Titles to Celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

The Martin Luther King Jr. Day federal holiday is an opportunity to reflect on the contributions of one of our nation's greatest civil right leaders. As such, many state and local offices, banks and credit unions, and schools will be closed today.

King, who urged nonviolent resistance as a means to protest racial and other human rights injustices, was assassinated in 1968 in Memphis, TN, and would have turned 84 on Jan. 15.

Librarian Rosemary Mirsky, of the Royal Oak Public Library, offers these titles to celebrate the life of the civil rights leader:

• Taylor Branch's acclaimed trilogy has been called a masterpiece at detailing the civil rights movement and King’s pivotal role. The three books are: Parting the Waters, America in the King Years: 1954-63, At Canaan’s Edge, America in the King Years: 1965-68; and Pillar of Fire, and America in the King Years: 1963-65.
• Marshall Frady offers a more compact biography – Martin Luther King, Jr. – as part of the well-respected Penguin Lives publishing series.
• I Have a Dream: The Life and Words of Martin Luther King Jr. by Jim Haskins includes an introduction by Rosa Parks. 
• The library also has a graphics novel biography King: A Comics Biography of Martin Luther King by Ho Che Anderson.

Other book ideas:

• Becoming King: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Making of a National Leader by Troy Jackson 
• Let the Trumpet Sound: The Life of Martin Luther King, Jr. by Stephen Oates
• Judgment Days: Lyndon Baines Johnson, Martin Luther King Jr. and the Laws That Changed America by Nick Kotz

Listen

• To hear the power of King’s speeches, check out Martin Luther King, Jr. The Essential Box Set: The Landmark Speeches and Sermons of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (audio).

Watch

On DVD, the library’s holdings include:

• Been to the Mountaintop, which contains excerpts from a number of speeches, including the Bus Boycott in Montgomery, Alabama in 1956 and the Poor People’s March in 1968 
• I Have a Dream, which contains King's famous 1963 speech

The library is open Monday from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.