Narrator: Martin Luther King, Jr. James Baldwin. Malcolm X. Their names are etched into the history of the 20th century, representing three distinct and powerful visions for Black liberation. They were the preacher, the witness, and the revolutionary. But behind these monumental figures were the women who first taught them about injustice, resilience, and the unshakeable power of their own worth. Who were the women who raised these men? What were their dreams, their struggles, and their tragedies? For decades, their stories have been relegated to footnotes, their influence erased from the grand narratives of history.

In her groundbreaking work, The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King, Jr., James Baldwin, and Malcolm X Shaped a Nation, author Anna Malaika Tubbs corrects this profound historical oversight. The book is an act of resurrection, meticulously piecing together the lives of Alberta King, Berdis Baldwin, and Louise Little. It argues that to truly understand the men who shaped a nation, we must first understand the mothers who shaped them.

Narrator: The central argument of The Three Mothers is that the historical erasure of Black women is not a passive oversight but an active violence that distorts our understanding of history. Tubbs posits that Alberta King, Berdis Baldwin, and Louise Little were not merely supportive figures in the background but the primary architects of their sons' worldviews. Their lives were a constant battle against dehumanization, a struggle that began long before their sons became famous.

The book challenges the tendency to view these men as self-made heroes who appeared "fully formed," as Martin's sister Christine King Farris noted. Instead, it reveals that their philosophies were born from the lessons, sacrifices, and lived experiences of their mothers. Alberta’s faith-based activism, Berdis’s quiet resilience and emphasis on love, and Louise’s fierce intellectualism and Black nationalist pride were the foundational soils from which their sons’ movements grew. By recovering their stories, Tubbs reframes the entire narrative of the Civil Rights era, placing these three women at its origin.

Narrator: While united by the shared experience of being Black women in America, the three mothers were forged in vastly different circumstances that shaped their unique forms of resistance. Louise Little was born in Grenada, an island with a fierce history of rebellion against colonial rule. Raised on stories of her ancestors choosing death over slavery, she inherited a spirit of militant resistance and Pan-African pride. This foundation would lead her directly to the Garveyism movement, which advocated for Black self-reliance and a return to Africa.

In stark contrast, Alberta Williams King grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, at the heart of the Black elite. Her father was the influential pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church, providing her with a life of relative privilege, education, and stability. However, she also witnessed the horror of the 1906 Atlanta Race Riot. Her resistance was nurtured within the church, a space of community power, and was defined by a deep faith that all people were equal in the eyes of God, a lesson she would pass on with profound consequences.

Berdis Jones Baldwin’s early life on the isolated Deal Island, Maryland, was marked by poverty and tragedy, losing her own mother shortly after birth. Her world was small and defined by the water, but it was also a place where Black and white families sometimes had to rely on one another for survival. This upbringing instilled in her a quiet, enduring strength and a deep capacity for love and forgiveness, even in the face of immense hardship.

Narrator: The book provides a powerful examination of how systemic racism attacks the Black family, making the act of forming a loving union a form of resistance. Each mother’s marriage was a microcosm of this struggle. Alberta’s marriage to Michael King (later Martin Luther King, Sr.) was a partnership built on mutual respect and the strong institutional support of the Williams family and Ebenezer Baptist Church. This stability provided a crucial buffer against the pressures of the outside world.

The other two women had no such cushion. Louise and Earl Little’s marriage was an activist partnership, both dedicated to spreading the message of Marcus Garvey. They were constantly on the move, hunted by white supremacist groups like the Ku Klux Klan, which put immense strain on their relationship. For Berdis, her marriage to David Baldwin was a daily struggle against the internal demons of a man broken by racism. David, a preacher, was consumed by a righteous anger and paranoia born from the constant discrimination and lack of opportunity he faced. His bitterness created a toxic environment, forcing Berdis to become the family's sole source of calm and love. These stories reveal that Black love and marriage are not just personal matters but are profoundly political, constantly under siege by a society designed to tear them apart.

Narrator: The mothers’ most significant act of resistance was how they raised their sons. They did not just provide love; they provided a political education. Alberta King famously sat her young son Martin down after he was barred from playing with his white friends and explained the history of slavery and segregation. She concluded not with bitterness, but with a powerful affirmation that would become the bedrock of his philosophy: "You are as good as anyone."

Louise Little, a writer and intellectual, filled her home with discussions of Black history and current events. She actively countered the racist lessons her children learned in school, instilling in a young Malcolm a fierce sense of Black pride and an understanding of global white supremacy. Her teachings on self-reliance and Black nationalism were the direct precursors to Malcolm X’s ideology.

Berdis Baldwin’s home was one of poverty and, at times, abuse from her stepfather. Yet, she fiercely protected her son James’s sensitive and brilliant spirit. While his stepfather derided him, Berdis nurtured his love of reading and writing, recognizing his unique gift. She taught him that love was the only answer to the world’s hatred, a theme that would dominate his literary work. In each case, the mother provided the specific intellectual and emotional tools her son would later use to challenge the nation.

Narrator: The lives of these women were defined by almost unimaginable tragedy, highlighting the particular vulnerability of Black women to both personal and state-sanctioned violence. After her husband Earl was brutally murdered, likely by white supremacists, Louise Little was left to raise eight children alone. Hounded by welfare workers who deemed her an unfit mother because of her Garveyite beliefs, her mental health declined. She was eventually committed by state authorities to the Kalamazoo State Hospital, misdiagnosed and institutionalized for 25 years, her voice effectively silenced.

Berdis Baldwin endured her husband David’s descent into madness and watched as two of her sons, James and David, passed away. Yet, she remained the family's anchor, her home a headquarters of love and support. The most public tragedy was reserved for Alberta King. After enduring the assassinations of her son Martin in 1968 and her son A.D. in 1969, she herself was assassinated in 1974. A gunman shot her while she played the organ for Sunday service at Ebenezer Baptist Church, the very place that had been her family’s sanctuary and a beacon for the Civil Rights Movement. Their stories are a testament to a resilience that is both awe-inspiring and a tragic indictment of the society that demanded it.

Narrator: The single most important takeaway from The Three Mothers is that the fight for Black liberation is a generational struggle, passed down through the maternal line. The strength, intellect, and revolutionary love of Black mothers are not a footnote to history; they are the headline. Alberta King, Berdis Baldwin, and Louise Little did more than raise their sons; they cultivated the ideas that would fuel a movement. They taught faith in the face of terror, love in the midst of hate, and self-worth in a world that denied their humanity.

By placing these women at the center of the story, Anna Malaika Tubbs doesn't just add to our history; she transforms it. The book leaves us with a powerful challenge: to look beyond the celebrated figures of any movement and ask who taught them, who nurtured them, and whose sacrifices made their work possible. For it is often in these erased stories that we find the true source of the power that changes the world.