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WHAT: Study circle on Sen. Barack Obama and the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.
WHO: Facilitated by Mark Jensen
WHEN: November 20 & 27 and December 4, 2006
WHERE: Mandolin Café, 3923 S. 12th St., Tacoma, WA

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Digging Deeper XXVI

BARACK OBAMA AND THE LEGACY OF MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.

In the aftermath of Democratic Party victories in the 2006 midterm elections, Digging Deeper will on the last two Monday evenings in November and the first Monday evening in December discuss the rise to prominence and political prospects of Sen. Barack Obama in the context of the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. We’ll examine The Audacity of Hope, Obama’s just-released bestseller, and his 1995 autobiography Dreams from My Father, as well as two other books: At Canaan’s Edge, the recently published concluding third volume of Taylor Branch’s monumental biography of Martin Luther King Jr., and Clayborne Carson’s edition of The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.

· Taylor Branch, At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-68 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006). “The engrossing final installment of Branch's three-volume biography of Martin Luther King Jr. maintains the high standards set in the previous volumes, the first of which won a Pulitzer Prize. Moving from the protest at Selma and the 1966 Meredith march through King's expanding political concern for the poor to his 1968 assassination in Memphis, Tenn., Branch gives us not only the civil rights leader's life but also the rapidly changing pulse of American culture and politics. . . . King himself has evolved, spreading his interests beyond civil rights to become a more outspoken critic of the Vietnam War and of poverty. . . . This magisterial book is a fitting tribute to a magisterial man.” —Publishers Weekly.

· Martin Luther King Jr., The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr., ed. by Clayborne Carson (Warner Books, 1998; paperback, 2001). “Celebrated Stanford University historian Clayborne Carson is the director and editor of the Martin Luther King Papers Project; with thousands of King's essays, notes, letters, speeches, and sermons at his disposal, Carson has organized King's writings into a posthumous autobiography. . . . The autobiography delves, for example, into the philosophical training King received at Morehouse College, Crozer Theological Seminary, and Boston University . . . Carson's skillful editing has created an original argument in King's favor that draws directly from the source, illuminating the circumstances of King's life without deifying his person.” —Eugene Holley Jr.

· Barack Obama, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance (Crown, 1995; Three Rivers Press paperback reprint, 2004). “Born in 1961 to a white American woman and a black Kenyan student, Obama was reared in Hawaii by his mother and her parents, his father having left for further study and a return home to Africa. So Obama's not-unhappy youth is nevertheless a lonely voyage to racial identity, tensions in school, struggling with black literature—with one month-long visit when he was 10 from his commanding father. After college, Obama became a community organizer in Chicago . . . a resonant book.” —Publishers Weekly.

· Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream (Crown, 2006). “Illinois's Democratic senator illuminates the constraints of mainstream politics all too well in this sonorous manifesto. . . . Obama writes insightfully, with vivid firsthand observations, about politics and the compromises forced on politicians by fund-raising, interest groups, the media, and legislative horse-trading. Alas, his muddled, uninspiring proposals bear the stamp of those compromises.” —Publishers Weekly.

--Since July 2004, United for Peace of Pierce County (www.ufppc.org) has been conducting “Digging Deeper,” a Monday-night book discussion group, often in the form of a study circle. Topics have included peak oil, climate change, the corporation, Iran, the writings of Robert Baer, and Islam, as well as abiding themes of war, peace, politics, and social change. Occasionally, the group has spent several weeks reading longer works, like Daniel Yergin’s The Prize or Robert Fisk’s The Great War for Civilisation.

DIGGING DEEPER meets every Monday from 7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at the Mandolin Café, 3923 S. 12th St., Tacoma, WA.

Participation is free. Some volumes available for purchase or borrowing. Information: contact Mark Jensen (jensenmk@plu.edu; 253-756-7519).

Regular meetings of United for Peace of Pierce County are held at on 1st (6:30 p.m.) and 3rd (7:00 p.m.)Thursdays at First Congregational Church, 209 South “J” St., Tacoma, WA.