My Life, My Love, My Legacy

Reynolds (Out of Hell and Living Well), an ordained minister who was a confidante of Coretta Scott King (1927–2006) since 1975, has produced from their many conversations together a posthumous memoir largely focused on King’s public life. There are few intimate glimpses, although a wife and mother’s anxieties come through strongly, as they did in King’s 1969 memoir, My Life with Martin Luther King, Jr. The present work includes an array of afterwords (from her daughter Bernice, Maya Angelou, and others) and Reynolds’s postscript, “The Making of Her Memoir.” It begins by revisiting King’s life story and her part in historical events from the Montgomery Bus Boycott to her husband’s assassination. The book’s latter part traces King’s political activism and spiritual commitment since Martin Luther King Jr.’s death, and the roles of their children, Yolanda, Bernice, Martin III, and Dexter, in sustaining his legacy. Overall, though some political disagreements are mentioned, this is a spiritual narrative with God as a frequent directing presence. Readers for whom the Civil Rights Movement is ancient history may get a lot out of Reynolds’s rendering of King’s account. As oral history, aspects will interest academic historians. “In reading this memoir, I hope somehow you see Coretta,” King confides in her introduction. One does, but without the vibrancy, immediacy, and clarity one might hope for. (Jan.)