Gallery

In the final years of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s life, his colleagues say he increasingly believed that economic opportunity was inextricable from civil rights. This economic quest is the subject of a PBS three-part special, “War on Poverty,” by Hugh Hampton (producer of “Eyes On the Prize” and “The Great Depression”) that starts tonight on local public television stations.

President Lyndon Johnson in 1964 appointed Sargent Shriver, fresh from his success as first director of the Peace Corps, to direct the War on Poverty. At right, honoring King Day, are photos of that era from Times archives.