Making My Mark: The Story of a Man Who WouldnAet Stay in His Place | 
| Author: Marvin S., Sr. Arrington
Publisher: Mercer University Press
Category: Book
List Price: $29.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  7 reviews
Sales Rank: 197391
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 196
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.1 x 1
ISBN: 0881460982
Dewey Decimal Number: 340.092
EAN: 9780881460988
ASIN: 0881460982
Publication Date: March 2008
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| Customer Reviews: Read 2 more reviews...
 A good read July 9, 2008
Marvin's book is very inspirational. He shows us that with hard work and determination you can conquer any obstacle. He grew up in a poor family a child of a truck driver and a domestic worker, but he managed to graduate from high school, college, graduate school and became a lawyer, city council president and a judge. He was faced with racial discrimination in his early years growing up in Atlanta. He discusses his involvement with the civil rights movement and how that shaped who he is today. He was one of the first black men to attend Emory Law School in the 1960's. My favorite quote in his book is "I believe that all children given appropriate guidance and instruction from their families, teachers and communities can achieve success." I believe he is a great example of that belief. I think this book is a great read for a young adult and anybody else who wants to be inspired by Marvin's success.
Inspirational portrait of a life well-lived June 11, 2008
Marvin Arrington has crafted a lucid and accessible narrative that details his experiences growing up in Jim Crow Atlanta. In addition to describing his rise to the presidency of the Atlanta City Council, he offers many anecdotes from his childhood that give an idea of just how painful racism can be through the eyes of a young boy. Throughout, he encourages his readers to learn from his example of hard work, which is fortified by his experience growing up in public housing projects, attending segregated schools, and working a wide variety of jobs. Then, having integrated Emory Law School's full-time division along with his friend (current U.S. District Court Judge) Clarence Cooper in 1965, he carries forth the lessons of his youth to the legal profession. He would later partner with famed civil rights attorney Donald Hollowell to form Arrington & Hollowell, one of the top 10 black law firms in the nation. He is currently a Superior Court Judge in Fulton County, Georgia, having been elected in 2003.
Arrington's book is both the story of one man's personal odyssey through hardship and success, as well as a short history of the city of Atlanta.
Thanks to his involvement in politics, his book sheds light on other major figues in Atlanta life with whom he had frequent contact, such as Q.V. Williamson, Maynard Jackson, and Andrew Young. Thanks to his wealth of experience, Arrington also gives an impressive insight into the duplicitous nature of city politics, culminating in his loss to Bill Campbell in the 1994 Atlanta mayoral election. In October 2008, Campbell will be completing a stint in federal prison for tax evasion.
The lessons that one can glean from his autobiography are just as relevant today as they were more than four decades ago. Arrington's recent collaboration with Bill Cosby in addressing the myriad problems plaguing urban communities has only helped to buttress his timely message. I agree with other reviewers that this book should be required reading for middle school and high school students thanks to its power and relevance.
A Personal History worth knowing May 20, 2008
I first met Marvin Arrington when I was a college senior and editing the Emory Wheel and he a second year law student, though I doubt he remembers that. We had many encounters after that and I had the opportunity to follow quite closely his legal and political career for many years. Yet as close as I felt I knew him, it was not until reading his memoir that I better understand the inner soul of this gentle and committed man. I thanked him for writing it, because as a son of the south and as a white man who had many friends who were Black Georgians, it wasn't until I heard or read the stories Maynard Jackson, Vernon Jordan,
Andrew Young, and Marvin Arrington told in their personal memoirs that I felt I had understood my own time with them. Whether a reader knows him personally or not, I enthusiastically encourage people to read this well-told narrative of growing up in the Jim Crow and post-Jim Crow south. That Marvin has brought his unique and heartening experiences to the courtroom and has had children follow him into the law is an evolution that could have been expected, but nonetheless still very gratifying.
HIgh School Reading List May 9, 2008
This book should be assigned reading for every fifteen year old. The story of Marvin Arrington is proof that poverty and apparent lack of oppuritunity can be overcome.
Martin L. Fierman
Madison, Ga
Barbara R. Hatton, Ph.D. April 1, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Judge Marvin S. Arrington has been fixture in Atlanta, GA legal and political circles for more than thirty years. I expected his autobiography to be another in a long line of inspiring tales about tough warriors in the AFrican American quest for dignity, respect and inclusion. The title should have been my clue that it is much more. It is a saga of how his extraordinary life mirrors that of his beloved and iconoclastic city. Just as Atlanta rose from its ashes to become an international hub that defies its southern roots, Arrington forged his path from obscurity to a place of honor on the right side of Atlanta history. From the early chapters, where he offers a riveting picture of his early life in the neighborhood fictionalized in Tom Wolfe's Atlanta-based novel, to the later ones, he builds on the theme of refusing to stay in the place unjustly assigned to him by his city, his circumstances and his culture. A virtual who's who in law and politics endorsed this book including Pres. Jimmy Carter, Sen. Sam Nunn, Mayor Shirley Franklin, Ambassador Andrew Young, and Gov. Douglas Wilder. Tom Wolfe also lent his name. This book has been added to my collection of African American biographies. It is written in a narrative style that makes it accessible to a wide range of audiences, informative to multiple disciplines and enjoyable for re-reading over time.
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