Lanterns: A Memoir of Mentors. - Review - book review

American Visions, April, 2000 by V.P. Franklin

Lanterns: A Memoir of Mentors by Marian Wright Edelman (Beacon Press. 1999. $20.00, hardcover)--In this moving and inspiring volume, Marian Wright Edelman pays tribute to the "natural daily mentors" from her childhood and youth: her parents, co-parents and elders, preachers, teachers, and civic and civil rights leaders. What was significant about this mentoring process was that the messages coming from her home, the community, the church and school were consistent and overlapping, advising her to find a purpose in life, one that would make the world a better place. Education, excellence and service would allow one to make a living, while spiritual values and personal commitments would allow one to make a difference. From "Miz Tee" to Martin Luther King Jr., Edelman shines the light on the mentors who helped her along the way, and she provides parents, teachers and young people with the insights and valuable lessons that she learned and that are truly worth learning.

V.P. Franklin is distinguished professor of history at Drexel University in Philadelphia. He is the author or editor of many books, including Living Our Stories, Telling Our Truths: Autobiography and the Making of the African-American Intellectual Tradition (Oxford University Press, 1996).