr. and Mrs. Martin Luther King Jr. to the Lovett School on February 25, 1963, after it rejected their application to enroll young Martin III. Sotheby’s via AP & News
We all have experienced rejections in various areas of life — from job searches, college admissions, personal life, or people closest to us — family. However, how many of us have channeled the energy from rejections to keep moving forward?
Reflect in your journal about rejections with the following questions:
- What was your most recent rejection, and what can you learn from it?
- How has a rejection — just or unjust — made you more certain about your goal?
Build on the lessons from school
Dr. King built upon his learnings throughout his schooling — from college to his doctorate. Here is a “Blue Book of Examination” found in his collection. It is on the subject of “Bible” — a course he took at Morehouse College, dated 1946 — when he was 17 years old.
In his book, Stride Toward Freedom, he remembered the president of Morehouse College, Benjamin E. Mays, as “one of the great influences in my life”. He also said that Professor George Kelsey, who taught King the two-semester bible course referenced above, had taught him “to see that behind the legends and myths of the book were many profound truths which one could not escape.”
Reflect in your journal about lifelong learning with the following questions:
- What learnings or subjects from school can you revisit, review, or build upon?
- What teachers inspired you, and how can you continue to live out their teachings? Also, do contact them and say hello!
Learn by taking notes, asking questions, and reflecting
A notable surviving artifact in Dr. King’s collection was a group of more than 800 handwritten index cards. Dr. King began to write these cards with facts, quotes, notes, and references from his student days. He kept these cards with great care — in order and alphabetized by author’s name.
The index cards covered a wide range of themes — theology, history, book notes, sociology — which collectively provided the building blocks for his awe-inspiring sermons, speeches, and his philosophy of non-violent resistance. He was not the only one working this way – Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Audre Lorde kept private notebooks that did similar work for the movement.
One can only try to estimate the number of hours invested in maintaining such a meticulous system of notes and writings — and putting them into practice through his work.
Reflect in your journal about active learning with the following questions:
- How can I use my journal to actively learn — notes, questions, and discussions about a topic? Examples include during meetings, reading a book, thinking, or watching a documentary.
Read books that push your intellect forward
Dr. King’s personal library of books included approximately 1,000 books ranging from childhood books, to school and college texts, through classics of history, literature and philosophy and, of course, sociology and theology. Here is a complete list of the books found in his library. This devotion to learning through reading and writing mirrors Thomas Edison’s approach to journaling, where notebooks served as a tool for capturing and building on ideas.
, Dexter Parsonage Museum, Montgomery, Alabama. Library of Congress](https://i0.wp.com/journalinghabit.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/dr_martin_luther_king_study_museum_dexter_parsonage_journaling.png?fit=2000%2C1248&ssl=1)
He also took the printed text as a starting point for his own work (as in A Modern Anthology of Emerson, which bears on its preliminaries and first few text leaves a full autograph essay on Swedenborg and issues of slavery and freedom).
Reflect in your journal about reading books with the following questions:
- How has my reading habit been? Am I exploring books or topics that fascinate me — even if they are comic books?
- Do I reflect, connect, and expand on the topics that interest me?
Combine learnings from various fields to progress your thinking
The profound writings of Dr. King were a result of his ability to mature his mind — combining poetry, theology, philosophy, scripture, and many other fields — a cross-disciplinary approach also seen in Bruce Lee’s journals, where martial arts met philosophy. For instance, in the following excerpt from his Nobel Lecture, he elegantly emphasizes that the core of all human conflict — racial injustice, poverty, and war — emerges from the gap between a person’s “internal” and “external”:
“Every man lives in two realms, the internal and the external, the internal is the realm of the spiritual … expressed in art, literature, morals and religion. The external is that complex of devices, techniques, mechanisms and instrumentalities by means of which we live. Our problem today is that we have allowed the internal to become lost in the external. We have allowed the means by which we live to outdistance the ends for which we live.”
Reflect in your journal about expanding your thinking with the following questions:
- Have I exposed myself to various disciplines — science, poetry, philosophy, etc.?
Explore a higher purpose through reflection — faith or spirituality
“Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. So I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord”. — I’ve Been to the Mountaintop (Sermon), one night before his assassination.
A key to understanding the sophisticated figure of Dr. King is the central role of faith in his life. “He was a churchman from beginning to end”, said Dr. J. Kameron Carter, professor of theology and black church studies at Duke Divinity School. Indeed, Dr. King maintained his role as a minister of the gospel, a responsibility he did not abandon despite his devotion to advancing civil rights.
This commitment to faith is evident in the hundreds of sermons found in a “sermon box” in his personal library.
Faith and spirituality have the power to focus us on the greater good. This has been a constant theme throughout Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s life.
Reflect in your journal about faith and spirituality with the following questions:
- How have you explored faith or spirituality? Take this quiz to help you think and rank your spirituality.
Reflect on life events — both negative and positive
“I am in Birmingham (jail) because injustice is here” – Martin Luther King
Life is made up of positive, negative, and neutral events. Each allows us to reflect instead of basking in the glory of positive news or feeling down because of a negative event. This was true for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. during various events — John F. Kennedy’s assassination, rejections and setbacks, being awarded the Nobel Prize, and being jailed for peaceful protests.
He accepts the Prize on behalf of a movement “which has not won the very peace and brotherhood which is the essence of the Nobel Prize”; but he qualifies that the award is made in “profound recognition that nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral question of our time–the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to violence and oppression.”
Instead of feeling crippled by a setback or defeat, Dr. King worked even harder when things were tough.
Revisit and expand on your writing and work
Dr. King revisited almost all of his work — as made evident by his annotations, corrections, and additions in his journals and papers. Mary Shelley worked the same way at eighteen – the Frankenstein draft notebooks are full of crossed-out lines and second thoughts in the margins.
Furthermore, his recognizable statement from the jail of “I am in Birmingham because injustice exists here” was made infinitely more direct by substituting “is” for “exists” – “I am in Birmingham because injustice is here”.
King’s revisions also added his famous closing, “Yours for the cause of Peace and Brotherhood, Martin Luther King.”
While many may look upon MLK Day as a three-day weekend, it is worth remembering how Martin Luther King Jr. lived and worked – especially his practice of keeping a journal. His journaling habit should inspire us to reflect on his words, his legacy, and our own path ahead.
King also appears beside Douglass, Du Bois, and Lorde in notebooks of the civil rights movement. For shared notebooks rather than solo pages, see couples who journaled together. To turn a private page into a modern habit, use how to choose a journal style.
If you want occasional notes on how leaders used private writing without turning journaling into a performance, my newsletter is for that. Subscribe here and the first email arrives within the hour.
