The Three Mothers, by Anna Malaika Tubbs

Photo by Wil C. Fry

Full Title: The Three Mothers: How the Mothers Of Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped A Nation
Edition: 2021 trade paperback)
Pages: 201*
Genre: Biography, History
ISBN 978-1-250-75613-8 (trade paperback)

(* not including author’s note, appendices, index, discussion questions, etc.)

Review

Unrelated to the trio of Italian horror films by the same name (“La Tre Madri”), The Three Mothers tells the stories of the three women who gave birth to and raised three of the U.S.’s civil rights icons: Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin. Part of the idea is that celebration of the civil rights movement has too long and too intensely focused on male figureheads to the exclusion of the many women involved (Rosa Parks being a notable exception). But also Tubbs hoped to honor and publicize “black motherhood” in the same work.

The mothers of these three men were all born in a ten-year period (1894-1904 — though Tubbs says “within six years of each other”), their sons were all born in the mid- to late 1920s, all three outlived their famous sons, and two of the women lived into the 1990s (King was shot to death in a church in 1974). Tubbs uses these interconnected dates to frame the story, which switches back and forth between the three families.

I did enjoy much of this book — including the idea of it. We all learn of (at least two of) these three men in school, and sometimes it seems like they arose in history arbitrarily and unattached. But the reality is they were once babies and then children, heavily influenced by their parents’ behaviors and beliefs. I also liked that Tubbs emphasized the differences in circumstances for each family, and hypothesized what effects, if any, those circumstances later had on the viewpoints expressed by the famous sons. For example, the King family was relatively well off financially — expecially relative to other Black people in the U.S. at the time, but also compared to most white people of the early 1900s. The stability this afforded young Martin (who I learned from this book is actually named Michael) was in stark contrast to young Malcolm’s experience of moving constantly as his parents escaped death threats and attacks from various white supremacist groups (also, Malcolm’s father died when he was six and his mother was forcibly institutionalized when he was a teen), or from young James’ experience of stark poverty and a rage-filled father. Other differences as well marked the three mothers and their relationships with their sons — like location (Georgia versus Midwest versus New York City), occupation, and religion. All of this was fascinating to me.

However, I was disappointed by the great amount of filler information. When data was lacking on a portion of one woman’s life, the author simply filled it with historical information from the time or region, and then extrapolated that the woman “must have” experienced or felt something due to the known historical cirumstances. This reminded me of Never Caught, which I reviewed in 2021 — the author simply didn’t have enough information about Ona Judge (who escaped a life of slavery under George Washington), so the rest of the book was filled with “what life must have been like for someone in her shoes” sort of guesswork. One example:

“One can only imagine the depth of pride Berdis experienced when reading one of her son’s works or seeing him speak on television.”
—page 153

In other places, filler took the form of repetition.

It also bugged me that both the introduction and conclusion were about the author. The introduction begins with the author and her husband at a gala in Washington, D.C., and the conclusion opens with “I cannot fully express just how much hurt and frustration the erasure and misrecognition of women and mothers, expecially Black women and mothers, causes me.” Me. It sounded like a blog or journal entry rather than the conclusion of a historical/biographical work.

Conclusion

I think the book was worth writing, and worth reading, but it wasn’t as powerful as I’d hoped, due to the distractions of the above factors.