Honoring the dreamer and the dream

Books, words, a symphony of sermons, these were the life's blood of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (pictured preparing the manuscript for one of his major books). This month when the world celebrates the 76th anniversary of Dr. King's birth, take time out to meet him again in local libraries throughout the land. Here are some books on the great activist, some classic selections, others destined to become classics. New in bookstores this month is the fifth volume of THE PAPERS OF MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.: THRESHOLD OF A NEW DECADE, JANUARY 1959-DECEMBER 1960 (Berkeley: University of California Press, $50.00) edited by Clayborne Carson, Tenisha Armstrong, Susan Carson, Adrienne Clay and Kieran Taylor. Detailing King's meetings with world leaders such as Jawaharlal Nehru and Tom Mboya, the fifth volume traces King's emergence as an international spokesman for nonviolence while also shedding new light on his participation in the student protest movements and his role in the 1960 presidential elections. The book also offers never-before-seen documents, such as a personal letter from King to his wife, Coretta, while he was in Georgia State Prison at Reidsville following a parole violation. The first four volumes of King's papers are also available from the University of California Press.

The Martin Luther King, Jr. Companion: Quotations from the Speeches, Essays, and Books of Martin Luther King, Jr. (St. Martin's Press, $12.95) edited by Coretta Scott King provides an excellent sampling of King's philosophies, quotations and ideas. King Came Preaching: The Pulpit Power of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (InterVarsity Press, $20.00) by Dr. Mervyn A. Warren features a foreward by Dr. Gardner C. Taylor and focuses on King's beginnings as a preacher. It is a homiletical biography exploring King's sermons, his use of language, his delivery and more. The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. (Warner Books, $22.95), edited by the celebrated Stanford University historian and director of the Martin Luther King Papers Project, Clayborne Carson, is the posthumous King autobiography derived from thousands of Dr. King's essays, notes, letters, speeches and sermons. A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr. (HarperCollins, $23.95, trade paperback), edited by James M. Washington, is a major one-volume collection of Dr. King's writings and speeches. My Life With Martin Luther King (Puffin, revised edition, $17.95) by Coretta Scott King, offers a unique and intimate perspective on the man and the Movement. My Brother Martin: A Sister Remembers Growing Up with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing, $17.95) by King's sister, Dr. Christine King Farris, is a delightful biography for children on King's childhood. Also noted is an early biography on King, What Manner of Man: A Biography of Martin Luther King Jr. (Johnson Publishing Company, Inc., $19.95, by EBONY Executive Editor and historian Lerone Bennett Jr., that includes an additional chapter on the events leading up to Dr. King's assassination.