Why is there still almost no scholarship on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the German philosopher GWF Hegel? (1/10) #MLKDay @MLKDay @HegelianNews

As the few discussions available have all noted, MLK told the Montgomery Adviser that Hegel was one of his favorite thinkers in 1956 (2/10) https://www.newspapers.com/clip/42679903/the-montgomery-advertiser/

Philosopher Stephen Clifford Ferguson, for instance, emphasizes this in one of the rare treatments that we historians of political thought and political philosophers do have (3/10) https://books.google.com/books?id=diu-mEOeaAoC&lpg=PR7&ots=0nvu-UaRG0&dq=hegel%20%22Martin%20Luther%20King%22&lr&hl=de&pg=PA87#v=onepage&q&f=false

MLK had studied Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, with two faculty members in particular, in the context of his graduate studies in Boston - according to one of these instructors, MLK once "almost took over the class" in enthusiasm (4/10) https://www.pdcnet.org/owl/content/owl_1994_0026_0001_0098_0099

Apparently, working through Hegel's Phenomenology wasn't enough - "I spent my spare time reading his Philosophy of History and Philosophy of Right" (5/10) http://okra.stanford.edu/transcription/document_images/Vol04Scans/473_1-Sept-1958_My%20Pilgrimage%20to%20Nonviolence.pdf

"[Hegel's] contention that 'truth is the whole' led me to a philosophical method of rational coherence. His analysis of the dialectical process, in spite of its shortcomings, helped me to see that growth comes through struggle." (6/10)

My favorite way to introduce to students Hegel's "system in general" - notes by MLK (7/10) @ethicistforhire http://ethicistforhire.blogspot.com/2015/02/martin-luther-king-jr-and-continental.html

Of course, MLK is a thinker that must be understood philosophically without such reference to others - and philosophers like Meena Krishnamurthy @mkrishnamurthyX are showing how exciting this can be, in work from which I have learned a great deal (8/10) https://academic.oup.com/monist/article/98/4/391/2563366

But additionally, I'm convinced that it's likewise crucial to bring historically neglected philosophers, political or otherwise, back into conversation with thinkers more canonical today - and we thereby stand to learn about each figure in question, e.g. both MLK and Hegel (9/10)

In my view, this is one of best ways to demonstrate that these are all powerful thinkers with whom we must engage (I have therefore been pursuing this strategy most recently in my work on several women philosophers) (10/10)