Synthesis

I just finished reading Hellhound on His Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the International Hunt for His Assassin. This is how history books should be written. It's always amazing when you read a book in which you know the outcome manages to be a real page-turner. I did not want to put this book down. Sides manages to weave together the stories of Eric Galt (a.k.a. James Earl Ray), Martin Luther King Jr., and the FBI in the days leading up to April 4, 1968 flawlessly. In so many books like this, I usually find myself more interested in one of the stories, but that wasn't the case with this book.

And then I discovered that PBS had done an American Experience on this topic: Roads to Memphis. It's basically the same story, exactly--Sides even pops up. But it was fascinating getting to watch the players in action. Particularly moving was the footage of the speech King gave the night before he died. I'm pretty sure I had heard parts of it before, but in context, it's fascinating.

Today I was at the National Museum of American History and went to see the Kinsey Collection, which relates to African American history, and found myself staring at a sign held by marchers just after King's death. As I was leaving after working in the American Presidency exhibit, the program on the Greensboro sit-ins was going on, so I stopped to watch...and wound up singing "On My Way to Freedomland," which I had just heard in Roads to Memphis. It just all came together, and really has piqued my interest in the civil rights movement.