cover image Hard Questions, Heart Answers

Hard Questions, Heart Answers

Bernice A. King. Broadway Books, $20 (192pp) ISBN 978-0-553-06710-1

Echoes of Martin Luther King Jr.'s prophetic cadences resound throughout this collection of 17 public addresses by his youngest daughter. But the young Dr. King, with degrees in divinity and law from Emory University, is no carbon copy of her father. Part Bible-quoting Baptist preacher, part statistics-savvy community organizer, King motivates through popular proverbs, familiar anecdotes and urgent earnestness but promotes no specific plan of action. Be proud of our shared heritage, she tells African Americans, and join forces-""anything short of a collective vision is myopia""-to achieve ""respect for life, respect for elders, respect for self, hard work, courtesy, honesty, and obeying the law."" Women, recognize your strength. Men, walk your talk: ""Sanctified men shake things up."" King's passionate oral style survives its translation into print, though a video of King in the pulpit would no doubt pack more wallop than any book. Author tour. (Dec.)