Volume 33, Number 21 & 22 · January 15, 1987
The Dreams of Martin Luther King
By C. Vann Woodward
Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
by David J. Garrow
William Morrow, 800 pp., $19.95
Worthy causes are believed to deserve worthy histories, noble aspirations noble aspirants, and any crusade worth its salt surely requires appropriate heroes. Sometimes these felt needs are met by historians. But more commonly they are fabricated without the help of historians by the laity (or by their willing servant, the tube), eager to tidy or polish up the past, to make it inspiring or dramatic or relevant or reputable or simply more credible. It usually becomes the task of the historian to clear away these fabrications in order to construct something approximating the truth.
Review, 5383 words
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