American History Hit - The Making of Martin Luther King Jr.

Episode Date: January 15, 2024

Who introduced Martin Luther King Jr. to activism? Why is the influence of mothers so often understated? And did you know about the other King assassination?In this episode, we explore the extraordinary life and legacy of Alberta Christine Williams King, a remarkable activist in her own right.From her upbringing in Atlanta to her pivotal role in shaping MLK Jr.'s values and beliefs, Alberta's story is one of resilience, determination and tragedy.Don is joined by Anna Malaika Tubbs, New York Times bestselling author of 'The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation'.Produced by Sophie Gee. Edited by Aidan Lonergan. Senior Producer was Charlotte Long.Discover the past on History Hit with ad-free original podcasts and documentaries released weekly presented by world renowned historians like Dan Snow, James Holland, Mary Beard and more.Don’t miss out on the best offer in history! Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for £1 for 3 months with code AMERICANHISTORYHIT1 sign up now for your 14-day free trial https://historyhit/subscription/You can take part in our listener survey here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Want to explore even more history? Sign up to History Hit, where you will discover history from around the world. From the American Revolution to prehistoric Scotland, there is plenty to discover. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries with a brand new release every week, exploring everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com slash subscribe to bring the past alive. At 501, Auburn Avenue in Atlanta, Georgia, the morning has taken an extraordinary turn. In an upstairs bedroom of the modest two-story home can be heard the sounds of a woman in the throes of labor as she delivers child.

It is the house where the woman, Alberta Williams King, grew up. Her father, Reverend Williams, is the pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church, where her young husband is now a minister as well. Today, the congregation eagerly awaits news. Alberta paces herself with the contractions, breathing rhythmically against the pain. Beads of sweat are dabbed from her forehead as she prays inwardly for the safety of her child. Finally, at 12 noon, the baby arrives. It is a boy who will be called Michael, but whose name would later be changed to Martin. January 15th, 1929.

It is Martin Luther King Jr's birthday. Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of the pod. This is American History Hit, and I'm Don Wildman. We are telling a tale today in celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, observed here in America on the third Monday of every January. This year, 2024, the holiday lands on the date itself. January 15th, happy MLK Day, everyone. For this episode, though, we're not speaking of the great man so directly.

Rather, we are focused on the story of the woman who brought him into this world. His mother, Alberta Christine Williams King, and it is an honor to do so, especially in the company of the accomplished author, organizer, educator, public speaker, and mother of three. Anna, Malika Tubbs. Hello, Anna. Welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so happy to be here. Thanks for joining us.

I know you have a brand new baby in your house, and we're going to be talking about your best-selling book, The Three Mothers. how the mothers of Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin shaped the nation. It was a New York Times bestselling book, an amazing read. How cool is that? But before we dive into these three women's incredible lives, it's really so true. I mean, just a general question here. Maybe with the exception of the Virgin Mary, mothers always get the bumrap historically. Never the huge credit they're due.

Why is that? Yeah, that's absolutely true. I think it's especially true in the United States. I think culture by culture will definitely vary. I am an anthropologist by my undergraduate training, so I feel like I have to give that disclaimer. But the United States is clear that mothers do not really matter that much here when we look at our policies around motherhood. You know, we don't have universal paid leave. We don't have universal access to quality child care.

All these different ways in which mothers are basically told you're going to have to figure this out on your own. But on top of that, when mothers do figure out a way, especially, black mothers find a way out of no way, they are very rarely given credit for that. So it's either that we're going to be blamed if something goes wrong in our families. And then when things don't go wrong, if we are able to make it through despite whatever challenges, we then won't receive credit for it. We're just kind of told what you did what mothers were supposed to do. And that's it. You're supposed to kind of exist in the background and be humble about those accomplishments. So that's something that I'm really passionate about changing. Yeah. And your book has gone

far in doing so. I'm still confused, though. Each and every one of us loves our mothers dearly. We know we owe it all to them. How the heck has that even happened? You know, I mean, this is kind of a question at the end of this interview, but I'll get to it right now. I don't understand that theme of our society, truly. Yeah, it's a great question. And it's actually something I'm addressing in my next book that I'm writing. So thanks for the opportunity to talk about it because this question came up all the time as I was on my initial book tour for the three mothers. is everyone feeling really shocked that we weren't celebrating mothers, but especially these three who did everything that their sons became famous for long before their sons were even a thought

in their mind. And I realize that a lot of us don't really understand how something like American patriarchy works, that this is really built into our system, into our nation by design, and something that our founding fathers actually wanted to embed into our nation, which was that this was going to be a country for men, for white men, specifically. And anybody that kind of fell outside of that was going to fall in line in the hierarchy that they were building. And so we see that play out in our laws.

We see that play out in our, you know, company policies or lack thereof. So those protections and lack of protections that I was speaking about before, that's how that all then trickles down even into our own family dynamics where we suddenly see that we're all existing in almost these like mini patriarchies all around. And it takes us being conscious of that in order to be able to change it. But it also makes us need to put more women in office and more mothers in office, especially even leading in our companies. So it all is kind of this cycle that we're currently part of, largely because people don't understand how patriarchy works. So that's what I'm addressing in my next book.

Okay. So let's get to the history that's at hand here. Alberta Christine Williams King, born September 1903 in Atlanta, to an activist family. Is that fair to say? Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Her parents were the ones who really established Ebenezer Baptist Church. So thus far before my book, we often spoke about Ebenezer Baptist as MLK Jr's father's church, so MLK

seniors' church. But that is completely inaccurate. In fact, it was Alberta's parents who established the church. And from the beginning of them saying, you know, we're going to be here and we're going to build this church up, they also spoke about the need for religion to be intertwined with social justice. So if you were somebody who was a religious leader or you called yourself a person of faith, that meant that you had to stand up for the oppressed, that you had to stand up for the poor, that if you had certain privileges that other people didn't have, you had to use that for something

larger than yourself, something that would create a movement, especially for black community members. And so Alberta grows up learning how to boycott different places that didn't respect the black community. She learns to participate in marches. She learns that you can have this politically active voice, even from a very young age, and even as a woman, especially as a black woman. So it's really a huge deal that her parents invest so much in her education. She goes on to become an educator herself. She has a bachelor's degree. She has a teaching certificate. These are things that we cannot take for granted for a black girl in the early 1900s. All All of it was very intentional, and it starts with her parents.

Right. It's fascinating to imagine the beginnings of so much in this household and in this community. I mean, we are guilty often of seeing it all in one sort of singular fashion, the entire South. But of course, in Atlanta, you have an entirely different kind of community and a different kind of level of education, et cetera, in the black community in Atlanta. She is part of that, right? I mean, this is the beginning of so much, NAACP, et cetera. and she would have been partyed to all of that.

In many ways, Atlanta is a mecca of black culture, black education, social justice movements, all of the above. And absolutely in her family, this is a legacy that they are all a part of. So all of the men and her family go to Morehouse. All of the women go to Spellman. She went to Spellman when it was a high school, and she goes to Morris Brown College for her bachelor's degree. But later on, when Spellman becomes a college, this all becomes a part of their family legacy. So her daughter then also later becomes a professor at Spellman.

So when she meets her husband, not to get too far into the story, I'm sure we'll kind of touch little points along the way. But when she meets Martin Luther King, Sr., who at the time was named Michael King, he is not as privileged as she is. He doesn't have the access to opportunities that she's born with as a virtue of being her parents' daughter. And so she says to him, you're not quite educated yet. You know, she loves him, but she realizes there's things that he doesn't have access to.

And so she helps him get into Morehouse as part of the legacy of her family where all the men have gone. So you meet somebody who at the time had less than an eighth grade education and can barely really read or write on his own, then meets her, is able to get into Morehouse and then graduates and becomes this incredible orator himself. Something that he speaks about in his own autobiography, he says, I couldn't be who I am today. without my wife. He marries really into that family and he moves in with them when they're married. So it's really kind of a flip on the traditional marriage or the notion that a woman is marrying into a family that is of higher class. And he joins the ministry also in the same church of her father, right? Yeah. So he inherits the church. He inherits that seat, I guess you could say, from her father directly. Wow. Okay. Which in turn will, of course, become Martin Luther King Jr.'s church as well.

It's an incredible legacy, multi-generational in every way. Fascinating that she becomes a teacher, but she's not able to teach at some point. She loses her certificate. Explain that, please. Yeah, this is a really heartbreaking part of her story. At the time, there was a law that existed called the Marriage Bar, which was put in place really to control middle-class women who were going to maybe kind of break out of the cycle of needing to depend. on men for various different rights in our nation that we're all aware of historically. But Alberta is interesting that she's targeted by this law because she's a black woman. And quite often, black women were still made to work.

We know that it wasn't that black women were kept out of different positions like domestic positions. But for her wanting to become a teacher, the marriage bar then applies. And she's told that it's against the law if she's going to get married and have a family for her to continue teaching. So she kind of has to make a decision. But as we know, even for single women, if they were able to work their own job,

there's going to become a point where they need a man to do business or really kind of move forward in life. And so she makes the decision to get married and teach in a more informal setting. So she can no longer teach within the public schools of Atlanta, but she can use her education and talk to church members. She's the leader of their choir. and she also uses that education in her parenting.

Right. And she has three children. Yes. Willie Christine, the oldest, Martin, who was named Michael. We've got to talk about that just to clarify things. And then Alfred Daniel. In fact, let's do that now. It's a historical trivia point almost that Martin Luther King starts his life as Michael King, as did his father.

Yeah. But his father learned about Martin Luther, the Reformationist and all that, and changes his name to Martin Luther King. Explain that. I'm doing a shoddy job here. Well, this one's interesting because it's one of those moments in history that we've heard many different stories for. So I based my understanding off of MLK's senior's autobiography, where he speaks about the fact that he goes back home. There's a lot to be said about his own background, but his parents are plantation workers and his father had an issue with alcoholism. And so for a long time, Michael King at the time felt like he needed to run away from that.

And he was very disappointed in his father. And once he meets Alderta and he kind of has his own restart in terms of life, he goes back home and he speaks his father. And I guess before his father passes away, he tells him a story about the fact that he meant to originally name him Martin after one of his brothers and Luther after another. And so that's why he comes back home and says, I'm renaming myself, Martin Luther King, to honor my father. and a part of his forgiveness of his father. And that we need to now change the name of our first son, who was originally Michael King. We're going to rename both of us to Martin Luther King. That's what it says in his autobiography, but I've heard other stories as well.

So honestly, who knows? How did she feel about that, do you think? I'm sure she was probably fine with it. I think there's this incredible honor of passing a name on to your child. And especially within black communities where there's been such an attack on the course. black family. You see many families, especially in those early 1900s, up until now even, really take this claim on being able to pass their identity on to the next generation of their family because for many, many years, as we know during slavery, families were completely torn

apart from each other. There was no respect for the black family unit. And that's why you see many people really adhering to these traditional family values in the United States. Yeah. The segregated community of Atlanta, like in so many southern cities, would have been a very strong community, obviously, right? I mean, this was a powerful nucleus of everyone's existence. Martin Luther King, Jr. would have benefited enormously from that. The sort of concentratedness of it, I suppose. Yeah, a big part of his matrilineal legacy, I'll say, that we've kind of been describing,

is the fact that when Alberta's a little girl, you have the Atlanta race riots that take place. So in her area of Sweet Auburn, they are some of the most successful black businesses and black banks and there's black doctors. And they're really establishing their own community, a part of this black mecca that I was talking about in Atlanta, Sweet Auburn, where she is raised is its own mecca of that mecca. And it's attacked as a result. So white mobs come through there. I want to say in 1906, she's probably around three years old. And they start destroying all of these businesses and they're, you know, lighting things on fire like we've seen in many different race riots throughout American history. And so as a response to that, the black community in Sweet Auburn, although they really take a hit from this, they are constantly thinking about how we stand up for ourselves and we don't give up.

It's also the fact that she grows up within miles of Confederate monuments. So she's constantly thinking about how you need to respond to white supremacy, while also thinking about the joy that's necessary in black communities and black families and making sure that that's a big part of our resistance, that we can't forget that part. So you see this play out in the family dynamic where she inherits this from her own family, that you sit and eat with your elders often and you kind of compare notes with each other. and you talk through the history and the legacy that you're continuing and that you're a part of. And that's something that she then carries into her own motherhood as well. And so MLK often spoke about the fact he would go to his mother for advice that he wanted to sit down at these family meals, that this was a huge part of his routine because of that form of resistance, which is family love and joy. I'll be back with more American history after this short break.

There's a famous quote about his feelings for this woman. I'll just read it. In spite of her relatively comfortable circumstances, my mother never complacently adjusted herself to the system of segregation. She instilled a sense of self-respect in all of her children from the very beginning. Martin Luther King wrote, I want to know how much the influence that she had directly on Martin Luther King would have played out in his life.

I mean, really could you root it to her specifically? Absolutely. In the case of Alberta, and all three women that I write about in the book, it's almost uncanny how similar they are to the famous son and how long before those sons are thoughts in their minds. They are doing the things that their sons are going to become famous for. And so in Alberta's case, yes, she's born into privilege. She believes that if you have privilege, just like her parents taught her, you must use that for something larger. It doesn't make you better than anyone else. Instead, it gives you more responsibility for this larger movement.

And so in her case, she's well educated. So she always felt she needed to do something bigger with that. And as we reviewed, she wasn't able to teach in the way that she originally thought she was going to kind of pass on this legacy to however many students in the Atlanta public school system. But instead, she realizes that her motherhood is also a part of this. And she can have that legacy continue to carry forward by teaching her children what her parents and her community have taught her. So MLK Jr. calls it something different later on because he goes to college and he starts to learn about the nonviolent movement. But he starts to realize that that is exactly what his family has been doing for generations.

So it's not that he goes to college and this is where he discovers Gandhi and now he understands nonviolence as we've told the story in the past. It's actually that this is very familiar to him because he grew up in a family of activists and long before even the activist that he didn't even know. they were fighting for him and for his legacy to continue. Wow. Albert had that kind of connection between her family, her parents, and obviously her children. How did she talk about slavery with him? Yeah. There's a famous story that MLK told where his kind of first discovery of segregation.

And he had friends. I think apparently the friends' parents worked at the neighborhood corner store, and they always used to play together until they reached a certain age where it was no longer acceptable for a black boy and a white boy to be friends. This is kind of how he tells it. And so he's so disappointed by this, runs back home to his mom. And she sits him down and talks to him about slavery and about segregation. He kind of like, but passes through it pretty quickly when he's telling the story.

But she says, you are as good as anyone. And he often emphasized the fact that it was a simple message, but that was the most revolutionary message, to simply be told that we were as good as anyone. anyone else, that we weren't supposed to be subordinates. We weren't supposed to be oppressed. We were just as good as everyone else. And so that was really the angle that Alberta approached him with. You know, these are horrible things that have happened. These are the horrible things that you're going to experience in your own life. But what you need to know at your core is you are just as good as anyone. The means with which he changes America and the world end up to be some of the

biggest controversies of his life in that he takes such a specific and definite choice to follow nonviolence in his efforts. You mentioned Gandhi and everybody like me, you know, immediately goes there as the reason that he, you know, he reads Gandhi and therefore. No, it roots in a much more gradual generational process that had been going on through many black families and had been articulated very specifically through the NAACP founding and so forth. Yeah. W.B. Du Bois, all these people are saying things that are, the violence isn't working, I guess, right? And Martin Luther King, Jr. takes that lesson and uses it in his work. Beyond his preaching, this becomes his means of social reform. Yeah, it's interesting because in the book, I'm comparing these three different mothers and what their sons end up doing as a result of how they are mothered and how they are taught at home. And with MLK Jr., it becomes very clear that, you know,

he is born into a family of privilege, as we've spoken about. And so this is something that we can't, again, take for granted. It's a large reason why he approaches the movement from a nonviolent perspective, not to say that those who don't come from privilege cannot approach it in that way, but you just see very clearly that this lineage of theirs has a lot also to do with respectability politics, something that had allowed many black families to survive, but it's also something that has trapped us in a lot of ways where we have to act a certain way to be seen as human beings or we cannot show the anger that is rightful. And that's why it's something that when we kind of pin him against, you know, somebody like

Malcolm X, we're missing the point and why I also wanted to add a third person into it so it could complicate our narrative a little bit more. Yeah. Better understand that the way these men grew up also then allowed them to have different approaches to the movement. And I never say that there's one that is better than the other, but instead that this was kind of a team effort. And it continues to be, we have to approach this from various different perspectives and angles in order to accomplish anything. That's what's happened throughout American history. As MLK rises in fame and stature, is she seen with

him? Is she part of that effort as well? Within their community, she was well celebrated historically. I mean, I think while she was alive, now in a lot of ways, she's been erased, you know, and I went and did the tour of their family home where she grew up and where she birthed her children and where her husband moved into when they got married, she was barely mentioned. And that was really angering for me because I know when she was alive, she received, you know, the mother of the year award and they called her the mother of the movement. And so there was this acknowledgement of Mama King, what everybody called her Mama King, and her importance. in this family. And it's sad that over time, that has been entirely lost. Outside of Atlanta, though, I don't think it ever existed, which is also horrible, despite the fact that she, you know, travels to Norway when he receives his Nobel Peace Prize. And she's often his counselor. He's calling her for advice. He's calling her for, you know, normal motherly things like

food that he wants sent to him and clothes. And he's also really respecting the fact that she has advice to give him as an activist herself. So in my understanding of all three of these men, they really understood the importance of their mothers. But I also know that it's so easy for us to erase the stories of women, even when the person were admiring, like somebody like MLK is saying, oh, it was my mom or it was my wife who inspired this in me. We then, as journalists or writers, go and retract that and try to tell a completely different story. So you see MLK Senior getting so much more of the credit, even if MLK Jr. is giving them equal credit, if not giving his mother more of it. It's so easily forgotten that this man dies as a young man. He's in his late 30s.

I mean, it's incredible what he's accomplished, but it's also incredibly tragic on top of the tragedy. And so his tie was mom is one of someone in their 30s. It's very fresh still and a big part of life. Speaking of which, sadly, what role did she play in the morning of his death and so forth? I mean, How did people see her? How did she stand up for that? She hears the news. Well, first before he passes, he has this conversation with both his parents, and it's something that MLK Senior documents in his autobiography, where they're sitting on their

front porch, and MLK Jr. says, I think someone's going to try to kill me. I'm paraphrasing, but something like that. And his mother tries, you know, to kind of hold back any of those fears and tears that she wants to show because she's actually been known to be someone who over worries for them, almost worries to the point where she has to be put on bed rest because it's causing so much stress and anxiety for her. But she's constantly struggling with this fact that he has this calling that she believes is a calling from God, again, to continue the legacy that we've spoken about and he's doing his

part, but that it's also putting him in danger. It's putting him in danger. It's putting his wife in danger. It's putting their children, her grandchildren in danger. So there's this constant kind of tug of war that I kept noticing and everything that I was discovering about her. So when he is murdered and she finds out over the radio that her son has been murdered, it's the same kind of tug of war that you can see, again documented by her husband. He says that she had kind of a single tear drop.

She's very serious, but she very quickly, like the next day, focuses more on her grandchildren and kind of who she needs to be for them. And so I think there's this inner struggle for her, especially after he does pass away, after her worst fear does come through, that like for the movement he gave his life. And for the movement, she gives her son. Did she have a strong relationship with Coretta Scott King? My understanding is, yes, that they were very similar to each other when you think about it. Coreta Scott King was also very well educated. They meet her and MLK junior meet when they're both students. and she's at the conservatory. She's this very talented musician and singer. And then in a way,

the same thing happens to her that happens to her mother-in-law, which is that she marries this preacher activist who then goes on to have a larger stage than she does. And you see across the country and across the world how under-celebrated she is, even to this day. The reason we have an MLK day is because of Credit of Scott King. It's because she fought for it. And that's only been recent knowledge for people that we are able to give her that credit that she deserves. So in that sense, I think Alberta understood that struggle. Not that either of them were trying to be the stars of the show, but just the pain that comes with people erasing your contributions. And then she loses her loved one and her mother-in-law is largely there to support her and her children

moving forward. Anecdotally, I'll say in college, I went to a school called Erlum College out in Indiana at Quaker School. And at some point, Greta Scott King came out and spoke. It's a very small school, very small community. And I had the great good fortune of being her usher around campus. And I spent my time with Coretta Scott King. It just kind of happened. And I will never forget how absolutely lovely and gracious she was, you know, to this kid,

you know, whoever I was, you know, just shows up and she's on my arm. It was an amazing experience. Incredible. Yeah, a little, a little, some slice of history for me. I'm loathed to talk about the next part of this story because incredibly a similar thing happens to Alberta. Let's talk about this. It's an incredibly tragic ending to her life.

It's kind of weird. Yeah. But let's cover this, please. Yeah, I mean, and even in between before she passes away, she loses her other son. Yes, exactly. Under very suspicious circumstances, he was also an activist, also very involved in the movement.

And then he was found, his brothers found, drowning in his own pool. even though he was a great swimmer. So the family never really understood what happened there. So Alberto suffers the loss of not only her eldest son, but also her youngest child. And then after that, he is playing the organ at church, which is something she often did. She was, again, this very talented musician. And a man stands up in the middle of the service and says that he's going to take over that day.

This is a black man who historically now people speak to as if he was having. having some kind of breakdown. And he had gone there originally targeting MLK Senior. He had intentions to shoot him that day. But Alberto was closer to him. And so he decided to take a different turn. And he shoots her and injures two other people before he's attacked and taken down himself. Alberto's rushed to the hospital before she passes away there very tragically.

And it's something that is documented not only by her husband, of course, but her daughter, who is then the survivor of her brothers, as well as her mom. This happened in 1974, June 30th, 1974, six years after the murder of MLK. Anna, the book is so eloquent about the issues of motherhood, especially in the black community, obviously, where women are just trying to raise their kids, you know, you just want to do a good job at that. But in America, black people, especially in this era, are dealing with such strange pressures that have to be interpreted for their children, that have to be acted upon in order to make sure that these kids have a different state of mind than society seems to be stamping them

with or feeding them. These three mothers are insanely talented at being moms. I mean, that's what's incredible. But never mind the fact that they're dealing with tragedies none of us ever can conceive of. How do you interpret that? How do you step back as a writer and a thinker and say, gosh, you know, we need to appreciate how our societies move forward thanks to these ladies. Yeah. It's a hard question to answer, but I often speak about some of the similarities of these three women. And what I think they kind of symbolize largely for other black women today even. And that is these tenets of black motherhood. You know, they're all so different from you.

each other. It was really important for me to emphasize those differences because often we are seen as a monolith as black women and represented that way. But the thing that gives a lot of hope is something that brings them all together. And that is these tenets of black motherhood that I felt like they were teaching me. When I was doing this research, I was also pregnant with my first son. And it felt like they were kind of guiding me through motherhood. And the first tenant is that when we are raising black children, we don't really have a choice. as to whether or not we're going to tell them how ugly the world is. You know, that has to be something that's communicated at some point,

how horrible other people can be, how terrible history has been, you know, what we talked about with Alberta sitting MLK on her lap and telling him about what's happened. But the second part of this is making sure that our children know we are not defined by that. We are not defined by other people's myopic views of who we are

as a people, as a diaspora. but instead that we must do something to change not only that narrative but also the policies in place that kind of justify these narratives and that they each pass on their own strategies for those changes. They say this is what I've done in my life to make these changes. This is what our family has historically done. Our legacy has been. And this is something that you are also tasked with. But in that final tenant, the fourth one, we also. emphasize that we are not alone, that they are kind of carrying something forward as a part of a

larger team. So it should feel lighter as a lift. And therefore, they should find joy in that, that they should know that this is not only theirs to hold, but instead that we're doing this so that we can live happily and that we really reclaim our joy and our love. So you have moments throughout the book where they're doing really simple things that are just about, again, like you said mothering and making so that their children can dream in a country that tells them that they aren't worthy of that. And so they're able to still pass that on, that continuous message of other people might say you aren't worthy.

We cannot be defined by that. These are ways in which I have kind of played my part in it and ways in which you can play your part and kind of build on my strategy of resistance. And all of this, our ultimate goal, that we have to hold. on to and it cannot be robbed from us, is that we should live like human beings who have joy and have love between us. And that's really that kind of balance of what they accomplished and what I think many black mothers continue. I mean, all black mothers really continue to accomplish today. Love is the center of at all. I mean, truly. We would not have Martin Luther King, Jr., obviously,

without his mom, but we also wouldn't have the way he was brought up to think. And we have a lot to be grateful for, and in that regard, especially his mom, whose name I'm going to say again, Alberta Christine Williams King. Don't forget that name. And we have Anna Malika Tubbs to thank for writing a book, not only about Alberta, but also about the mothers of Malcolm X and also James Baldwin, which I wish we had the time to talk about right now, but I encourage people to get the book, read it, the three mothers, how the mothers of Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin shaped a nation. But that's only a type of an iceberg of your accomplishments. Anna, where can people find out more about you and what's coming up next?

Thank you so much. They can find more on my website,ana, malacatubst.com. So I'm sure my name will be on this interview. You just put that together and put a dot com on it. Okay. And I'm working on my next two nonfiction books right now. So the patriarchy book will probably be out at the beginning of 2025. And I'm also starting to think about screen projects and hopefully one that's based on this book.

That's cool. Look it up. Yeah. Look her up. Thank you. Hey, thanks for listening to American History Hit. You know, every week we release new episodes, two new episodes dropping Mondays and Thursdays,

all kinds of content from mysterious missing colonies to powerful political movements to some of the biggest battles across the centuries. Don't miss an episode. By hitting like and follow, you help us out, which is great. But you'll also be reminded when our shows are on. And while you're at it, share it with a friend. American History Hit with me, Don Wildman. So grateful for your support.

board.