LAUSR

The long tradition of prophetic rhetoric in the United States reached an extraordinary peak with Martin Luther King, Jr., who made the Hebrew prophets central figures of the civil rights movement. King's voice, imbued with the words of Amos and Isaiah, was enhanced by a radical innovation in the understanding of the Hebrew prophets introduced by the Jewish theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel. The friendship between King and Heschel and their shared theological sensibilities extended across the differences in their backgrounds and religious beliefs. What brought them together were the prophets: the rhetoric of indictment and hope, irony and promise, but…