Introduction

This Martin Luther King Jr. day we focus on the woman who raised Dr. King, his mother, Alberta. His mother and those of two of his contemporaries take center stage in Anna Malaika Tubbs' book, The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped A Nation. Tubbs told 1A's Jenn White that history is often told by and about men, but knowing these women's stories - "taking their lives from the margins and putting them in the center" - is just as important. As Tubbs notes, "If they'd never had these famous sons, they still were worthy of being seen."

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