After reading this book, my respect for the great leader Dr. King, as well as his phenomenal wife grew. I never knew she was a such a success story apart from Dr. King. I also admire her for literally laying down her life to be a support to her husband. The courage she demonstrated encouraged me so. I am also the wife of a Black Baptist preacher and I now know that there are no limits for me and any strong Black male leader must have a strong Black woman standing behind him.

This review is about the book My life with Martin Luther King Jr. By Coretta Scott King. This book touched me because my grandpa used to know Dr.King and this book tells me all the stuff my grandpa never told me. Like when Martin protested to all the whites, the Ku Klux Klan, or [KKK] told Dr.King to stop protesting or he would never see his family again, but Martin was not afraid,and with that the KKK bombed his house as a warning, luckally no one was hurt. The "I have a dream speech". Won Dr.King the noble peace prize, That angered the KKK and in his hotel The KKK guned him down in front of his family, and after the funeral the Mayor made it a law to treat blacks equally. Martin Luther King had one but had lost his life in the process.
I reccomend this book to all people [Blacks & Whites alike] that had a goal in life and did not stop until they achevied it.

I thought the book was wonderful!!! It gave me insight to what life was like living with MLK Jr. You felt the pain when things went wrong. You felt the happiness when things went right. Coretta Scott King did a great job of letting everyone know the imtimate details of her and her husbands life. If you haven't read it , check it out. Trust me, as a teen, it was a book that grasped my interest. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did!!!!!

This Book was really wonderful. I never thought that it would touch my heart as it did. The author wrote this book from his head and didn't leave anything out. All the struggles slaves went through made me upset but I am glad to say, "thank God it wasn't me."

I've always been taught that slavery in America was a very bad thing. Like everybody, I saw Roots on TV and was very moved. So I was pretty surprised when many years later reading this book moved me again. It was very well written. But is was also very disturbing because it tells it like it really was, when in colonial days the colonists were taking black people from Africa and bringing them here by force. There are a lot of interesting and again disturbing statistics in the book about the numbers of slaves involved in the slave trade and so forth. The book doesn't cover the Civil War and all that, though. So you'll have to get that stuff from a different book.

This is a great book to get get a background on the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950's and 60's. I read it when I began trying to learn about the CRM and some of the key players.

I think that this book is a valued companion to Taylor Branch's epic work "Parting the Waters". Together, they make an unbeatable pair of study aids for one of America's most turbulent periods.

While P.T.W. is a more dispassionate third person chronicle, E.O.T.P. is more personally driven. It brings to life individuals like Bayard Rustin, Stokley Carmichael, John Lewis and other giants (known and obscure) of the movement. Events from the Till lynching to the Attica riots as seen through the eyes of those on the scene (sometimes, those making the scene).

Fascinating reading.

I feel that this book was written very thoroughly. It included indepth facts that really let the reader know what happened. This book was obviously researched heavily, and I congradulate the author on writing such a magnificent book. Although it was not really my choice in reading this book, I am glad that I had, for it has greatly enhanced my knowledge of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. I, being a fifteen year old sophomore student of Penn High School, find this a great book to use in researching Dr. King's past events, assassination, murder(s), and conspiracy theories. It was well written, and could be easily understood by young readers. I would highly recommend this book to readers of all ages. -Thank You

This book was about the life of a hero, Martin Luther King, Jr. It tells us how he served his community. There were interesting pictures. Our fifth grade class learned a lot about African-American history through this book.

The author is Chairman of the RFK Assassination Archives at Southeastern Massachusetts University. This book tells of his investigation into the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. "The truth of the King assassination is that it was a much more sophisticated conspiracy executed by persons possessing the kind of expertise generally found within intelligence circles."

Chapter 2 discusses the coincidences in the life of the two Canadians whose names were used by James Earl Ray: they both traveled to the US in the 1960s, and both resembled Ray. This allowed Ray to obtain a legal (if false) passport rather than a forgery. Chapter 7 tells of his discovery of the "fat man" who delivered a letter to Ray; hours later Ray picked up and paid for his flight to London. There was "big money" behind Ray (p.60). Years later this "fat man" was still afraid for his personal safety (p.61). Chapter 9 discusses the problems with the evidence against Ray. Only one spent cartridge was in the rifle; no other cartridges were in the rifle. The cartridge had no fingerprints on it!

Chapter 10 attempts a systematic and logical reconstruction of Ray's time and actions. Did Ray use his binoculars to spy on King and then go to the communal bathroom? Did he spend time in a communal bathroom shared by the 13 tenants? There are problems with either scenario. Why would an experienced criminal like Ray leave his fingerprints on the rifle? "The best evidence suggests that Ray was an unexceptional criminal who had exceptionally clever help" (p.125).

Chapter 12 notes that Ray had plastic surgery on his nose in 1968; it made him appear more like Eric Galt. Eric Galt's activities and travel would make him suspicious (p.139). Ray had a flawless performance as a fugitive - until he flew to Europe (and was now on his own). Chapter 13 tells of Melanson's interview with Ray in 1984. Ray claimed to have been set up as a fall guy by the conspirators (p.153). Ray probably does not know the identities of the conspirators anyway, only the go-betweens. So the truth about this tragic assassination remains shrouded in official secrecy.

Where was James Earl Ray when Kennedy was shot? The first shot that hit JFK was in the throat. Did it narrowly miss being a fatal shot like the one that killed M L King? There is a difference between using a rifle or a piston in an assassination. A fanatic may use a pistol, and be quickly caught or killed. A professional will use a rifle so he can make his escape before being located, and collect his reward (except when using a piston allows this escape).

This book exposes the faults and failures of the government's case against James Earl Ray as glaringly as television exposed the faults in the state's case against O.J. Whether or not, and it seems plausible he did not, James Earl Ray shot Martin Luther King, Jr. the state would have had no chance of convicting him in court. (Perhaps that is why his lawyers were co-erced into pleading the case.) In the "Murkin Conspiracy" every piece of evidence, motive, and opportunity is laid out and examined. The results are less than convincing beyond a reasonable doubt. Did a conspiracy kill Dr. King? This book cannot answer that question, it doesn't attempt to; it merely asks, "Did James Earl Ray?"

I love this book, but I was looking for the hard jacket, and could only find softcover.

One can easily see why this book was awarded the Outstanding Book of 1995 by the Religious Speech Communication Assoc., it is so well written. The research appears exhaustive, the writer is is firm touch with his subject matter, having poured over sermon manuscripts and listened to tape after tape, and conducted interview upon interview.

One is able to grasp the essence of King's preaching from this reading. Long suspecting that King comes out of the liberal element in the church, this confirmed that suspiscion. The theology and subsequent preaching is far from what my confession would maintain as Biblical. This is social gospel, theology not from heaven down, but earth up, trying to impose its agenda upon God, rather than letting His word and plan of salvation have its way.

While one can easily relate to the race problems and frustrations with an American that would not listen to the pleas, but an America that responded violently, there remains no cause to make the precious Gospel a political one. Jesus had attempts to preach such freedom from political oppression, but in each and every instance, He maintained the gospel at the level it is intended, spiritual.

King thus is out of sync with his namesake, Martin Luther, as well as the historic Christian church. The gospel is about the forgiveness of sins for the life everlasting. As the famous hymn sings: "What is the World to Me?"

This book is vibrant with the complexities of the background and influences on King's theology and preaching. Enjoyed it, yet sad that the title "preacher" is applied to such a false teacher of God's Word. To apply humanity's agenda above and beyond God's is the height of sin and rebellion.

The rather straight line story of the civil rights movement that is told in Parting the Waters becomes much more tangled and complex in Taylor Branch's second book. Here the movement begins to intersect more directly with the other currents of social unrest in the country and the conflicts both within and outside of the movement blur the lines of clear right and wrong.

This is a great piece of social history with the civil rights movement and MLK as the focus. The more success King achieved the more pressure he was under - both from his enemies and his supporters. This was a difficult time for the country and for all those who were - in whatever way - trying to change it. Branch does an invaluable job in trying to distill the mass of detail and the great complexity of the sociopolitical scene into a coherent story. It's harder to do here than in the first book, but he manages nicely. Good job. Worth reading carefully.

This second of Branch's three-part work is wonderful. This book details the relationship between Dr. King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and other African-American Civil Rights groups better than any book I have read. The author is at his best when discussing the political movement MLK, rather than the personal MLK. But, this book is not a biography of MLK. It is, as the first, a history of a time period set around an influential individual, in this case, Dr. Martin Luther King. This book brings to life, the movement for equality, after it had broken out of its infancy to become of powerful force of civil and political change. This book is a must read for the reader who is interested in the civil rights movement!

I now have the difficult task of deciding if Pillar of Fire is, in fact, a better book than Taylor Branch's masterful predecessor volume, Parting the Waters.

It has been almost 10 years since Parting the Waters was published, and I had waited with growing impatience for the second of Branch's three volume history of the civil rights movement.

It is well worth the wait. Mixing an eye for telling detail with a gift for placing those details in context, Pillar is propulsively readable and informative. The years have dulled our recollection of the horrors that were visited upon the brave people, young and old, who broke the back of Jim Crow in the early 60's.

Pillar of Fire and Parting the Waters should be required reading for those who suggest that the grievances of Black Americans are largely imagined. The recitations of the evils of the Hoover FBI, alone, are instructive as to the abuses of power that infested that agency during Hoover's reign.

READ THIS BOOK!

A Song Flung Up To Heaven is a continuation of the experiences of Maya Angelou. If you've read any of her previous memoirs, you will know that Dr. Angelou has lead and continues to led a rich and full life - something that cannot be covered in one or two books.

This sixth memoir starts with Dr. Angelou's return to the U.S. from Ghana, West Africa. It ends with the time she was about to write her first memoir, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings. In between, the book is filled with her encounters with various people and her experience during some disturbing times in American history - the murder of Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King, and the Watts riots in California.

I most enjoyed reading about my favorite personalities from Dr. Angelou's past memoirs - Vus Make, her handsome, intelligent, charismatic African husband; Bailey Johnson, her older, caring big brother; Guy Johnson, her intelligent, independent son and Vivian Baxter, her smart mother.

Reading Dr. Angelou's continued memoir is like sitting with an old, trusted and respected friend; there's a treasured feeling as you listen to her stories as they come one after the other.

Fafa Demasio

We began following the life of Maya Angelou through her first biography, "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings." Now many years and several installments later we conclude with her latest work "A Song Flung Up to Heaven." Although, Angelou focuses primarily on a short span of her life in this book, she reflects over her entire life and at the end of the book the reader will surely feel as if she has come full circle.

Angelou's path to success was a rocky one. As a child she was the victim of abuse and her young adult life was far from easy. She shares her experiences with candor and grace, I never felt as if she was telling the glamorized version of her experiences. She shared both her triumphs and her regrets, her successes and her failures. Her writing was conversational, and as I read through this book I felt at times as if we were sitting and chatting. Maya's relationships with such figures as Malcolm X, James Baldwin, and Martin Luther King Jr., were discussed at length in this novel and several other famous figures were featured with less detail. I appreciated that she didn't "dish dirt" about these people, instead she portrayed the people behind the work for which they were famous.

This book continued the journey of Angelou's often difficult life, but I felt like I was left hanging. I respect her decision not to write about writing, but after reading about so many of the difficulties she had to overcome in her life I wanted to hear about her ultimate success as a writer. Still, I appreciated her openness and willingness to share her life's arduous journey with readers. I truly believe that her life symbolizes strength of character and perseverance in a manner that should serve as an inspiration to all, and particularly to women. As such, I highly recommend Maya Angelou's final chapter of her collection of memoirs.--Reviewed by Stacey Seay

In book six of her autobiography series, "A Song Flung Up to Heaven",Maya Angelou vividly recounts the many memorable occurrences taking place between the years of 1964 through 1968. Angelou's first hand experience of the riot in Watts invokes images of the burning frustrations of the people of that area and time. The opportunities of working alongside historic figures such as Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. were short lived and a sour subject of intense pain for her.

Maya tells of her trip from Africa to Los Angeles and then to
New York. During this time she experiences the absence of her son, who stayed in Africa to continue his education, and the lost love of her African spouse. With the help of family and friends Maya gains the strength to rise again. The story ends at the beginning of her first book in this bio series.

In this reader's opinion, a song flung up to heaven is a silent prayer for the strength to go on in this life, and the prayer always returns with the needed relief through the thoughtfulness of those around us. The joy of this book was listening to the author read it in her own voice through recorded books.

DREAMER held a lot of promise and was a very deep read. The story involves Chaym Smith, who offers himself as a decoy/stand-in to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., because he bears too familiar a resemblence to the good Doctor. Told from the perspectives of Dr. King and one of his aides, Matthew Bishop, the novel took us from marches to meetings involving heads of state to the breakdown of Chaym's personality, which was a complete 360 degrees from that of man he was hired to impersonate. The author was able to structure the personalities of the players involved and made the fictional charaters of Matthew and Chaym convincing and compelling. However, the book was so weighed down with thoughts and agendas that were so complex in context, that it was a little hard to get back on track, especially when you have forgotten where you left off, and you are still reading the book. A good read for those wanting something different and four-dimensional.

Dreamer by Charles Johnson gives a unique look at the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. By using a fictitious double, who must examine his own life in light of the civil rights era, Johnson allows the reader to see both King and Chaym Smith, the man who would be his stand-in, struggle with issues of nonviolence and its meaning in a violent world. This well-researched novel presents a fresh look at King's life by allowing artistic license to soar while it never clouds the truth. Although some details are the product of the author's imagination, others are well documented among King scholars. The presentation of fact in the environment of creative detail allows a glimpse of King that I have seen nowhere else. The story moves quickly and never digresses into detail that is irrelevant to the narrative, but gives enough pertinent detail to help those unfamiliar with the setting, while convincing those who know more details concerning King's life that the author is also a brilliant scholar. A GOOD READ.

Like Faith And The Good Thing, Dreamer works as philosophy and social criticism as well as fiction. Mr. Johnson has the personal courage to eschew trendy thinking and to pull together the truth from all corners of the world, ancient and modern. I like reading him because he tells me the truth; I can trust his judgment. He's incredibly erudite and yet there's no jive in his prose style, no textbook tone, no pretension. It's obvious thatl he's learned a few things while becoming a man and isn't afraid to show it. He demonstrates admirably that "rapping" needn't be doggerel. Kudos! Long live Martin Luther King!

Oliver Stone, meet your nemesis, Gerald Posner.

As the director of "JFK" may well know, Posner has made his reputation debunking fashionable conspiracy theories. His previous book "Case Closed" proved definitively that, Stone's fanciful drivel aside, lone lunatic Lee Harvey Oswald killed John F. Kennedy, aided only by chance and a U.S. Marine's sharpshooting skill.

Not one to shy from controversy, Posner now turns his attention to another 60s hero laid low tragically young by another assassin's bullet. Conspiracy theories about MLK's death have long been fashionable among the African American community; of late even King's family have bought into the notion that James Earl Ray was innocent. Posner once again sifts through the facts and speculation and concludes that Ray was the lone assassin.

In reviewing the case, Posner brings to light a surprisingly complete picture of the assassin's life. Ray grew up in a dirt poor family of criminals and cut his teeth on petty crimes before settling into his life's calling as a robber. His increasing tendency toward violence and continued brushed with the law finally resulted in a long prison sentence. Ray escaped prison and set his sights on one more criminal goal, one guaranteed to make him a hero amongst the underworld--the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Posner takes the reader through the events of that terrible day in 1968, weaving a masterful tragedy made more tragic by those unwilling to lay the blame for this hideous crime where it belongs: squarely on the shoulders of James Earl Ray.

Posner delivers yet again, and in so doing shines the light of truth on an incident almost submerged in the murk of paranoia and denial. I only hope that Coretta Scott King and the rest of her family take time to read this book. While nothing can dim their sorrow, they could at least gain some measure of comfort in knowing that King's murderer was brought to justice.

You might wonder if the author of "Case Closed" deemed it merely obligatory to debunk yet another batch of conspiracy theories, this time surrounding the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Not so. Some of the same conspiratorial characters who cascaded in and out of the murky John F. Kennedy tale have transitioned into the Martin Luther King tragedy without so much as a blink of an eye. Gerald Posner takes them on once again with no less fervor and no less a flair for exhaustive research than he did in "Case Closed," the fruits of which are compellingly told to a fact-hungry America. If you're tired of tabloidisms about the Monica Lewinsky/Ken Starr mess, jump right into Gerald Posner's highly readable "Killing the Dream." I loved it. The footnotes themselves are a richly textured book within a book, sprinkles of wisdom delivered with the sledgehammer of truth. In "Killing the Dream" we find that James Earl Ray is not only a petty criminal, he's a jerk (parks his pale yellow Mustang sideways taking up two spaces so as not to expose his precious getaway car to bumps and bruises; a liar ("He was the most reluctant, sarcastic, overbearing liar I ever saw," said Alton police chief Harold Riggins in 1954); and a bigot. And -- you will meet the real Raul in Posner's disturbing account of intrusion on an innocent by sarcastic, overbearing conspiracy buffs. This exceptional book has put the Martin Luther King assassination in proper perspective, elevating it at the same time to its rightful place in history.

I haven't ever given a lot of thought to James Earl Ray as Martin Luther King's lone assassin, despite the press that has been given to it over the past few months. I assumed, like many others, that the truth about his death was locked up in some government vault somewhere. Only in the future, would we know the truth.

I saw Mr. Posner on one of the early morning talk shows, and found him to be one of the most articulate and straightforward guests I had seen in a while, who offered some thought provoking views on the current conspiracy theories relating to King's death. I was so intrigued by this short interview that I purchased the book. I was not disappointed. I soon learned that the truth about the King Assassination was complex, but available to those who had an open mind.

Posner's clear, efficient writing style, and straight ahead delivery of the facts, as he has discovered them, were facinating. What I appreciated most about his work was the balanced and objective manner in which the facts in this case were presented. In an era when conspiracy theories abound, it is refreshing to read something where rational thought, common sense and exemplary research are found on every page.

I think Posner has done our country a valuable service by setting the record straight on such an important social issue.

Not only has this book contributed to clarifying history, once started, I couldn't set it down.

Bill Cronin