The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.

November 2, 1998
Carson, director of the Martin Luther King Jr. Papers Project and author of A Knock at Midnight: Inspiration from the Great Sermons of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., has pieced together an incomplete study of King's life by supplementing his extant autobiographies (e.g., Stride Toward Freedom and Where Do We Go from Here) with previously unpublished and published writings, interviews and speeches. If King's rhetorical flourishes and use of the word "negro" sometimes seem outdated, the compilation still offers a concise first-person account of his life from his birth in Atlanta in 1929 to his awakening social consciousness and discovery of the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi. History propelled King to center stage in the struggle for black liberation. When Rosa Parks refused to surrender her bus seat in 1955, the "once dormant and quiescent Negro community was now fully awake" and King, along with many others in Montgomery's black community, organized the bus boycott that would launch King into his leadership role in the civil rights movement. The book offers glimpses of King's family life as well a view of famous Americans such as Stokely Carmichael, Malcolm X and JFK. (In 1960, King did not feel "there was much difference between Kennedy and Nixon." He writes, "I felt at points that he was so concerned about being President of the United States that he would compromise basic principles.") But what is most evident throughout Carson's study is the moral courage that sustained King and allowed him to inspire a largely peaceful mass movement against segregation in the face of bloody reprisals. (Dec.) FYI: In November, Carol Publishing will release Seventh Child: A Family Memoir of Malcolm X, by his nephew Rodnell P. Collins.

July 1, 1998
Carson, who in 1985 was asked by the King family to direct the editing and publication of King's papers, constructs a first-person narrative.

Starred review from November 15, 1998
Carson, director of the Martin Luther King Jr. Papers Project, brings together selections from King's writings, speeches, and recordings to create this fascinating "autobiography" of the famed civil rights leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner. The writings trace King's struggles with religion, philosophy, and the racial politics of the U.S. They reveal his youthful attraction to Henry David Thoreau's stance on the moral obligation to resist evil as much as to cooperate with good, and Mahatma Gandhi's teachings on nonviolent resistance to oppression. This work offers King's view on a number of thorny issues; on Rosa Parks and the bus boycott in Birmingham that launched the civil rights movement, for example, King characterizes her actions as spontaneous rather than planned, which has been suggested. He contrasts the racial milieu and tactics needed to address racism in the North versus the South and sees the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the culmination of the nonviolent resistance movement, as "first written in the streets" with the success of the protest marches. This stunning, passionate collection of writings also reveals King's impressions of other famous leaders of the time, including presidents John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson and activists Stokely Carmichael and Malcolm X. ((Reviewed November 15, 1998))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1998, American Library Association.)