Episode · The Ezra Klein Show · 2023-02-17
Books mentioned on A Revelatory Tour of Martin Luther King Jr.’s Forgotten Teachings
Ezra Klein discussed To Shape a New World - Essays on the Political Philosophy of Martin Luther King, Jr by Tommie Shelby and others. Brendan Terry recommended WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE : CHAOS OR COMMUNITY? / by Martin Luther King, Jr. ; with a special introduction by Coretta Scott King by Martin Luther King Jr., The trumpet of conscience by Martin Luther King Jr., The Sword and the Shield by Peniel E. Joseph, A more beautiful and terrible history by Jeanne Theoharis, and Dark ghettos by Tommie Shelby, and discussed Negroes with Guns by Robert F. Williams and others, Righteous discontent by Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Strength to love by Martin Luther King Jr., To Shape a New World by Tommie Shelby, and From the war on poverty to the war on crime by Elizabeth Kai Hinton and others.
Books mentioned, in the order they came up
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To Shape a New World - Essays on the Political Philosophy of Martin Luther King, Jr
To Shape a New World - Essays on the Political Philosophy of Martin Luther King, Jr by Tommie Shelby and Brandon M.
Discussed“Brendan Terry is a professor at Harvard University and he's a co-editor of to shape a new world essays on the political philosophy of Martin Luther King Jr I loved this book”
Where to get it
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Negroes with Guns
Negroes with Guns by Robert F.
Discussed“one way to bring it back to King is that you know early in his career he was engaged in a debate with a man named Robert Williams who wrote a book that was very popular amongst the black power generation called negroes with guns”
Where to get it
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Righteous discontent
Righteous Discontent by Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham is a historical work examining the pivotal role of Black Baptist women in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Discussed“so my colleague Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham wrote a phenomenal book many years ago called righteous discontent and that's what introduces the phrase the politics of respectability”
Where to get it
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Strength to love
Strength to Love by Martin Luther King Jr.
Discussed“well again I I go back to the sermon he gave and it's collected and strength to love and it's called Shattered Dreams”
Where to get it
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To Shape a New World
Discussed“this is one of the powerful interventions that you see in uh Lionel McPherson's essay in to shape a new world”
Where to get it
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From the war on poverty to the war on crime
From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime by Elizabeth Kai Hinton and Elizabeth Hinton is a comprehensive historical examination of federal law enforcement policy and urban governance in the United States from the 1960s through the early 1970s.
Discussed“I think we also and my colleague Elizabeth Hinton dear friend in her first book from the war on poverty to the war on crime one way to read that book is to say that she's telling a kind of tragic story about the loss of a particular ideal”
Where to get it
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WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE : CHAOS OR COMMUNITY? / by Martin Luther King, Jr. ; with a special introduction by Coretta Scott King
Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? by Martin Luther King Jr.
Recommended“if people want to start with one thing he actually wrote to read one book which one should they start with oh that's a hard one I I would probably say I think you get the best sense of his mature thought from uh his 1967 book Where Do We Go From Here chaos or community”
Where to get it
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The trumpet of conscience
Martin Luther King Jr.'s The Trumpet of Conscience is a posthumously published collection of Canadian Broadcasting Corporation lectures that capture the civil rights leader's final thoughts on society, war, and justice.
Recommended“which is still our question so I would definitely recommend that I also really love trumpet of conscience uh his Canadian Broadcasting Corporation lectures that were published posthumously”
Where to get it
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The Sword and the Shield
The Sword and the Shield by Peniel E.
Recommended“and then three books and I'll keep it on a King theme for the holiday I really strongly recommend pineal Joseph's The Sword and the shield it's a dual biography of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X”
Where to get it
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A more beautiful and terrible history
A more beautiful and terrible history is a historical study of the civil rights movement written by Jeanne Theoharis.
Recommended“I also really like Gian Theo Harris's more beautiful and terrible history I think for people coming to the study of the Civil Rights Movement for the first time or kind of curious about why some of the things that I've said don't sound familiar to them she writes in a really accessible and intelligent way about some of the”
Where to get it
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Dark ghettos
Tommie Shelby's Dark Ghettos is a philosophical reflection inspired by Martin Luther King Jr.
Recommended“and then kind of Where Do We Go From Here question you know I want to recommend my colleague Tommy Shelby's book dark ghetto which is a king inspired philosophical reflection on the Deep structure of ghetto poverty and what it requires of us as a society to do to redress it”
Where to get it
