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    Martin's Dream: My Journey and the Legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.
    Unavailable
    Martin's Dream: My Journey and the Legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.
    Unavailable
    Martin's Dream: My Journey and the Legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.
    Ebook469 pages6 hours

    Martin's Dream: My Journey and the Legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.

    By Clayborne Carson

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    On August 28, 1963 hundreds of thousands of demonstrators flocked to the nation's capital for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech. It was Clayborne Carson's first demonstration. A nineteen year old black student from a working-class family in New Mexico, Carson hitched a ride to Washington. Unsure how he would return home, he was nonetheless certain that he wanted to connect with the youthful protesters and community organizers who spearheaded the freedom struggle. Decades later, Coretta Scott King selected Dr. Carson—then a history professor at Stanford University-- to edit the papers of her late husband.

    In this candid and engrossing memoir, he traces his evolution from political activist to activist scholar. He vividly recalls his involvement in the movement's heyday and in the subsequent turbulent period when King's visionary Dream became real for some and remained unfulfilled for others. He recounts his conversations with key African Americans of the past half century, including Black Power firebrand Stokely Carmichael and dedicated organizers such as Ella Baker and Bob Moses. His description of his long-term relationship with Coretta Scott King sheds new light on her crucial role in preserving and protecting her late husband's legacy.

    Written from the unique perspective of a renowned scholar, this highly readable account gives readers valuable new insights about the global significance of King's inspiring ideas and his still unfolding legacy

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateJan 8, 2013
    ISBN9781137087133
    Unavailable
    Martin's Dream: My Journey and the Legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.

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    Reviews for Martin's Dream

    3.5/5

    22 ratings11 reviews

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    • 4/5
      I enjoyed this book. Now, this is partly because I am a hybrid, both a historian and a librarian. The story of Clay Carson's growth as a historian of the civil rights era was very interesting to me. Anyone who is interested in the nuts and bolts of how history is written, and how events move from the front page to the history books should read this book. This is the real focus of this book. Carson also speaks as a witness to the Movement, and tells many stories about various figures. In particular, this should be of great interest to any who is interested in the King family, and their attempts to grapple, in different ways, with his legacy, in the years that followed his assassination. This is not exactly a biography of MLK, but rather an account of those who were left when he was taken from us, and how they struggled to carry on his work.
    • 3/5
      This is the memoir of Clayborne Carson who was selected by Coretta King to edit the papers of Martin Luther King, Jr. Based on the title, I had expected to read more about King and his dream. As a young college student, Carson took a bus to the March on Washington in August, 1963. From there, this memoir follows his journey home from the March to his exile in Europe during the Vietnam War. Carson returns to do graduate work. In his study and research he meets many of the key leaders of the civil rights movement and he recounts his conversations with them.Coretta King selected Carson to be the editor of her husband's papers. Much of this memoir is devoted to a recounting of his relationship with the King family and all of the difficulties encountered in that project.This was an interesting book, but I had hoped to read more about King.
    • 3/5
      Clayborne Carson writes in this book of how a critic proclaimed that his "Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr." was incorrectly titled. I would say that this volume is even more so. Carson's journey is practically hidden in the sandwich of "Martin's Dream" and "the Legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.," so naturally, though I expected this book to have a lot of personal anecdotes, I still expected it to focus largely on King. It does so only in the most roundabout of ways. This is first and foremost an autobiography of Clayborne Carson, who just happens to be a Martin Luther King scholar.Much of Carson's "journey" focusses not on the struggles he has experienced as a result of his race, but on the struggles he has experienced as an academic trying to reconcile disparate ideas, gain access to sources controlled by sometimes uncooperative people, and promote his own vision of how King should be understood in collaborative efforts that occasionally went against what he hoped for. This presents a perspective on how scholarship gets done that most of us either never hear about or completely ignore, and there are a few laudable moments where Carson delves more fully into how both he and other individuals have differently interpreted King throughout the years since his assassination. Otherwise, however, we learn very little new information about King, other than the juicy but salacious indications that he plagiarised in his doctoral work and possibly cheated on his wife. I get the feeling that I might find Carson's other writing on the topic interesting. But an autobiography is not what I thought I was getting with this book, and I am probably just not the right audience for it. A more appropriate title might help the author find that audience so that others are not equally as disappointed.
    • 4/5
      I received this through the Library Thing Early Reviewers. I knew it wasn't necessarily about Martin Luther King, Jr directly, but I enjoyed the glimpses in his life the Clayborne Carson gained through is work on the King papers Project.Before reading this, I knew only a broad overview of the Civil Rights Movement. I recognized some of the names and organizations discussed however I was more interested in Clayton's journey from an innocent 19 year old who personally witnessed the "I Have a Dream Speech" to an established historian and writer.Seeing the journey through Clayton's eyes and reading this at a time when there is still inequality in the judicial system, it made me realize that there's still a long way to go for equality.
    • 3/5
      This true recalling of Martin Luther King's life journeys is a powerful story that can relate to 5th or 6th grade. Many interesting grand conversations can arise from the deep issues and concerns this story brings to surface.
    • 2/5
      MARTIN’S DREAM was not what I expected, and proved to be a good reminder to pay attention to a book’s subtitle. This is, after all, a memoir; and true to its subtitle, it is about Clayborne Carson’s journey. it is not about Martin Luther King, Jr.There is barely a mention of Dr. King until nearly a hundred pages into the book. Until then and throughout, it is a studied, accurate compilation of the author’s and the country’s activities leading up to and through the Civil Rights Movement, as well as, the coming into being of the King Papers Project. As such, it is a trustworthy if uninspiring reference of an important part of U.S. History. Far more compelling books have been written about the Civil Rights Movement, but the second half of the book that covers the development of the King Papers Project is not as well known. All of this was a bit overly careful and dry, although the book is well written. I'm sorry I didn't like it better.
    • 3/5
      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.
    • 4/5
      "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.
    • 4/5
      In Martin's Dream, Clayborne Carson has written about his journey from the 1963 March on Washington, where Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his famous "I have a dream" speech, student activist with the civil rights movement through his involvement with SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) and finally to his years as a scholar and editor of the King papers. This is really Carson's dream and King thought his eyes. But be aware that there is no bibliography or footnotes to fact check the material.The most disturbing parts of the book were when Carson and his team discovered that King had not cited some of his sources properly, especially in his doctoral dissertation. The fallout and final resolution are discussed, including the dissatisfaction of Mrs. King and the rest of the family. There were also territorial issues over who had rights to the King papers, described in great detail.I was fascinated by Carson's descriptions his play about King being produced in China and in Palestine as well as a chapter about Obama.For those who want the life of MLK, Carson has edited his autobiography and there are many other works that can be read. But for a look at the life of an author and editor, this book is an excellent read.
    • 4/5
      Carson Clayborn a is well known professor of American history at Stanford University. He has been the director of the Martin Luther King Papers Project, whose goal is to edit and publish King’s papers. When I got the chance to read Clayborn’s memoir, Martin's Dream: My Journey and the Legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. through LibrayThing’s Early Reviewer program I jumped at the chance.The book begins with Clayborn, a college freshman attending a conference in Indianapolis, meeting Stokely Carmichael and deciding to take a detour to attend the 1963 March On Washington before heading home to New Mexico. In Washington he heard some of the best speakers of Civil Rights Movement, including Martin Luther King Jr. giving his “I have a Dream” speech.Before entering academia Clayborn wrote for small newspapers and he had enough involvement in the Civil Rights Movement to earn both an arrest record and a file with the FBI. When he said that Affirmative Action and the push for universities to add African American faculty helped his early career was more honesty than I expected in anyones memoir but Clayborn’s instance on laying out the facts as they are is why he is such a respected historian and an occasional point of friction between him and the King family. I enjoyed reading Martin’s Dream but I have had trouble writing the review. I have to confess that as a wannabe historian and that I envy his career and, especially, his role as an archivist working with the King Papers. While writing the review I have to ask myself how much of my enthusiasm for the book is due to its touching subjects I am so interested in? Not everyone is going to be as enthusiastic for this book as I am.If you enjoy memoirs by interesting people living in interesting times, even if they are not a central figures in that history, read this book. If you want a detailed history of the civil rights movement in the 1960s, read one of Clayborn’s other books. If you want to learn about the MLK Papers Project and the work Clayborn has done with the King family to publish Dr. King’s writings and editing the “Autobiography of Martin Luther King”, read this book. You will not be disappointed.
    • 5/5
      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.