The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation

Let’s start boldly and suggest readers may be divided into two groups. In this penetrating study, ‘People of color’ and people termed ‘Anglo’ will view The Three Mothers from different perspectives. Anna Malaika Tubbs’ analysis of the attitudes, expectations, and treatment towards Black mothers in America is long overdue. Her resolve to personalize the story by selecting three particularly distinctive mothers has been executed admirably.

Alberta King’s son Martin, Louise Little’s son Malcolm, and Berdis Baldwin’s son James were all luminaries of the Civil Rights movement. The author sets the mothers’ pride in the context of black motherhood which she believes is a significant and separate issue from respect for gender differences.

The book chronicles the impact on family dynamics brought about by subsequent tragedies that befell the three sons. Her chapters discuss the rise of political and religious movements prefacing Civil Rights advances in the 1950s and 1960s.

The tribute to three remarkable women, who never took the limelight, does trigger a slightly mischievous thought: as such singular individuals, how well they might have enjoyed being drawn together for their story to be told!