MLK to Brother Ray

A woman's adventure of social transformation, political revolution and personal affirmation.

Sandra Virginia Eggleston came of age during a time of revolution. Regardless of the challenge, “Sandee” found her way forward, often guiding those close to her along the way. Daughter. Sister. Friend. Godmother. Colleague. A platoon sergeant on the front lines of both the civil rights and women’s liberation movements.

Her journey took her to international jazz festivals, Caribbean beaches, and across the country in an MGB convertible. Sandee met political power brokers, sports superstars and music legends. She survived plane crashes, murder trials, and cancer, experiencing the full spectrum of life’s joys and sorrows, from weddings and christenings to the heartbreak of divorce.

MLK to Brother Ray tracks the historical arc of themes of race and gender in the home and the workplace. The book’s focus on the challenges Sandee overcame in her life evokes Kate More’s chronicling of Elizabeth Packard’s story in The Woman They Could Not Silence, while at the same time exploring the impact of racial discrimination on African American working women found in Margot Lee Shetterly’s Hidden Figures. All while capturing the breadth of Rebecca Traister’s defiant documentation of the obstacles facing contemporary women in her book, All the Single Ladies.