Reviews
Jason Miller makes a tangible connection between the long suspected but never proven link between the poetry of Harlem Renaissance hero Langston Hughes and the prose of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
--NC State University News
Invokes readers to reconsider both figures through their shared poetic metaphors of dreaming.
--American Literature
A welcome addition to African-American studies.
--Florida Times-Union
Shares how King’s dream is traced to Hughes’ poetry. The book reveals that King wasn’t just a preacher or political figure, but also had the persona of a poet.
--Technician
Explores the previously unrealized link between poetry and politics at one of the most important times in American history.
--BlueRidgeNow Blog
Brilliant....Miller’s book will help correct the historical amnesia that has for too long blotted out recognition of the cultural continuity between Hughes and King. A masterpiece.
--Choice
Miller meticulously examines the ways by which, through a process of what he calls “submerging,” King reworked a number of Hughes’ key images and tropes. . . . [A] carefully researched and astutely argued book.
--Science & Society
Shows how the relationship between King and Hughes is part of a larger tradition in African American rhetoric of community, indirection, and cultural reinvention. . . . Reminds us of how marginalized groups remodel and subvert communication patterns in order to have their voices heard and make them matter in the mainstream.
--American Literary History