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kellian901's review
5.0
Wow. Where to even begin with this book. I knew embarrassingly little about Martin Luther King’s life except that he was a key figure in the Civil Rights Movement, and that he was killed here, in the city I have called home for 40 years. I never knew what a supremely intelligent, eloquent, and wise man he was. A peacemaker to his very core, selfless, and a man after God’s own heart.
My elementary school age son bought this book for me for Christmas. He had been learning about King in school and wanted to me to share in his knowledge. But I found myself struggling to get started. Then I found the audiobook. After just a few minutes of Lavar Burton’s narration, clips of spiritual songs, and rare audio recordings of King’s speeches…. I was insatiable. I followed along with my paperback and my highlighter. There are clips the audiobook has that the paperback does not… and letters, photos, articles, and a timeline that the paperback has and the audiobook does not. I highly recommend BOTH versions for an immersive and impactful experience.
Most people have heard his more famous speeches: “ I have a dream” and “I’ve been to the mountaintop”, but I had not heard or read them in their entirety. With this book I had the chance to do that, but also to read many other speeches as well as the personal development and soul searching that led him to those very public moments. There is recounting of facts and history, but there is also revealing vulnerability of his thoughts. Seeing the behind-the-scenes struggle to balance roles of a husband, father, pastor, and movement leader.
If it is even possible to choose a single quote for my review, it is this:
“Like life, racial understanding is not something that we find but something that we must create. What we find when we enter these mortal plains is existence; but existence is the raw material out of which all life must be created. A productive and happy life is not something you find; it is something you make. And so the ability of Negroes and whites to work together, to understand each other, will not be found ready-made; it must be created by the fact of contact.”
I want to do better.
My elementary school age son bought this book for me for Christmas. He had been learning about King in school and wanted to me to share in his knowledge. But I found myself struggling to get started. Then I found the audiobook. After just a few minutes of Lavar Burton’s narration, clips of spiritual songs, and rare audio recordings of King’s speeches…. I was insatiable. I followed along with my paperback and my highlighter. There are clips the audiobook has that the paperback does not… and letters, photos, articles, and a timeline that the paperback has and the audiobook does not. I highly recommend BOTH versions for an immersive and impactful experience.
Most people have heard his more famous speeches: “ I have a dream” and “I’ve been to the mountaintop”, but I had not heard or read them in their entirety. With this book I had the chance to do that, but also to read many other speeches as well as the personal development and soul searching that led him to those very public moments. There is recounting of facts and history, but there is also revealing vulnerability of his thoughts. Seeing the behind-the-scenes struggle to balance roles of a husband, father, pastor, and movement leader.
If it is even possible to choose a single quote for my review, it is this:
“Like life, racial understanding is not something that we find but something that we must create. What we find when we enter these mortal plains is existence; but existence is the raw material out of which all life must be created. A productive and happy life is not something you find; it is something you make. And so the ability of Negroes and whites to work together, to understand each other, will not be found ready-made; it must be created by the fact of contact.”
I want to do better.
marcsmithnj's review
5.0
"A productive and happy life is not something you find; it is something you make."
An amazing autobiography.
An amazing autobiography.
tittypete's review
5.0
Don't think, as a white brother I'll ever totally get the black experience in America. That said I dont think one book has ever stirred more empathy. Though a chronicle of relentless ignorance and cruelty perpetrated by my people the book only serves to stir hope. For the first time in a very long time I was left with a feeling of moral purpose and optimism. I cannot recommend this book enough. MLK was most righteous. I underlined half of every page and found myself craving to be a better human. This book shows how I can do it. Love carries a big stick.
nicoleankenmann's review
5.0
Audiobook: 09hr 35m
The relevant message of Martin Luther King Jr’s words in 2020 is gutting.
MLK’s steadfast hope for true and universal equality for Black people — sometimes expressed in his own voice, thanks to historic recordings — has yet to be realized. We are living in a political moment that echoes so closely the civil rights fight of 1960’s America, and as we march the streets to proclaim “Black Lives Matter,” there is much we can learn from the fierce and gentle man who led the same movement almost sixty years ago.
This book is a curation of MLK’s writing and speeches, and not a true autobiography because he was killed before he’d had the chance to pen a full memoir of his own. I pray the leaders of this wave will be spared his fate while still embracing his heart for non-violent action and true justice.
The relevant message of Martin Luther King Jr’s words in 2020 is gutting.
MLK’s steadfast hope for true and universal equality for Black people — sometimes expressed in his own voice, thanks to historic recordings — has yet to be realized. We are living in a political moment that echoes so closely the civil rights fight of 1960’s America, and as we march the streets to proclaim “Black Lives Matter,” there is much we can learn from the fierce and gentle man who led the same movement almost sixty years ago.
This book is a curation of MLK’s writing and speeches, and not a true autobiography because he was killed before he’d had the chance to pen a full memoir of his own. I pray the leaders of this wave will be spared his fate while still embracing his heart for non-violent action and true justice.
briandice's review
5.0
I am not certain, fifty years later, that White America can really appreciate what Martin Luther King, Jr. did for this country. Beyond the necessary needed to be done for the African-American population, it is difficult - impossible, really - to imagine how much our nation would have further suffered had MLK not been the one to lead the charge for change. As a middle-class white man in 2014 would I have been able to relate to a militant, angry, disenfranchised black man/woman willing to kill or die for an improvement in his/her world had MLK not preached - and lived by example - a course of non-violent yet aggressive resistance to the unjust status quo? What would life be like in a 2014 America rife with two races at war - a land that might not look too different from a country today brutalized by sectarian strife? If a 50 year course of escalating violence, bombings, retaliations and continual reprisals had happened, what else could occur other than Perpetual Other Hatred? Reading this book made me realize how very close we were to this reality. MLK didn't save a race, he saved a nation, and perhaps the world.
A social movement that only moves people is merely a revolt. A movement that changes both people and institutions is a revolution. MLK's goals may have been lofty, but he understood that to eat the elephant you must do so a teaspoon at a time. Mistakes and mis-steps yielded fast learnings, and as a Christian philosopher of the soul he always was certain to allow his sensitive filters to absorb the fundamentals of what makes us human, black or white, and then to assimilate that understanding into becoming a better person. And leading others to understand the same.
This wonderful book was carefully created by Clayborne Carson, a Stanford University academian that focused specifically on compiling the narrative history of MLK in King's own words, taken from countless documents and primary source material. I am not certain that had MLK lived to be 100 that he would have (re)written this portion of his life any better. His original words, presented in historicaly chronological context, show his maturity as a leader, an author and an agent of change.
I wish that this book was required reading in every American school. William Vollmann first pointed me to this text, and then friend Rowena, but honestly - I should have read more of MLK long ago. I am proud to count him as a hero - and I want to understand (and learn from his example) how to be a non-violent positive agent of change.
njlanzetta's review
5.0
A fantastic autobiography taken from excerpts of Dr. King’s writings and speeches that focuses primarily on his role in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. Dr. King remains one of the most influential Americans and for good reason. He spoke and wrote with such eloquence and power, it was no wonder he became the de facto face of the Civil Rights Movement. The editor did a great job compiling Dr. King’s writings into a comprehensive work. I highly recommend this to anyone looking to gain more insight into MLK or the Civil Rights Movement in general.
annamariacogliano's review against another edition
5.0
La nuda e cruda verità del popolo nero, che ha lottato per vedersi riconosciuto lo status di cittadini americani, di esseri umani in quanto tali, di esseri umani uguali ad altri esseri umani. Il tutto condito dal sogno di Martin Luther King, uomo eccezionale, grande pesatore, modello di molte generazioni a venire. Nonostante si possa essere in disaccordo con espressioni, col suo modo di concepire la religione, l'autobiografia, curata da Claysborne Carson, fa emergere dalla storia una figura che è utile studiare, rileggere, che è fonte di ispirazione ora come 50 anni fa anche ad altri Paesi, ad altri popoli. Un volume arricchito dai discorsi, dalle missive, dalla spontaneità dei pensieri di King, da immagini e dalla possibilità di crescere. La filosofia della non violenza, la tenacia, la determinazione di Martin l'hanno reso immortale, necessario, un mito e il volume trasmette la grandezza di un uomo che ha rivoluzionato l'America, la storia, la vita dai popoli. Uomo da cui tutti dovrebbero partire anche e soprattutto oggi, perché il viaggio di Martin Luther King non sarà terminato fin quando non saremo tutti sullo stesso livello. Finché non saremo giudicati tutti, egualmente, secondo la nostra personalità, ci sarà ancora la necessità di dire "Freedom now", di cantare "We shall overcome", di urlare "I have a dream".
shadowrocks8's review
3.0
An interesting read the parts that are mlk words are moving but the fact that it's not directly written by him lowers the stars.