Today, honoring the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. through a just-received book of photographs by Susan Berger collecting streets that have been named to honor King. It’s a gritty and forthright book that derives its strength in part from the poignance of absence. The reproductions tend toward the shadowy greys, and the unenclosed spine leaves an “unfinished” aura that may be consistent with King’s interrupted work as an American leader. Berger traveled around the country from October 2009 to September 2014 to record these streets, boulevards, and drives that keep King’s presence alive in our daily lives. Named thoroughfares bear a rough, daily grace in cities from Los Angeles to Jersey City, Little Rock to Seattle, and Shreveport to Milwaukee.
Judging from the neighborhoods Berger has recorded, King’s legacy lingers as an exhortation to keep rising, keep striving, keep moving along those roads. Don’t rest, there’s a lot of work yet to do. Let me show you the way. “I've seen the Promised Land,” the Reverend Doctor said in his April 3, 1968 address in Memphis. “I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!” King was assassinated the next day. The roads lead on.
Life and Soul: American Streets Honoring Martin Luther King
Photographs by Susan Berger
Foreword by Frank Gohlke
Tucson: Dark Spring Press, 2019