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Martin's Dream: My Journey and the Legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.
On August 28, 1963, hundreds of thousands of demonstrators flocked to the nation's capital for the March on Washington. That day Clayborne Carson, a 19-year-old black student from a working-class family in New Mexico who had hitched a ride to Washington, heard Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. deliver his famous "I Have a Dream" speech. It was a life-changing occasion for the author as it launched him on a career to become one of the most important chroniclers of the civil rights era. Two decades later, as a distinguished professor of African American History at Stanford University, Mrs. King picked Dr. Carson to edit her late husband's papers. Taking the reader on a journey of rediscovery of the King legend, he draws on new archives as well as unpublished letters. Dr. Carson examines his decades long quest to understand Martin Luther King, Jr. the man, delve into the construction of his legacy, and to understand how King's "dream" has evolved.
304 pages, Paperback
First published January 8, 2013
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About the author
Clayborne Carson
94 books50 followersClayborne Carson is professor of history at Stanford University, and director of the Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute. Since 1985 he has directed the Martin Luther King Papers Project, a long-term project to edit and publish the papers of Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
August 24, 2020
This book was different from and more enjoyable than what I expected. It is the personal memoir of someone who never expected to become an academic, nor particularly enmeshed with Dr. King, only to end up as the handpicked (by Coretta Scott King) editor of King's papers.
Carson grew up in New Mexico, far from the social engines of the Civil Rights Movement, but starting with his attendance at the March on Washington — very much on a lucky whim — a series of "six chance happenings," as Milan Kundera might put it, result in his becoming a leading historian of the movement.
Just to reiterate, the book is Carson's memoir. With regard to the subtitle, the book feels far more "my journey" than "legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.," although they are indeed inextricable. Overall, I just found Carson to be an endearing narrator, highly introspective even when it didn't reflect particularly well on his decisions. I enjoyed the fact that he went into granular detail in many cases on the "how" of happenstance that landed him in certain positions.
I was certainly inclined to find this book interesting, as I've been reading a lot about the Civil Rights Movement, and this was really a different, and very personal angle from a scholar. And Carson traces how his own thoughts shifted over time about the balance of bottom-up organizing and top-down charismatic leadership in any successful movement. Lastly, I enjoyed the detail he gave in recounting his attempts to balance competing interests as the editor of King's papers, while staying true to his mission and integrity as a historian. I wouldn't recommend this as anyone's first read about the Civil Rights Movement, but I think it would be hard to not to come away liking the author, and if you've ready plenty of other books on the movement, this one provides an interesting blend of insider and outsider perspective.
Carson grew up in New Mexico, far from the social engines of the Civil Rights Movement, but starting with his attendance at the March on Washington — very much on a lucky whim — a series of "six chance happenings," as Milan Kundera might put it, result in his becoming a leading historian of the movement.
Just to reiterate, the book is Carson's memoir. With regard to the subtitle, the book feels far more "my journey" than "legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.," although they are indeed inextricable. Overall, I just found Carson to be an endearing narrator, highly introspective even when it didn't reflect particularly well on his decisions. I enjoyed the fact that he went into granular detail in many cases on the "how" of happenstance that landed him in certain positions.
I was certainly inclined to find this book interesting, as I've been reading a lot about the Civil Rights Movement, and this was really a different, and very personal angle from a scholar. And Carson traces how his own thoughts shifted over time about the balance of bottom-up organizing and top-down charismatic leadership in any successful movement. Lastly, I enjoyed the detail he gave in recounting his attempts to balance competing interests as the editor of King's papers, while staying true to his mission and integrity as a historian. I wouldn't recommend this as anyone's first read about the Civil Rights Movement, but I think it would be hard to not to come away liking the author, and if you've ready plenty of other books on the movement, this one provides an interesting blend of insider and outsider perspective.
March 19, 2013
Dr. Cjayborne Carson's book is the story of how he became the editor of the papers of Martin Luther King, how he dealt with preserving and perpetuating the legacy of Dr. King and finally his somewhat turbulent relations with the King family.
In the first half of the book, Dr. Carson tells his own coming of age story, a highlight of which is hitching a ride to Washington, DC for the historic March on Washington and hearing Dr. King deliver his "I have a dream" speech. He is deeply impressed by Dr. King's speech and also by the speech of john Lewis who was then a coordinator for SNCC. He is attracted to SNCC and the people who were running it at the time, but never really became a part of the organization. Instead, like many people at that time, he remained an observer rather than a participant. His acute powers of observation, however, served him well in his chosen field of history and he earned a Ph.D. in the subject writing his doctoral thesis on SNCC and eventually getting a tenure-track job at Stanford University.
In 1985 he received a call from Coretta Scott King offering of editor of her husband's papers. He then began the job that would occupy his life for the rest of his career. His relations with the King family were always somewhat aloof and rocky and his refusal to move from California to Atlanta made him absent and, thus, apart from the day-to-day workings (and political intrigues) of the King Center.Dr. Carson is apparently too polite or too reverential to the family to be brutally honest about the internecine warfare among the King children, but it doesn't take too much reading between the lines to see that dealing with them was certainly no picnic.
The book culminates with the dedication of the Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial on the Washington Mall in 2011. The book does go on for several chapters after that mostly concerned with the production of a play he wrote about Dr. King in China and then in Palestine and reflections on the upcoming 50th Anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington. But the emotional high point of the book was the unveiling of the King Memorial and the author would have been better served if he had ended his book there.
In the first half of the book, Dr. Carson tells his own coming of age story, a highlight of which is hitching a ride to Washington, DC for the historic March on Washington and hearing Dr. King deliver his "I have a dream" speech. He is deeply impressed by Dr. King's speech and also by the speech of john Lewis who was then a coordinator for SNCC. He is attracted to SNCC and the people who were running it at the time, but never really became a part of the organization. Instead, like many people at that time, he remained an observer rather than a participant. His acute powers of observation, however, served him well in his chosen field of history and he earned a Ph.D. in the subject writing his doctoral thesis on SNCC and eventually getting a tenure-track job at Stanford University.
In 1985 he received a call from Coretta Scott King offering of editor of her husband's papers. He then began the job that would occupy his life for the rest of his career. His relations with the King family were always somewhat aloof and rocky and his refusal to move from California to Atlanta made him absent and, thus, apart from the day-to-day workings (and political intrigues) of the King Center.Dr. Carson is apparently too polite or too reverential to the family to be brutally honest about the internecine warfare among the King children, but it doesn't take too much reading between the lines to see that dealing with them was certainly no picnic.
The book culminates with the dedication of the Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial on the Washington Mall in 2011. The book does go on for several chapters after that mostly concerned with the production of a play he wrote about Dr. King in China and then in Palestine and reflections on the upcoming 50th Anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington. But the emotional high point of the book was the unveiling of the King Memorial and the author would have been better served if he had ended his book there.
March 10, 2013
Martin's Dream" is at once Claybourne Carson's autobiography, an academic adventure, and a biography of the King family.
The autobiographical section had a great deal of resonance for me personally. I am three years younger than Carson, but participated in the civil rights movement in much the same way. We were both at the March on Washington and both were impressed by John Lewis' speech. Carson hung around the fringes of SNCC. I was briefly an organizer for the off-shoot, SSOC. This section reflects the times well, particularly in his memories of connections between the anti Vietnam War movement in which I was heavily involved.
The second section is a researcher's story. The issues of finding and cataloging hundreds of documents. The excitment of discovery and the agony of finding things you really don't want to find. The politics of scholarship. Carson's story reads almost like a mystery/adventure.
The last part of the book is more concerned with the King family struggles about how to preserve Dr. King's legacy. Except for the section on the relationship of Dr. and Mrs. King and a brief biographic sketch of her early life, I found this the least interesting part of this book. Perhaps this was because the depiction of the in-family fights made me sad.
Overall, I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in civil rights movement history
The review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers.
The autobiographical section had a great deal of resonance for me personally. I am three years younger than Carson, but participated in the civil rights movement in much the same way. We were both at the March on Washington and both were impressed by John Lewis' speech. Carson hung around the fringes of SNCC. I was briefly an organizer for the off-shoot, SSOC. This section reflects the times well, particularly in his memories of connections between the anti Vietnam War movement in which I was heavily involved.
The second section is a researcher's story. The issues of finding and cataloging hundreds of documents. The excitment of discovery and the agony of finding things you really don't want to find. The politics of scholarship. Carson's story reads almost like a mystery/adventure.
The last part of the book is more concerned with the King family struggles about how to preserve Dr. King's legacy. Except for the section on the relationship of Dr. and Mrs. King and a brief biographic sketch of her early life, I found this the least interesting part of this book. Perhaps this was because the depiction of the in-family fights made me sad.
Overall, I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in civil rights movement history
The review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers.
May 20, 2013
This memoir is an in insightful examination of the scholar and activist Clayborn Carson. Perhaps best known as editor of the Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., this memoir explains King's influence on Carson and Carson's influence in disseminating the ideas of King. The book describes the role of the civil rights movement in his life and his contributions to that same movement. The book also sheds light on his experiences with the King family and their management of the legacy of King. This book is a first-person narrative of how the 60's civil rights movement opened doors for people that had been closed and how one person is still influencing the dream that was expressed almost 50 years ago.
January 27, 2014
This book is a good synopsis of the backstory of editing the King Papers -- now located at Morehouse College. Dr. Carson also does a decent job positioning his life story in the context of the civil rights movement and beyond. This book is not an essential read, but important in understanding the man most responsible for advancing the ideas, vision, and works of Rev. Dr. MLK, Jr.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews