well, and it is only by sacrificing a part herself that
she is able to extract herself from the past. Her
last return from the 19th century occurs on July 4,
1976—a symbolic marker of Dana’s freedom from
slavery and from the burden of history. The signif-
icance of the date and Dana’s escape also remind
us that the inception of America as a free land was
dependent on enslaving men and women of color.
Like other science-fiction writers, Butler uses the
genre to comment on the problems of the present
in a manner that forces its readers to confront their
society’s attitudes to race, identity, and history.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Brooks-Devita, Novella. “Beloved and Betrayed: Sur-
vival and Authority in Kindred.” Griot 22, no. 1
(Spring 2003): 16–20.
Reed, Brain. “Behold the Woman: the Imaginary Wife
in Octavia Butler’s Kindred.” College Language As-
sociation Journal 47, no. 1 (2003): 66–74.
Steinberg, Marc. “Inverting History in Octavia But-
ler’s Postmodern Slave Narrative.” African Ameri-
can Review 38, no. 3 (2004): 467–476.
Tracie Church Guzzio
King, Martin Luther, Jr. (1929–1968)
Martin Luther King, Jr., was born on January 15,
1929, in Atlanta, Georgia; he was the first son of
Reverend Martin Luther King, Sr., and Alberta
Williams King. At his birth, his father named him
Michael King, but in 1934, he changed the name to
Martin Luther King, Jr. King excelled in the segre-
gated public schools of Atlanta and graduated with
honors from Booker T. Washington High School,
earned a degree in sociology from Morehouse Col-
lege (1948) at the age of 15, graduated with honors
from Pennsylvania’s Crozer Theological Seminary
(1951), and earned a Ph.D. degree in systematic
theology from Boston University (1955). King
married his lifelong wife, Coretta Scott King, in
1953, and they had four children, Yolanda, Martin
III, Dexter, and Bernice. King’s first job as pastor
was at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church of Mont-
gomery, Alabama. In 1960, he returned to Atlanta
to copastor with his father the Ebenezer Baptist
Church. He was the author of several works, in-
cluding Stride toward Freedom: The Montgom-
ery Story (1958), Why We Can’t Wait (1963), and
Strength to Love 1963), a collection of sermons.
King is best known as the charismatic leader of
the modern CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT, a role he was
propelled into in Montgomery, Alabama, in De-
cember 1955, after Rosa Parks refused to give up
her bus seat to a white man and was jailed. The
26-year-old King was elected by blacks to head the
Montgomery Improvement Association, which
successfully boycotted Montgomery’s segregated
public transportation system for more than a year.
King used a nonviolent, civil disobedience strat-
egy and encouraged his followers to love their en-
emies. Harassment, threats, and the bombing of
King’s house drew media attention on Montgom-
ery, eventually forcing the federal government to
confront the injustice and racism created by more
than a half century of Jim Crow laws. On a visit to
India in 1959, King studied the teachings of Mo-
handas Gandhi and refined his nonviolent, civil
disobedience strategy.
In 1957, King and a cadre of black ministers
organized the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference (SCLC), a movement that would be-
come international, making King’s influence felt
as far as independence-seeking Africa. However,
the movement achieved its greatest success in
1963 with demonstrations in Birmingham, out
of which came King’s “Letter from a Birmingham
Jail” and the March on Washington, during which
King shared the hopes of the Civil Rights move-
ment in his “I Have A Dream” speech, concluding
with the words of the old Negro spiritual: “Free at
last, free at last, thank God almighty, we are free at
last.” Feeling the momentum of King’s leadership
and the Civil Rights movement, Congress passed
the 1964 Civil Rights Act, prohibiting segregation
and discrimination. For his strong moral stance
and his civil rights efforts, King received the 1964
Nobel Peace Prize.
In 1965, King led a voting rights protest march
starting in Selma, Alabama, with some 300 par-
ticipants and growing to some 20,000 by the time304 King, Martin Luther, Jr.