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PatriCIA Welch, North Portland Library
Published: 21 January 2009

At this time of year, everyone starts searching for materials by and about Dr. Martin Luther King. Of course, there is much from which to choose. But, what many of your readers might not know is information on Dr. King is available in many formats: not just print but audio, video and digital.
All are available at your local library.

Audio – Books on tape, CD and downloadable audio.
1) "Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-63"
By Taylor Branch.
Available in print, CD and audio cassette.
First in a 3-volume history of American race, violence, and democracy that includes "Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years, 1963-1965" (print and CD), and "At Canaan's edge: America in the King years, 1965-68." (print and CD.) Moving from the fiery political baptism of Martin Luther King, Jr., to the corridors of "Camelot" where the Kennedy brothers weighed demands for justice against the deceptions of J. Edgar Hoover, this book provides a portrait of courage and conflict, the deals, maneuvers, betrayals, and rivalries that determined history behind closed doors, at boycotts and sit-ins, on bloody freedom rides and through siege and murder.

2) "I Have a Dream" (audio cassette)
By Martin Luther King, Jr. 
American Audio Prose Library 
This is the actual speech delivered at the Washington Monument, available on audio cassette.
 
3) "April 4, 1968: Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Death and the Transformation of America"
By Michael Eric Dyson (downloadable audio)
On April 4, 1968, at 6:01 p.m., while he was standing on a balcony at a Memphis hotel, Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and fatally wounded. Only hours earlier had Dr. King ended his final public speech by saying, "I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight, that we as a people will get to the Promised Land." Author Michael Eric Dyson investigates the ways in which we as a people have made it to the Promised Land that King spoke of and shines a bright light on the many areas that we still have a long way to go.

Visual - Videos, DVDs and downloadable video
4) "Eyes On the Prize, II.": "America at the Racial Crossroads, 1965 to 1985," and "Two Societies, 1965-1968" 
Video Recording
Blackside Inc.
Produced, directed and written by Sheila Bernard, Sam Pollard. 
In these two episodes of the classic PBS series on the Civil Rights Movement, Dr King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference aid in the non-violent struggle against segregated housing, and the Kerner Commission concludes that America is becoming "two societies -one Black, one white - separate and unequal."

5) "In Remembrance of Martin"
Downloadable video
PBS
Personal comments from family, friends, and advisors fill this remarkable documentary honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Coretta Scott King joins the Rev. Ralph Abernathy, Julian Bond, Jimmy Carter, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sen. Edward Kennedy, John Lewis, Bishop Desmond Tutu, and Andrew Young, who recall Dr. King's career and trace his leadership in the civil rights movement. Includes portions of his "I Have a Dream" speech.

6) "Citizen King"
Downloadable video and DVD
PBS Home Video
In exploring the last few years of his life, this American Experience production traces King's efforts to recast himself by embracing causes beyond the civil rights movement, by becoming a champion of the poor and an outspoken opponent of the war in Vietnam. Tapping into a rich archive of photographs and film footage and using diaries, letters, and eyewitness accounts of fellow activists, friends, journalists, political leaders and law enforcement officials, this film brings fresh insights to King's impossible journey, his charismatic leadership and his truly remarkable impact."

Print Books

7) "The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr."
Edited by Clayborne Carson.
Also available on audio cassette
Intellectual Properties Management, Inc. in association with Warner Books, c1998.
Celebrated Stanford University Historian Clayborne Carson is the director and editor of the Martin Luther King Papers Project, and with thousands of King's essays, notes, letters, speeches, and sermons at his disposal, Carson has organized King's writings into a posthumous autobiography. Through King's voice, the reader intimately shares in his trials and triumphs, including the Montgomery Boycott, the 1963 "I Have a Dream Speech," the Selma March, and the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize. Carson's skillful editing has created an original argument in King's favor that draws directly from the source, illuminating the circumstances of King's life without deifying his person. Book, cassette

8) "From Civil Rights to Human Rights: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Struggle for Economic Justice"
By Thomas F. Jackson 
University of Pennsylvania Press, c2007.
Drawing widely on published and unpublished archival sources, Jackson explains the contexts and meanings of King's increasingly open call for "a radical redistribution of political and economic power" in American cities, the nation and the world. The mid-1960s ghetto uprisings were in fact revolts against unemployment, powerlessness, police violence, and institutionalized racism, he argued. His final dream, a Poor People's March on Washington, aimed to mobilize Americans across racial and class lines to reverse a national cycle of urban conflict, political backlash, and policy retrenchment. King's vision of economic democracy and international human rights remains a powerful inspiration for those committed to ending racism and poverty in our time.
9) "King"
Written & illustrated by Ho Che Anderson.
Graphic novel
Fantagraphics Books, c1993  
The first of three parts, this beautiful graphic novel from the celebrated Black cartoonist Ho Che Anderson traces the life and career of the civil rights leader from his birth to his assassination. Anderson's dramatic lines on the page bring out the power of this important American story with a truthful ease rarely found elsewhere. More than a history lesson, "King" is an important book to have at hand.

10) "King Came Preaching: The Pulpit Power of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr."
By Mervyn A. Warren
InterVarsity Press, c2001.
We know Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as a social activist who changed America. But King's beginnings were as a preacher, and he preached with power throughout his life. In light of this, it is all the more remarkable that few have focused on his "pulpit power," which reflected his religious commitments and shaped the civil rights movement that he led. Dr. Mervyn A. Warren offers us a journey into the preaching of King, a homiletic biography exploring King's sermons, his use of language, his delivery and more. In this book we have a remarkable opportunity to gain new insight into all of King's life and work. Originally written as a dissertation and presented to Mrs. Coretta King by the author in 1988, this remarkable work has been uncovered, fully revised and updated, and is available for the first time to the general public.

11) "The King God Didn't Save: Reflections on the Life and Death of Martin Luther King, Jr."
By John A. Williams.
Coward-McCann c1970.
In this controversial book, Black writer John A. Williams calls King a failure for what he was trying to succeed. Williams calls his early successes small concessions that the White power structure could afford to lose and says the civil rights leader realized this when he began his anti-poverty, anti-war crusade. But Williams also thinks that the assassins bullet saved King from a long, character-destroying scandal involving his extra-marital affairs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


12) M. Luther King /
In Spanish
Direccion de la obra, Francisco Luis Cardona Castro.
Madrid: Edimat Libros, c2002
Figuras destacadas que han protagonizado los hechos mas importantes de la historia estan retratados en estos bellos volumenes economicos. Tan fascinante como los hechos que les hicieron famosos, estas biografias detallan los hechos conocidos acerca de los sujetos con enfasis en su ninez, su motivacion, sus triunfos, y su impacto en la historia, mientras revela un lado humano de estos hombres.

13) My Life with Martin Luther King, Jr.
By Coretta Scott King; introduction by Bernice, Dexter, Martin, and Yolanda King.
H. Holt, c1993.
An inside look at the life and work of the noted civil rights leader, from the viewpoint of his wife Coretta Scott King.

14) "Remembering Martin Luther King, Jr.: His Life and Crusade in Pictures"
Introduction and essays by Charles Johnson and Bob Adelman; Edited by Robert Sullivan.
Time Inc. Home Entertainment Books/Twenty-First century Books, c2008.
Photographs and text celebrate the life of Martin Luther King, Jr., and traces his contributions to American society during the civil rights movement of the twentieth century. The book covers his famous speeches, the threats on his life and his death in 1968.

15) "What Manner of Man: A Biography of Martin Luther King, Jr." 
By Bennett Lerone, with an introduction by Benjamin E. Mays. 
Johnson Pub. Co., 1968

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