The Kneeling Man, Leta McCollough Seletzky
The Kneeling Man, Leta McCollough Seletzky
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The Kneeling Man
My Father's Life as a Black Spy Who Witnessed the Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

Author: Leta McCollough Seletzky

Narrator: Leta McCollough Seletzky

Unabridged: 11 hr 41 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 04/04/2023

Synopsis

The intimate and heartbreaking story of a Black undercover police officer who famously kneeled by the assassinated Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr—and a daughter’s quest for the truth about her fatherIn the famous photograph of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. on the balcony of Memphis’s Lorraine Motel, one man kneeled down beside King, trying to staunch the blood from his fatal head wound with a borrowed towel.This kneeling man was a member of the Invaders, an activist group that was in talks with King in the days leading up to the murder. But he also had another identity: an undercover Memphis police officer reporting on the activities of this group, which was thought to be possibly dangerous and potentially violent. This kneeling man is Leta McCollough Seletzky’s father.Marrell McCollough was a Black man working secretly with the white power structure, a spy. This was so far from her understanding of what it meant to be Black in America, of everything she eventually devoted her life and career to, that she set out to learn what she could about his life, his actions and motivations. But with that decision came risk. What would she uncover about her father, who went on to a career at the CIA, and did she want to bear the weight of knowing?

About Leta McCollough Seletzky

LETA McCOLLOUGH SELETZKY is a National Endowment for the Arts 2022 Creative Writing Fellow. A litigator turned essayist and memoirist, her work appears in The Atlantic; The New York Times; TheGrio; O, The Oprah Magazine; The Washington Post; and elsewhere. She holds a BA from Northwestern University and a JD from the George Washington University Law School. She grew up in Memphis, Tennessee, and now lives in Walnut Creek, California.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Dimitri on April 28, 2023

Full disclosure—Leta McCollough Seletzky is my wife. We met at the Spy Museum in D.C. in 2003, at a mutual friend’s birthday party. That uncanny fact has nothing to do with her dad’s being a spy or her writing The Kneeling Man. Or does it? You should read and find out. Or, actually, you should read t......more

Goodreads review by Andrea on August 29, 2022

This is a remarkable and important book. And it is downright beautiful. Leta McCollough Seletzky has braided together her father's story, her own exploration of that story, and her own story in a remarkable texture. Her sense of pacing is impeccable. The whole time I was reading, I felt I was being......more

Goodreads review by Christine on January 24, 2023

I read for entertainment and knowledge so my normal genre is historical fiction; but what is even better, is a non-fiction book that is so well written that you "forget" you aren't reading a made-up story. "The Kneeling Man, My father's life as a black spy who witnessed the assassination of Martin L......more

Goodreads review by Paul on May 11, 2024

I completed reading The Kneeling Man: My Father's Life as a Black Spy Who Witnessed the Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr by Leta McCollough Seletzky. It is an intriguing story of one woman's discovery of her father's secret. Marrell McCullough was a member of the Memphis Police Department in t......more

Goodreads review by Shelley on July 07, 2023

This book was written by the daughter of an undercover Memphis Police Officer who was kneeling by Martin Luther King Jr when he was assassinated. Interesting history of how black people were held back in jobs in the late 1960’s and into the 80’s. Similar to women in that era. Glass ceilings for both......more

Quotes

“Leta McCollough Seletzky narrates her audiobook about the man who is kneeling beside Martin Luther King, Jr., in the iconic photo of the Civil Rights leader's assassination. He was Seletzky's father, Marrell McCollough, who worked as a spy within the Black activist group called the Invaders.… As author and narrator, she captures the complex emotions she felt as she uncovered hidden aspects of Civil Rights history. Most shocking was her discovery that a member of her own family was an eyewitness to some of those events.” —AudioFile Magazine"Seletzky debuts with an intriguing study of her father, Marrell 'Mac' McCollough, a police officer and CIA agent who was seen kneeling over Martin Luther King’s body in a famous photograph taken just after the civil rights leader was shot on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis in 1968 . . . The result is a nuanced and insightful look at the complex spaces African Americans have navigated in the pursuit of racial justice." —Publishers Weekly"As reconstructed by his daughter, the life of an undercover police officer present at the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr . . . Seletzky’s approach is nuanced, weaving her father's story and its many loose threads into her own . . . Students of 1960s anti-war movements and civil rights history will find useful information in this revealing footnote." —Kirkus Reviews

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