How the '3 mothers' of black history impacted Malcolm X, James Baldwin, and Martin Luther King Jr.

• While working on her thesis, Anna Malaika Tubbs became interested in the mothers behind civil rights icons.
• She found that the women directly influenced their sons' work.
• Understanding history through the eyes of Black women can help society make change today, Tubbs says.

There's a saying that behind every man, there's a great woman. Anna Malaika Tubbs hates this saying, but is also intrigued by it. As a Ph.D candidate in sociology at Cambridge University, Tubbs thought about how it might relate not to a man's wife, but to his mother.

"I wanted to focus on the women before the man was even conceived," Tubbs told Insider. "To switch us talking about the woman behind the great man, to thinking about the woman first."

As part of her thesis, Tubbs began researching the mothers of three Black icons - Martin Luther King Jr., Malcom X, and activist and writer James Baldwin. She wanted to see how the women who raised these men influenced their civil rights work.

The story of these mothers became Tubbs' book, "The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King Jr, Malcom X, and James Baldwin Shaped A Nation."

"I wanted to do research that fought the erasure that Black women were experiencing," said Tubbs.

The women all had huge impacts on their sons

As she began digging into the three mothers - Alberta King, Louise Little and Berdis Baldwin - it became clear to Tubbs that each woman had a profound impact on the world-changing work of her son.

"The more I found, the more obvious the connection was to everything their sons did," Tubbs said. "Their passions, talents, and opportunities were so clearly connected to what their mothers cared about."

Alberta King's deep faith and belief in nonviolent advocacy for rights was seen in Martin Luther King Jr.'s work. Louise Little re-taught her children what they learned from white teachers, focusing on the Black and female experience. Berdis Baldwin was well-known for her way with words, and stressed that her son must never turn hateful.

"It was shocking that not only were they important women on their own, but they directly impacted their sons," Tubbs said.

The more she learned, the stronger Tubbs felt that someone should have done this research before she did. But racism and sexism have long kept academics and society at large from spending time understanding the experience and influence of Black women, she said.

"On one hand it's frustrating and angering, but not surprising," she says. "Black women's stories are so often erased that it's not shocking. I want us to change that."

It's important to acknowledge progress, Tubbs said

The work that started a doctoral thesis was released as a book in February, during a Black History Month that followed a year of racial and social-justice reckoning in the wake of the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.

"People are paying attention in a way they haven't before," Tubbs says. "More people paying attention to what that means for Black women today."

Tubbs said she feels that it's critical to acknowledge the progress that has been made. The women that she profiles in the book were born during the Jim Crow era of racial segregation. The last of them died in the 1990s. Today, the US is a nation that has a Black woman as vice-president, and is at at least willing to look at its ugly past.

"So many people [say] we haven't made enough progress. These three women would say the opposite," Tubbs said. "The changes that they witnessed during their lifetime… to say that nothing has changed is inaccurate and erases the people who worked on our behalf. We have to focus on that progress and celebrate how far we've come without erasing those works. We cannot lose our hope or optimism, because change is possible."

Tubbs wrote the book while pregnant

Tubbs wrote "The Three Mothers" while pregnant with her first child, who is now 16 months old. She's promoting the book while pregnant with her second, who is due in August. Tubbs said that becoming a mother has impacted her work "in every way."

She described looking at the Black child resting on her chest, and refusing to accept a world that sees that child as less-than because of skin color.

"It's an unwillingness to allow a country that sees Black people as less than human to change how you see yourself and your children," Tubbs said. "You can't just accept that as inevitable."

For years, Black mothers and other parents of Black children have been advocating for the world to see their children in the same way they do. However, the burden of pushing for that change shouldn't fall on Black women alone, she said.

Just as it is important to push back on racist depictions of Black motherhood, it's crucial to challenge that idea that Black women are endlessly strong and self-sufficient, according to Tubbs.

"We should be willing to be vulnerable and ask for help. Societies should support us back," Tubbs said. "We are agents of change and we need more people to join us in the fight for freedom; the fight for our lives."