In honor of Black History Month, I’m sharing a short review of The Three Mothers, How the Mothers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation, by Anna Malaika Tubbs. 

I, like most Americans, knew about civil rights activists Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X.  I needed a refresher on James Baldwin—he was a poet and writer that often addressed civil rights and human rights in his writing.  I knew nothing about their mothers.  As the author writes in her introduction: “The three women I speak of are Alberta King, Berdis Baldwin, and Louise Little— women who have been almost entirely ignored through history. … While the sons have been credited with the success of Black resistance, the progression of Black thought, and the survival of the Black community, the three mothers who birthed and reared them have been erased.  This book fights that erasure.”

The author is right, I had never learned about, nor thought deeply about the mothers of these activists, or any activists for that matter.  But obviously, the mothers rocked!  They sacrificed to get their children an education.  They supported their children in hard times. They taught their children to have strength in their convictions.  Two of the moms outlived sons who died in violent deaths, and Berdis Baldwin also outlived James.  My words give just the barest overview  of the enormous challenges these moms and their children went through.  I’ll just say that the book was well-written, well-researched, and I learned a lot about struggles in eras that had only been lightly touched on in my history classes.  

I recommend this book.  It took me a long time to read, not because it wasn’t good, but because as I often do with serious non-fiction, I read a chapter, then mull it over for a while.  This book offers plenty to think about and is a good refresher on the civil rights struggles of the past, as we witness new civil rights challenges today.