{"id":28435,"date":"2022-01-16T05:01:00","date_gmt":"2022-01-16T05:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=28435"},"modified":"2022-01-19T03:26:23","modified_gmt":"2022-01-19T03:26:23","slug":"remembering-martin-luther-king-jr-5-things-ive-learned-curating-the-mlk-collection-at-morehouse-college","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/remembering-martin-luther-king-jr-5-things-ive-learned-curating-the-mlk-collection-at-morehouse-college\/","title":{"rendered":"Remembering Martin Luther King Jr.: 5 things I\u2019ve learned curating the MLK Collection at Morehouse College"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Vicki Crawford<\/a>, Morehouse College<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the past 11 years, civil rights historian Vicki Crawford has worked as the director of the Morehouse College Martin Luther King Jr. Collection<\/a>, where she oversees the archive consisting of iconic sermons, speeches, writings and other materials belonging to King.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Few archives of historical papers compare with the importance of the Morehouse King Collection. Aside from King\u2019s life, the collection chronicles many of the major events that occurred during the civil rights movement.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since joining Morehouse, Crawford says she especially enjoys introducing younger generations to King and helping them understand the powerful lessons of the struggle for social justice, particularly how everyday people organized and worked for social change.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of the countless things she has seen, read and learned about King\u2019s theology and civil rights activism, Crawford details five of the countless aspects of his life that stand out.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

An avid reader<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

King read voraciously across a wide range of topics, everything from the \u201cThe Diary of Anne Frank<\/a>\u201d to \u201cCandide<\/a>.\u201d Of course, he also read about theology and religion and philosophy and politics. But he especially enjoyed literature and the works of Leo Tolstoy<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Morehouse College Martin Luther King Jr. Collection includes approximately 1,100 books from King\u2019s personal library, many with his handwritten notes throughout.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some of the titles: \u201cCollected Works of Mahatma Gandhi<\/a>,\u201d \u201cComplete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar<\/a>,\u201d \u201cDeep River: Reflections on the Religious Insight of Certain of the Negro Spirituals<\/a>\u201d by Howard Thurman, \u201cInvisible Man<\/a>\u201d by Ralph Ellison, \u201cKinfolk<\/a>\u201d by Pearl S. Buck and \u201cMoral Man and Immoral Society: A Study in Ethics and Politics<\/a>\u201d by Reinhold Niebuhr.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Others include \u201cFrederick Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom<\/a>,\u201d \u201cSilent Spring<\/a>\u201d by Rachel Carson, \u201cPrison Notes<\/a>\u201d by Barbara Deming, \u201cKillers of the Dream<\/a>\u201d by Lillian Smith and \u201cHere and Beyond the Sunset<\/a>\u201d by Nannie Helen Burroughs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A celebrated writer<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Following the 381-day Montgomery bus boycott<\/a>, which started in 1955, King became a national figure whose ideas and opinions were heavily sought out by book publishers, newspapers and magazines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Martin
Martin Luther King Jr. rides a Montgomery bus up front with Glenn Smiley of Texas. Photo by Bettmann Archive\/Getty Images<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

He became a prolific writer and authored countless letters \u2013 arguably the most famous being \u201cLetter from Birmingham Jail<\/a>\u201d \u2013 as well as several books, among the most notable \u201cWhy We Can\u2019t Wait<\/a>\u201d and \u201cWhere Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But many Americans may not know that he wrote a regular column in Ebony magazine, the leading black national publication at the time. In his \u201cAdvice for Living\u201d column<\/a>, he took questions from readers and addressed a wide range of subjects, including personal questions about marital infidelity, sexual identity, birth control, race relations, capital punishment and atomic weapons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A follower of Gandhi<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"Martin
Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, center, is flanked by guests Martin Luther King and wife Coretta Scott King during a one-month visit to India in 1959. Bettmann<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In 1959, King and his wife visited India, where King\u2019s commitment to the nonviolent teachings of Gandhi expanded and deepened. King always carried a note with him on a scrap of paper that read \u201cGandhi Speaks for Us. \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Gandhi
Gandhi walks with Sarojini Naidu in 1931. Photo by George Rinhart\/Corbis via Getty Images<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A lover of music<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Music formed an important part of King\u2019s life, beginning with his childhood experiences in Ebenezer Baptist Church, where his mother, Alberta Williams King, was the church organist. Alberta King introduced young M.L., as he was called, to music as a child. He later sang solos and sang with the church choir. While a student at Morehouse College from 1944 to 1948, Martin Luther King Jr. sang in the renowned Morehouse College Glee Club as well as the Atlanta University-Morehouse-Spelman Chorus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Martin
In this photograph taken between 1944 and 1948, Martin Luther King Jr. attends a weekly chapel service in Sale Hall at Morehouse College. Courtesy of Morehouse College.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Following his marriage to Coretta Scott in 1953, King expanded his world of music even more. He met Coretta in Boston, where she was studying to become a concert soprano at the New England Conservatory of Music. Coretta introduced King to classical music. He came to appreciate both sacred and secular music and enjoyed jazz and blues as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some of King\u2019s favorite hymns and gospel songs included \u201cTake My Hand, Precious Lord<\/a>,\u201d \u201cHow I Got Over<\/a>,\u201d \u201cThank You, Lord<\/a>\u201d and \u201cNever Grow Old<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

King was also a friend to Aretha Franklin and her father, the Rev. C.L. Franklin, and gospel singer Mahalia Jackson. King felt that music was a powerful element in activism and nonviolent protest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Nobel Prize winner<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"Martin
Crown Prince Harald and King Olav of Norway congratulate King after he receives the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo in 1964. Bettmann<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

At the age of 35, King was the youngest person, the third African American and the 12th American, to win the coveted Nobel Peace Prize<\/a> for his steadfast belief that nonviolence was an integral part of obtaining full citizenship rights for Black people in America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Dec. 10, 1964, King announced that he was donating the Nobel Prize money<\/a> to the civil rights movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[Explore the intersection of faith, politics, arts and culture.<\/em> Sign up for This Week in Religion.<\/a>]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vicki Crawford<\/a>, Professor of Africana Studies, Morehouse College<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Vicki Crawford, Morehouse College For the past 11 years, civil rights historian Vicki Crawford has worked as the director of the Morehouse College Martin Luther King Jr. Collection, where she oversees the archive consisting of iconic sermons, speeches, writings and other materials belonging to King. Few archives of historical papers compare with the importance of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":28436,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[292,4],"tags":[3846,2367,11161,11162,3305],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28435"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28435"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28435\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28447,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28435\/revisions\/28447"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}