On January 18, 2021, I gave a talk through Zoom for the J. Lewis Crozer Public Library. My goal was to show the Chester community the churches Dr. King preached at during his three seminary years. Below is the recording.
Here are a few reviews for my book, The Seminarian: Martin Luther King Jr. Comes of Age. It's available in bookstores starting April 1st, and I'll try to keep this page updated with new reviews and tour dates (above). The Seminarian is currently available for order now at Amazon as well.
"Fearless...[The Seminarian] is a cleareyed and honest account of some transformative experiences in the life of the gifted young man who would become a cultural icon." Kirkus Reviews
“Without question the most original and important book about King’s life to appear in more than a quarter century.” David J. Garrow, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Bearing the Cross and Rising Star
"More than anything else, it’s Mr. Parr’s willingness to dig that impresses and makes “The Seminarian” an original, much-needed and even stirring book about King’s formative years at Crozer...Mr. Parr deserves credit for leaving no page in King’s academic record unturned. But his significant contribution is in helping us understand what made this young man extraordinary and in taking on subjects that might prove difficult to stomach for those who worship King." The Wall Street Journal
"Parr is a wonderful guide through this pivotal season of King’s intellectual development, spiritual formation, and youthful angst. We feel the young seminarian’s anxiety as he arrives at a predominantly white school, we witness his encounters with the North’s less flamboyant but equally treacherous brand of racism, and we experience the heartbreak of his short-lived romance with a white student... Grounded in exhaustive, primary-source research, the narrative bounds forward with an energetic curiosity that resembles the bright and restless spirit of its young protagonist." Christianity Today
"King’s three years at the Crozer Theological Seminary, south of Philadelphia, marked an important turning point in his life and are well worth the exclusive focus they get in this compact, readable and well-researched book. [Parr] leave[s] readers with a memorable image. As classmates passed King’s room in “Old Main,” the imposing central building on the Crozer campus, they often heard him rehearsing the delivery of the verse from the Book of Amos that he would invoke again and again over the next two decades, up to the impassioned “Mountaintop” speech he gave the night before his death. “Let justice run down like water,” King recited, “and righteousness like a mighty stream!” The Washington Post
"Through scrupulous research and interviews with King’s peers, Parr puts the reader in the classroom with King...Worrying about grades and girls, this ML is as familiar as a student of today." - Akron Beacon Journal
“Parr provides a delightful (and deep) exploration of King’s formative years, a period that even the most committed scholars have undervalued or overlooked altogether. King’s years at Crozer are recounted here with such clarity the reader nearly sits next to him through every class and social engagement, so that a mere glance to the right and we fall in among his many classmates who are interviewed here. The Seminarian is for the scholar and general reader alike who want to learn how a kid from Atlanta slowly matured into our nation’s greatest civil rights leader.” W. Jason Miller, author of Origins of the Dream: Hughes’s Poetry and King’s Rhetoric
“Not only an engrossing biographical study but an essential source for anyone with a serious interest in the formative years of Martin Luther King Jr.” Clayborne Carson, editor of A Call to Conscience: The Landmark Speeches of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
This book provides by far the most thorough and detailed treatment of Martin Luther King's experience in seminary. Anyone interested in King should be thrilled that Patrick Parr pored closely over the seminary records and interviewed surviving members of his cohort of seminarians (plus his sweetheart). Count this volume among the small number of indispensable books about King.” Keith D. Miller, author of Voice of Deliverance and Martin Luther King's Biblical Epic
“Seminary training doesn’t always dictate the course of leaders’ lives, sometimes even steering them directly opposite. Yet the time is always formative. Through his careful research, Patrick Parr has produced a stunning piece of work illumining this little-known part of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s journey of stumbling through learning to integrate theology, life, and the real world as he grew into the great American leader he became.” Jason S. Sexton, Editor, Boom California
Historian Parr’s debut work of nonfiction is a true life bildungsroman...Often overlooked or relegated to mere footnotes in previous biographies, Parr highlights this short, influential period in King’s life, fleshing out the details of courses, teachers, mentors, pals, and dates, and presenting a fresh portrait of King, the “rookie preacher.” Publishers Weekly
"Concern about such whitewashing is part of what motivated Patrick Parr to write The Seminarian...Parr has done some impressive digging in the historical record and there is no doubt that scholars writing about King will find The Seminarian useful. The book should also attract students and faculty at seminaries and divinity schools, who will be interested not only in the particularities of King’s experience at Crozer but also in the fascinating picture that emerges of a mid-20th-century theological education." The Christian Century
"Parr accounts more fully for Martin Luther King Jr.’s seminary education than has any complete biography of the civil rights icon ... A journalist rather than an academic, Parr writes appreciatively and even informally about his subject and drops a few gossipy tidbits, including King’s habitual plagiarism in his school papers and why his professors seldom noticed it." Booklist
Here also are a few interviews I completed about the book...
90.9 NPR Boston (April 3rd)
The Tallmadge Express (April 25th)
The Delaware County Daily Times (May 21st)