M artin L uther K ing
2 0 0 6 s t) e e i a !
January I I , 2006
jR .and R osa
P arks
e </ / / / o n _____
Page B21
Author Concludes Series on King
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (above) on a recruiting drive in March 1968, m oved by the
extrem e hardship o f displaced sharecroppers, pledges to begin a poor people's
pilgrimage to Washington, D.C. from Marks, Miss.
" A true revolution o f values will soon
look uneasily on the glaring contrast o f
poverty and wealth. With righteous
indignation, it will look across the seas
and see individual capitalists o f the
West investing huge sums o f money in
Asia, Africa, and South America, only
to take the profits out with no concern
fo r the social betterment o f the
countries, and say, “This is not just. ” It
will look at our alliance with the
landed gentry in South America and
say, “This is not just. ” The Western
arrogance o f feeling that it has
everything to teach others and nothing
to learn from them is not just.
Throughout large swaths of dered, but the quest to march citizens. Literally and figura
the South and beyond, African- beyond Pettus Bridge will re tively, they still change the face
Am ericans have been denied lease waves o f political energy. o f the country we inherit.”
p a rtic ip a tio n in d em o cracy
The movement will transform
Branch traces the ensuing
through a savage, century-long politics to win the vote through voting rights drives in Alabama
campaign of intim idation, beat the Voting Rights Act of 1965. and M ississippi, the m urder of
ings, killings, lynchings and Selma will engage the world’s Jam es M eredith, K ing’s tem
Pulitzer Prize-wining and best bureaucratic foot-dragging
conscience, strain the embattled p e stu o u s re la tio n s h ip w ith
In their first attem pt to cross civil rights coalition, and embroil President Lyndon Johnson, and
selling authorTaylor Branch con
cludes his magnificent history of
his a g o n izin g ru p tu re w ith
the civil rights movement and
Stokely Carm ichael over black
Martin Luther K ing's heroic role
power. Torm ent over distant
at the center of it in At Canaan’s
Vietnam will destroy a historic
Edge, America in the King Years,
collaboration between King and
1965-68.
Johnson at the signal divide of
As Branch's dramatic account
the 1960s, w hether to pursue
demonstrates. King attained a stat
dem ocracy by force o f arms.
ure akin to that of Lincoln, a
Actors on all sides will con
com m anding, prophetic, and
front persistent blind spots of
sanctified figure who not only
violence and race. Besides An
changed the legal and political
drew Young, Ralph Abernathy,
structure of the nation and led a
John L ew is, Jesse Jack so n ,
victorious struggle for African-
James Forman, and others in the
— Martin Luther King Jr.
American equality, but lifted the
civil rights movement, they in
patriotic spirit of the entire United
clude FBI D irector J. Edgar
States toward our defining na
Hoover, Gov. George Wallace of
tional purpose — freedom.
Alabama, Attorney General Rob
The book can be read indepen
ert Kennedy, the Ku Klux Kian,
dently of its two preceding vol
sheriffs, students, journalists, and
u m es, but c o n tin u e s the
religious leaders, a rich tapestry
Shakespearean epic begun in Part
of heroes and villains.
ing the Waters, and Pillar of Fin
Branch charts King’s belea
if!
both New York Times bestsellers.
guered endeavor in 1966 to bring
The earlier books followed
the struggle for equality into the
King from his rise to greatness
slums and streets of Chicago,
through the M ontgomery bus
and his contentious decision in
boycott sparked by Rosa Parks
1967 to go public with his long
in 1955, the March on W ashing
held opposition to the war in
ton and the “I have a Dream”
Vietnam. In 1968, King’s deter
speech of 1963, the Mississippi
mination to restore hope for the
Freedom Summer and the mur
eco n o m ically d isad v an tag ed
der of civil rights workers, and
through his “Poor People’s Cam
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with Andrew Young, Joan Baez, Hosea
being awarded the Nobel Peace Williams in Septem ber 1 9 6 6 escorting stu d en ts p a st adult m obs paign” prompts his support for
Ask us about our
Everybody's looking tor a way to make it happen. And with
Prize in 1964.
the
lowly
garbage
workers
of
up to
ovet 150 careers to choose from in the US Army, yon can
that terrorized black children outside the schools o f Grenada, Miss.
do just that You’ll become stronger smarter and more
At C anaan’s Edge chronicles
Memphis, thereby setting the stage
$20,000
prepared to face any challenge that comes yonr way find
K ing’s efforts to hold his m ove Selm a’s Edmund Pettus Bridge, King in negotiations with all three for his death at the age of 39, the
out how you can become An Army Of One at GOARMY COM
Enlistment
or call 1-800 USA-ARM*
ment together in the face of m archers stand on the brink of branches o f the United States day after his fabled "Promised
Bonus
internal factions that disagreed violent suppression by tear gas government. It will revive the Land” speech.
Where
US.
Army
Recruiting
Station
a,
1317
RE
Broadway
Street
and
troopers
on
horseback,
af
ab o u t strateg y , ta c tic s, and
visionary pragm atism o f the
“And I’ve seen the promised
When: Monday - Friday 9 00am - 5 00pm
w h ether they co uld achieve ter which thousands o f ordi American Revolution.
land,” King intoned. “I may not
Who: sgt 1st Class Walter Washington
their goals solely through non nary A m ericans will answ er
Branch w rites, “At their best, get there with you. But I want
violence; interm ittent hostility King’s overnight call for a non like the Founders, allies o f the you to know tonight, that we, as
from the Johnson adm inistra violent pilgrim age to Selma. nonviolent m ovem ent will turn a people will get to the promised
tion; unrelenting harassm ent by Three o f them will be m ur rulers and subjects into fellow land.” To Canaan's edge.
the FBI; bitter controversy gen
erated by K ing’s stance against
the Vietnam War; and his failed
attem pt to take the freedom
m ovem ent north.
Finally we reach M emphis,
K ing’s cam paign for econom ic
j u s t ic e a n d th e s a n ita tio n
w orker’s strike, and the assas
sination in the apocalyptic year
o f 1968 that made him a m artyr
for the ages.
As the narrative begins in early
1965, King has willed himself
from the pinnacle of acclaim
straight to “the valley" of a new
drive to seek voting rights for
black people in Selma, Ala. He
has been beaten and arrested again
through two months of ardous
demonstrations— highlighted by
children marched to jail, with a
young black man shot to death in
a vigil — but has attracted little
notice.
A fter the stunning success
Your skills, dedication and knowledge. Never have they been so important. A part-time commitment
of the Civil Rights Act 1964,
which prohibited racial discrim i
yields full-time rewards of salary, travel, advanced training, low-cost life insurance, retirement
nation in public facilities, gov
and college money. Part-time job openings for Construction, LPNs, EMTs, RNs and Paramedics.
ernm ent, and em ploym ent, the
freedom movem ent has evoked
lethal opposition at the color
line of political power — the
vote — from a nation that long
ago enshrined this most funda
mental right in the Fifteenth
Amendment but essentially for
got it.
Story of race,
violence and
democracy
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