I would like to thank Gretchen Young at Hyperion, who believed in this project from the beginning and guided it through to success; Bob Barnett, whose wise counsel helped to bring this idea to fruition; Brynda Harris in the Library of Congress (LOC) Office of Congressional Relations; the entire staff of the LOC Office of Facilities Services; and the librarians of the Jefferson Reading Room at the LOC, who made a home for my collaborator while she was on sabbatical working on this project. I thank Julie Siegel, Maureen O’Neal, and Allyson Rudolph for additional work on this project. There are two people without whom this book would never have been possible: Brenda Jones, one of the best communications directors I have ever had the pleasure of working with, an extremely gifted writer who has so often taken my ideas and given them life; and my chief of staff, Michael Collins, a faithful leader who has guided this project through all of its challenges into safe harbor.
I would also like to thank all my teachers, without whom I would have been like a bird without wings. They showed me how to fly. I would like to thank the Reverend Jim Lawson, a mystic and a master teacher in the way of nonviolence, and the Reverend Kelly Miller Smith, for his foresight in perceiving the value of nonviolent discipline and starting those classes in the basement of a church Decades ago. I would like to thank all those great souls who participated in the nonviolent struggle for social change in America and those known and unknown who gave all they had for the cause of justice.
And, above all, I would like to thank Martin Luther King Jr., for being willing to serve all of humanity as the embodiment of the power and the imperative for nonviolent transformation. Without him, I do not know where I would be today.
Thank you to all those in the struggle who made a difference that enriched our past and those who will make a difference in years, ages, and eras to come.