Black America's Main Street

Amazing the things you learn while reading. Learned about this book while reading Pearl Cleage's latest novel, Till You Hear From Me.

Along Martin Luther King: Travels Along Black America's Main Street is a book of photos, essays, and stories about the various Martin Luther King streets, avenues, and boulevards across the United States.

It captures the diversity of the neighborhoods, towns, businesses and homes that happen to sit on MLK streets. It also discusses the politics behind naming MLK streets, as well as the socioeconomic challenges facing many of the neighborhoods in which MLK streets are placed.

I'd never considered or thought about MLK Street being Black America's Main Street, but now that I think of it... most every city I've travelled to has one, and most define the heart or center of black life in those cities.

For a bit of background on the book, here's an interview the author Jonathan Tilove did with Tavis Smiley on NPR in 2004.
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