I spent a lot of time at the Martin Luther King, Jr., Library and
Archives in Atlanta. My special thanks to D. Louis Cook, the former
director, who was helpful in too many ways to name. I know of no library
which operates more efficiently. Diane Ware, then reference archivist,
was also quite helpful. I also wish to express my thanks to Howard
Dodson and James Murray at the Schomburg Center for Research in
Black Culture; Esme Bhan at the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center
of Howard University; Charles Niles and Howard Gotlieb of Boston
University's Mugar Library; and Minnie Clayton of Atlanta University's
Woodruff Library.

A special word of thanks is due to Betty Bolden and Kirk Moll of
Union Seminary. Everyone, however, went out of their way to help my
research assistants and me. There was hardly anything we requested
which they did not find a way to make available to me.

I also owe a special thanks to Wyatt Tee Walker and Gayraud S.
Wilmore for their critical evaluation of my manuscript. Both are friends
of many years but also tough critics. While I did not agree with all of
their suggestions, I accepted most and listened attentively to all of them.
Others who assisted me in my research and read all or parts of my
manuscript were Makada Coasten, Lydia Hernandez, William Sales,
Abdul Alkalimat, Omar Farooq, Lewis V. Baldwin, Edith Campbell,
and Bobby Joe Saucer.

Two Martin King researchers have been a special source of inspira-
tion to me. I know that I could not have written this book without the
monumental research of my friend David Garrow. We not only spent
many hours talking about Martin and the civil rights movement, but he
also made available to me many interviews and FBI files on both Martin
and Malcolm. Whenever I needed to discuss a point of research, he was
always ready to share what he knew. Serge Molla and I first met in
Geneva, Switzerland, and later we became better acquainted as we both
started our research at the King Center Archives. As friends and fellow
researchers, we talked many hours about Martin, Malcolm, James Bald-
win, and black theology.

The Scherer family (Lester and Patricia, along with their daughters,
Diane and Carol, their sons, Steve and Tom, and their children's
spouses) provided a place for me to think, write, and retreat. All have
been supportive. Lester, my beloved friend of many years and former
colleague, has been not only a source of inspiration but my best critic.
He has spent many hours discussing and reading the manuscript at every
stage of its development and offered his critical evaluation.

My mother, Lucy Cone, and my brothers, Cecil and Charles, have
been the best family one could ever expect. They have always believed
in me, providing me with a captive audience whenever and wherever I
wanted to talk about Martin and Malcolm.

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