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Books by and about Martin Luther King, Jr. for sale online

Audio CD: A Call to Conscience : The Landmark Speeches of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. [UNABRIDGED] by Kris Shepard, Clayborne Carson, Various (Narrator)

From Publishers Weekly - In his introduction, the one-time ambassador to the United Nations Andrew Young refers to MLK as "the voice of the century," and this collection deftly pays homage to that powerful voice. Carson (a Stanford University historian) and Shepard have compiled 12 of King's greatest speeches and prefaced them with touching and inspiring introductions written and read by prominent activists, leaders and theologians, including the Dalai Lama, Sen. Edward Kennedy and others. There's a lot more here than the "I Have a Dream" masterpiece (which is beautifully introduced by Dr. Dorothy I. Height, longtime president of the National Council of Negro Women). The material ranges from King's early talks in Alabama churches to the magnificent "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech, which he gave the night before his assassination. Many of the recordings have a raw quality, giving them authenticity. When King proclaims in his address to the first Montgomery Improvement Association mass meeting that democracy is "the greatest form of government on earth," the attendees' background cheers are so deafening that listeners will have to turn down the volume. The only element lacking in this noteworthy production is an adequate set of liner notes there are no dates for the material showcased, nor do the editors tell which speeches are on which CD. Simultaneous release with the Warner hardcover. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr by Clayborne Carson (Editor), Martin Luther, Jr. King

Amazon.com: Celebrated Stanford University historian Clayborne Carson is the director and editor of the Martin Luther King Papers Project; with thousands of King's essays, notes, letters, speeches, and sermons at his disposal, Carson has organized King's writings into a posthumous autobiography. In an early student essay, King prophetically penned: "We cannot have an enlightened democracy with one great group living in ignorance.... We cannot have a nation orderly and sound with one group so ground down and thwarted that it is almost forced into unsocial attitudes and crime." Such statements, made throughout King's career, are skillfully woven together into a coherent narrative of the quest for social justice. The autobiography delves, for example, into the philosophical training King received at Morehouse College, Crozer Theological Seminary, and Boston University, where he consolidated the teachings of Afro-American theologian Benjamin Mays with the philosophies of Locke, Rousseau, Gandhi, and Thoreau. 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. In one of his last speeches, King reminded his audience that "in the final analysis, God does not judge us by the separate incidents or the separate mistakes that we make, but by the total bent of our lives." 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. --Eugene Holley Jr.

King: The Photobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. by Charles Johnson, Bob Adelman, Robert Phelan (Photographer), Richard Woodley

Amazon.com: The legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement is well documented in prose, but for sheer emotional power, nothing can compare to the pictures from this era. It's a challenge for a writer's words to match the force of Bob Adelman's photographs in this book, but novelist and essayist Charles Johnson rises to the task in his treatment of King's life and death, as well as the heroic struggle of African Americans in the United States. Johnson, the author of Middle Passage (which won the 1990 National Book Award), offers an exceptional counterpoint to the stirring images with the depth and weight of his essays and captions. "How soon we forget that King was not only a civil rights activist," Johnson writes, "but also this country's preeminent moral philosopher, a spiritual aspirant, a father and a husband, and that these diverse roles--these multiple dimensions of his too brief life--were the foundations for his singular 'dream' that inspired millions worldwide." Adelman intimately captures King's background, from his comfortable middle-class upbringing in Atlanta to the dashing figure he cuts with his wife, Coretta, to his steady ascendance as a forceful preacher thrust into prominence during the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955-56. We cringe at the sight of King being photographed as a criminal and at the horrific treatment many blacks endured by racist Southern police. The triumph of King's "I Have a Dream" speech, which he gave at the 1963 March on Washington, is beautifully detailed, along with his acceptance of the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize. We also see a weary King, weighed down by assassination attempts, harassment, inner-city riots, and the Vietnam War. Toward the end, King displays an eerie sense of calm in the photos taken just days before his death--particularly in an April 3 photo taken at the Mason Hall in Memphis the night before his murder, where he declared that he'd "been to the mountaintop." King's legacy is lovingly chronicled in this impressive book. --Eugene Holley Jr.

Martin Luther King, Jr. by Marshall Frady

Amazon.com: Unheroic in appearance, given to "deacon-sober suits" and "ponderous gravity," Martin Luther King Jr. ushered in an epochal era of change in the United States. Closely watching King's journey from Montgomery to Birmingham to the Lincoln Memorial to Memphis was journalist Marshall Frady, who honors the minister's achievement and spirit in this lucid biography. "Almost a geological age ago, it seems now--that great moral saga of belief and violence that unfolded in the musky deeps of the South during the civil rights movement of the fifties and sixties." So Frady opens his account, which traces King's transformation from withdrawn, unconfident child to eloquent champion of the oppressed, ever unafraid to trouble the waters. Frady explores King's conflicts, contradictions, and triumphs, as well as the great personal cost he bore in urging nonviolent change in a singularly violent time. Part of the excellent Penguin Lives series, this slender volume sheds much light on a prophet now honored, but still too little understood. --Gregory McNamee

A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr. by James Melvin Washington (Editor), Martin Luther, Jr. King

Here, in the only major one-volume collection of his writings, speeches, interviews, and autobiographical reflections, is Martin Luther King, Jr. on nonviolence, social policy, integration, black nationalism, the ethics of love and hope, and more. -- The New York Times Book Review "Here, in [King's] own words, are the philosophy and strategy of nonviolent protest . . . King's persuasiveness comes through again and again."

Martin's Big Words: The Life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. by Doreen Rappaport, Bryan Collier (Illustrator)

Amazon.com: In this elegant pictorial biography of Martin Luther King Jr., author Doreen Rappaport combines her spare, lyrical text with King's own words for an effective, age-appropriate portrayal of one of the world's greatest civil rights leaders. From King's youth, when he looked up to his preacher father and vowed one day to "get big words, too," to his death at a garbage workers' strike ("On his second day there, he was shot. He died."), Rappaport imbues the story with reverence. Acclaimed artist Bryan Collier depicts his subject with stunning watercolor and collage illustrations, balancing glorious recreations of stained glass windows with some of the more somber images of peace marchers and the famous bus that pitched Rosa Parks into the civil rights movement. A brief chronology and bibliography provide additional resources for readers. Here is an exquisite tribute to a world hero. (Ages 4 and older) --Emilie Coulter

In the Spirit of Martin: The Living Legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. by Gretchen Sullivan Sorin, Nikki Giovanni (Introduction), Gary Miles Chassman (Editor), Walter Leonard (Commentary)

In the Spirit of Martin is the companion book to the first museum exhibition -- opening in January 2002 at the Smithsonian Institution -- to demonstrate the compelling outpouring of responses to Dr. King’s life. This richly illustrated, large-format book features the work of more than 150 important African American artists as well as other prominent traditional and visionary artists. Original essays by Bernice Johnson Reagon, Julius Lester, June Jordan, John Lewis, Stanley Crouch, and others enrich this celebration of the leader of the Civil Rights movement, one of history’s most important figures.