The intimate and heartbreaking story of a Black undercover police officer who famously kneeled by the assassinated Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr—and a daughter’s quest for the truth about her father
In the famous photograph of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. on the balcony of Memphis’s Lorraine Motel, one man kneeled down beside King, trying to staunch the blood from his fatal head wound with a borrowed towel.
This kneeling man was a member of the Invaders, an activist group that was in talks with King in the days leading up to the murder. But he also had another identity: an undercover Memphis police officer reporting on the activities of this group, which was thought to be possibly dangerous and potentially violent. This kneeling man is Leta McCollough Seletzky’s father.
Marrell McCollough was a Black man working secretly with the white power structure, a spy. This was so far from her understanding of what it meant to be Black in America, of everything she eventually devoted her life and career to, that she set out to learn what she could about his life, his actions and motivations. But with that decision came risk. What would she uncover about her father, who went on to a career at the CIA, and did she want to bear the weight of knowing?
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The Kneeling Man is the heretofore unknown story of a chapter of American history. It tells the life story of the author’s father, Marrell 'Mac' McCollough, a witness to the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In the iconic photo of Dr. King lying on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in a pool of his blood, the man kneeling beside him is Marrell McCollough. The backstory to this historical image is that Mr. McCollough was an undercover Memphis police officer working on a local Black militant group known as the Invaders. Mr. McCollough is one of those unsung American heroes who history either ignores or has inadvertently forgotten. The telling of his unique story; from Mississippi childhood to the U.S. Army to the Memphis Police Department to the CIA, Mr. McCollough has lived the quintessential American life—NOT as a Black man but as an American—is inspiring and revelatory. He is a TRUE American hero! I wholeheartedly recommend Ms.Seletzky’s wonderful, thought provoking memoir of her father.
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Ron Stallworth, author of Black Klansman