Ralph Edlin Luker (March 1, 1940 - August 8, 2015) was an American historian, teacher, and the author of several books about race, religion and the Civil Rights Movement. Luker was born in Louisville, Kentucky, and received his B.A. from Duke University in 1962, a B.D. from Drew University in 1966, and then both an M.A. (1969) and Ph.D. (1973) from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Luker lived in Arden, Delaware from 1980 until 1986 when he and his family (wife and two daughters) moved to Atlanta, Georgia to begin work on The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr.