MLK's Greatness to Overcome Remembered in Writing
Remembered nationally every year on his birthday through community events, the life of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. is being commemorated in writing this year.
Remembered nationally every year on his birthday through community events, the life of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. is being commemorated in writing this year.
Just before the celebration of King's birthday on Monday, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Taylor Branch released this week his final book on the U.S. civil rights movement, titled At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years 1965-68. The trilogy that Branch began writing 24 years ago ends with a nearly biblical scope from the Book of Exodus.
Branch tells the historical story of the "Christian visionary," as The Chicago Tribune described King, beginning with the 1965 protest at Selma, where tens of thousands of Americans of faith joined to achieve voting rights, and concluding with King's 1968 assassination in Memphis, Tenn.
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Media reviews on Branch's third volume have been positive with Publishers Weekly calling it "masterful."
"This magisterial book is a fitting tribute to a magisterial man," reviewed the Weekly.
The new release also reveals King's struggles, faltering and premonition of his death. Despite "King's flawed humanity," as the National Council of Churches stated, King has been deemed as one of the greatest figures of American history.
"For a human being to face overwhelming travails with the human doubts and weaknesses we all share, the ability to overcome requires uncommon greatness," said a release by the NCC.
Such uncommon greatness was also seen in the late Rosa Parks who is also remembered as King's 77th birthday approaches.
"This year, Martin, on your birthday, I remember," said United Methodist Bishop Woodie W. White who writes a birthday letter to the late King each year about the progress of racial equality. "It is still difficult to believe that it was 50 years ago on Dec. 1, 1955, that Mrs. Parks ... was catapulted into history."
In remembrance of both Parks and King, White wrote, "I have not the slightest doubt that we shall overcome."
