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Martin Luther King Day is tomorrow, January 21, 2008.

If your town or city has a parade, you should consider going to the parade.

It is always instructive to watch a rebroadcast or listen to a recording of the I Have A Dream speech.  (Editors note: I have a Meet the Press interview Roy Wilkins (NAACP president) and Martin Luther King.  This is a great interview.  A piece of history!! You can find the 3 parts – here, part 2 and part 3)

Yet there is a next level for someone who wants to better understand Dr. King. It wasn’t all “I Have A Dream” and brotherhood.

Reverend King asked serious questions about America as a war criminal nation in Vietnam and he asked if America merited divine judgement as a wicked nation of racism and social inequality.

Here is an admittedly incomplete, but still useful, Martin Luther King viewing, visiting, listening, and reading list.

An excellent book is Martin & Malcolm & America—A Dream Or A Nightmare by James H. Cone. This book follows the words and the careers of both these men. The premise, which holds up, is that Dr. King and Malcolm X (photo below) were not as far apart as sometimes portrayed. Malcolm was a man with a broader vision than one of simple racial solidarity, and King was in many respects a fierce and almost apocalyptic critic of America. (more…)