The Autobiography of Martin Luther
King, Jr. by Clayborne Carson
Engrossing, Inspiring And Informative
Celebrated Stanford University historian Clayborne Carson is the director
and editor of the Martin Luther King Papers Project; with thousands of
Kings essays, notes, letters, speeches, and sermons at his disposal,
Carson has organized Kings 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 Kings 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 Kings 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.
Carsons skillful editing has created an original argument in Kings favor
that draws directly from the source, illuminating the circumstances of
Kings life without deifying his person. --Eugene Holley Jr.
Personal Review: The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.
by Clayborne Carson
February is Black History Month, something which--to be totally honest--I'm
usually completely unaware of. I'm not just unaware of when Black History
Month occurs, but pretty ignorant about Black History in general.
Last week I began reading The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. I
had purchased it a while back at the same time that I bought Gandhi's
autobiography. I've been following the trail of non-violent thought from the
Anabaptists to the Quakers to Leo Tolstoy to Gandhi to Martin Luther King
(and points in-between). So MLK was the next stop on my journey. I only
discovered last week after getting half-way into the book that February is
Black History Month. I learned this by seeing a placard on the side of a
bus.
Dr. King's autobiography was not intentionally written by it's subject, in the
same way that Gandhi's autobiography was. King was assassinated before
he could write this work himself. Instead, his autobiography was
assembled by King scholar Clayborne Carson (at the request of Coretta
Scott King) by carefully gathering and collating King's public and private
writings into a cohesive narrative. Carson did a masterful job, as King's
voice and personality consistently shines through. One really has the
sense that this is the autobiography King would have written had his life
not been cut short.
I had not expected to become so quickly engrossed in this book. Obviously
I knew who Martin Luther King was, but this was my first opportunity to
really see what an amazing man he was. King was an intellectual giant, yet
also an extremely humble and honest man. He was a brilliant theologian
and scholar, but consistently chose to identify himself with the lowest of the
low in society. He was incredibly, well ... Christian ... in the true sense of
the word.
Besides being impacted by the encounter with King as a person, this book
is also teaching me about the events of the Civil Rights movement and the
various personalities involved. A consternating thought keeps bubbling up
in my mind: Why was I never taught about this in public school? The Civil
Rights movement was an epic moment in American history and it's effects
continue to reverberate--most recently and obviously in the election of
Barack Obama. Yet I can't recall being taught about it in school. Perhaps

because I grew up in a 99% white community in Colorado it was deemed
irrelevant, just as I've typically viewed Black History Month as personally
irrelevant.
Now I'm realizing that Black History, from slavery to emancipation to Jim
Crow to the Civil Rights movement and beyond is not just "for black
people". It is an integral component of American history. Ditto for Native
American history. Looking back, I realize how narrow and anglo-centric my
public school history education was. I was not given anything
approximating a complete picture of American history. And, sadly, neither
has my son. I'm going to try to get him to read this book.
I also find myself thinking as I read this book that if I had been an adult
during the 1960's, I hope I would have been one of those whites who
joined into the Civil Rights movement to offer solidarity and support. I self-
flatteringly imagine that I might've trekked to the South and gotten onto the
front lines, as so many people of good conscience from all over the country
did. But that thought is immediately followed by a more uncomfortable one:
Where are people being oppressed today and what am I doing about it?
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