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Gripping, infuriating, inspiring, heart-breaking, hopeful.
There's no way I can do justice to the amount of eloquence born out of serious research that this book represents, but I can say that instead of a vague notion of the pop-culture icon identity of these two figures, I am much better acquainted with the historical Malcolm and Martin. 1/?

"...living wage, federally guaranteed income, decent and racially integrated housing and public schools, and a wholesale reconsideration of American foreign and domestic policy..."
Yeah. Sounds like a good idea!!!

Decades old. Still a valid critique. 🤦🏼‍♂️

Yeah, getting a copy of the source material, writings and speeches by Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X, is the next thing I need to do.

ICE cold cool, kept. 😎

C'mon Kennedy, action is how you prove you're more invested in civil rights than 'no comment Nixon'.
I wonder if I'd be less surprised about how much prodding King had to do of JFK if my education was American instead of Canadian? 🤨

" 'No Comment' Nixon". Snappy! It's got a nice ring to it. ??

Nineteen. Fifty. One. Martin Luther King Jr. had this figured out in 1951! Capitalism BAD. Just add it to the list of things he was talking about more than 70 years ago that we're still struggling with. 🤦🏼‍♂️🙄

This is excellent. 4⭐. Taking off a star due to lack of mentions of Coretta and Betty, and no mention of Claudette Colvin.
Overall though this is a detailed but highly readable look at Martin and Malcolm, how they wove continually past each other without meeting in the middle. And how having polarized views affected the civil rights movement.
I have read many books about these 2 and I am always looking for new to me information I found that 👇

"The more he spoke, the more he [King] sounded like Malcolm."

It is fascinating to look at their lives and see how their tactics, goals, and views shifted to being them closer and closer together. I often wonder if King has lived longer if he like Malcolm could have shifted his view on the abilities and roles of women.

Pictured - this is the only time King and Malcolm were in the same room together which seems wild to me.

I am always disappointed when a book about the civil rights era talks about the Montgomery Bus Boycott without talking about Claudette Colvin.
Colvin was the inspiration and start of the boycott, but leaders decided she as an unmarried, pregnant 15 year old was not a good face for the movement, so instead they chose Rosa Parks to start a sit in , one that Colvin had already been arrested for.

This was more of a play-by-play of each man's life, rather than an in-depth analysis of their philosophies, but still interesting to follow their careers side by side, especially as their goals start to align right before their deaths. It is hard to imagine how this country could have evolved, and how their legacies would have stood, had either or both lived.

An interesting book that sheds light on how Malcom X and MLK influenced each other, their relationship and different approaches to address racial justice.

While reading this, I wondered what they would think about our country now. Yes, much progress has been made, but not enough. Many concerns about protests back then basically sound exactly the same than want is being said on conservative network TV now.

Joseph‘s book sounds really interesting and I enjoyed his NPR interview: http://rssr.link/1kxi0

I took a break from reading books to look at the newspaper, and my TBR grew.