About the Authors
Clayborne Carson, PhD, was a participant and observer of African American political movements during his undergraduate years at UCLA. Since receiving his doctorate in 1975, he has taught at Stanford University, where he is now professor of history and director of the King Papers Project. He has also been a visiting professor at American University, the University of California, Berkeley, and Emory University and a fellow at the Center for the Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford. His scholarly publications have focused on African American protest movements and the political thought of the period after World War II. His writings have appeared in leading historical journals and numerous encyclopedias, as well as in popular periodicals. His first book, In Struggle: SNCC and the Black Awakening of the 1960s, won the Frederick Jackson Turner Award of the Organization of American Historians. Dr. Carson has lectured at many colleges and universities in the United States and abroad on a wide range of topics, including King, Malcolm X, the Black Panther Party, Black-Jewish relations, and the need for a multi-cultural curriculum.
About the Narrators
Edward M. Kennedy (1932–2009) represented Massachusetts in the United States Senate for forty-seven years, making him one of the longest-serving senators in American history. In 2004 he began interviews at the Miller Center of the University of Virginia for an oral history project about his life. For his 2009 memoir, True Compass, he drew from his fifty years of contemporaneous notes from his personal diaries and worked closely on the book with Pulitzer Prize winner Ron Powers, coauthor of Flags of Our Fathers and author of Mark Twain: A Life.
Cassandra Morris has received critical acclaim for her voice-over work from Publishers Weekly and AudioFile magazine, earning a dozen Earphones Awards and twice been a finalist for the prestigious Audie Award for best narration. Her voice has also been heard on television in commercial campaigns and numerous Nickelodeon and Disney products. She is the voice of many cartoon characters, including Leo and Luna in Yu-Gi-Oh, Carrie in Barbie: A Fairy Secret, Nathan in Pokémon, and Lola in Angelo Rules.
Robin Miles, named a Golden Voice by AudioFile magazine, has twice won the prestigious Audie Award for Best Narration, an Audie Award for directing, and many Earphones Awards. Her film and television acting credits include The Last Days of Disco, Primary Colors, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Law & Order, New York Undercover, National Geographic’s Tales from the Wild, All My Children, and One Life to Live. She regularly gives seminars to members of SAG and AFTRA actors’ unions, and in 2005 she started Narration Arts Workshop in New York City, offering audiobook recording classes and coaching. She holds a BA degree in theater studies from Yale University, an MFA in acting from the Yale School of Drama, and a certificate from the British American Drama Academy in England.
Bryan Kennedy was born and raised on Long Island and has been working as an actor and comedian in New York for the past several years. He has done numerous theater productions, voiceovers, commercials, and audiobooks.
Andrew Young earned a bachelor’s degree at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a law degree at the Wake Forest University School of Law. He served as a volunteer for John Edwards’ winning campaign for US Senate. Hired in 1999, Young became Edwards’ longest serving and most trusted aide. He raised more than $10 million for the politician’s various causes and played a key role in Edwards’ efforts to become president of the United States. Now a private citizen, he lives in Chapel Hill with his wife and their three children.
Martin Luther King
Jr. (1929–1968) was born in Atlanta, Georgia, the son and grandson of
pastors. He graduated from Morehouse College and Crozer Theological Seminary,
becoming the pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama
at age twenty-five. He subsequently earned his PhD from Boston University. In
1957, he and other civil rights leaders founded the Southern Christian
Leadership Conference, an organization he led until his death. A proponent of
Gandhian principles of nonviolence, he led many protests and demonstrations for
civil rights, including the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August
29, 1963, where he delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. Winner of the
1964 Nobel Peace Prize, he continued to fight for civil rights, the eradication
of poverty, and the end of the Vietnam War. He was assassinated on April 4,
1968 in Memphis, Tennessee.
Martin Luther King
Jr. (1929–1968) was born in Atlanta, Georgia, the son and grandson of
pastors. He graduated from Morehouse College and Crozer Theological Seminary,
becoming the pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama
at age twenty-five. He subsequently earned his PhD from Boston University. In
1957, he and other civil rights leaders founded the Southern Christian
Leadership Conference, an organization he led until his death. A proponent of
Gandhian principles of nonviolence, he led many protests and demonstrations for
civil rights, including the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August
29, 1963, where he delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. Winner of the
1964 Nobel Peace Prize, he continued to fight for civil rights, the eradication
of poverty, and the end of the Vietnam War. He was assassinated on April 4,
1968 in Memphis, Tennessee.
Coretta Scott King (1927–2006) was an American civil rights activist, international human rights champion, author, the wife of Martin Luther King Jr., and the mother of four.
Coretta Scott King (1927–2006) was an American civil rights activist, international human rights champion, author, the wife of Martin Luther King Jr., and the mother of four.
Emily Rankin is an audio narrator and winner of two AudioFile Earphones Awards.