Book Signing in Marion, Alabama
Bernice Albertine King (born March 28, 1963) is the second daughter and youngest child of civil rights leaders Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr and Coretta Scott King. Her older siblings are Martin Luther King III, Dexter Scott King, and the late Yolanda Denise King. Bernice was only five years old when her father died and is the only King child to become a minister.
I attended my first book signing yesterday (7-21-2012) since relocating to the historic city of Marion in west central Alabama two weeks ago. The venue was the Lincoln Normal School's Phillips Memorial Auditorium.I enjoyed getting out and meeting more people of Marion.
"Desert
Rose" details Coretta Scott King's upbringing in a family of proud,
land-owning African Americans with a profound devotion to the ideals of social
equality and the values of education, as well as her later role as her
husband's most trusted confidant and advisor. Coretta Scott King--noted author,
human rights activist, and wife and partner of famed Civil Rights Movement
leader Martin Luther King Jr.--grew up in the rural Alabama Black Belt with her
older sister, Edythe Scott Bagley. Bagley chronicles the sisters' early
education together at the Crossroads School and later at the progressive
Lincoln School in Marion. She describes Coretta's burgeoning talent for singing
and her devotion to musical studies, and the sisters' experiences matriculating
at Antioch College, an all-white college far from the rural South. Bagley
provides vivid insights into Coretta's early passion for racial and economic
justice, which lead to her involvement in the Peace Movement and the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People. As Coretta's older sister,
Edythe shared in almost all of Coretta's many trials and tribulations.
"Desert Rose" charts Coretta's hesitance about her romance with
Martin Luther King and the prospect of having to sacrifice her dream of a
career in music to become a minister's wife. Ultimately, Coretta chose to
utilize her artistic gifts and singing voice for the Movement through the
development and performance of Freedom Concerts. This book also charts
Coretta's own commitment and dedication, in the years that followed King's
death, to the causes of international civil rights, the anti-apartheid movement,
and the establishment of the King Center in Atlanta and the national King
Holiday. Coretta's devotion to activism, motherhood, and the movement led by
her husband, and her courageous assumption of the legacy left in the wake of
King's untimely assassination, are wonderfully detailed in this intimate
biography.
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