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mollynelsonregan's review
challenging
informative
reflective
4.0
Illuminating, complicated, detailed
vegetakira1234's review
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.5
Wrapping up all of MLK's actions and thoughts into one book is difficult, but Jonathan Eig does his best to do just that. From starting with the life if his parents and grandparents to how he was raised, I was able to get a better sense of the values that would eventually shape his later views in life. Specifically his focuses on living the life of a Christian as the Bible teaches, rather than cherry picking passages that he liked, such as asking for no retribution on the woman who stabbed him, on the man who assaulted him, or on any of the countless cops that beat him and many others in the various protests and marches. Seeing how his views and stubbornness also were shaped by the shifting landscape of the Civil Rights movement, such as after his more popular successes into how he "tarnished" his influence in the North by doubling and tripling down on his views on the Vietnam War. He was truly in it, thanks to the support from Coretta and Abernathy and many others, to help the black people of the U.S. be seen as people and treated equally by white people across the country. The apathy shown to him by the Northern whites when he was asking them to see how their racist actions and policies were just as harmful as Jim Crow sheds some extra light on this period of time not always taught in K-12. More people need to understand the difficulties that the various leaders of the movements, as fractured as it sometimes was, had to go through and that there was more to the Movement and Martin Luthor King, Jr. than "I Have a Dream."
lesserjoke's review
4.0
This 2023 title is a major new biography of the assassinated civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., representing the first such work to be published in over three decades. It draws on extensive interviews with his surviving loved ones and colleagues, as well as recently-uncovered archival material like declassified FBI surveillance files and the manuscript to his father's unpublished memoir. These documents help author Jonathan Eig paint an in-depth portrait of his subject, walking readers through every stage of the reverend's fraught career pursuing equality for Black folks and other marginalized populations.
There are few big revelations here, although I was interested to learn both the extent of the Bureau's monitoring of King and the fact that it primarily stemmed from his friendship with Stanley Levison, a Jewish man with former Communist ties whom J. Edgar Hoover erroneously believed was somehow using the preacher's activism to subvert American capitalism. (While Eig doesn't make the point explicitly, there are definite echoes to the modern conspiracy theory that accuses Jews of secretly fomenting social unrest amongst other minority groups.) The writer also places King's radical commitment to non-violent protest in the context of his contemporaries, indicating when the wider movement generally supported his tactics as well as those moments when criticism flared and he seemed to have lost a clear moral mandate. Above all, the book illustrates what a disservice we do to King and his evolving philosophies -- at the time of his death encompassing objections to the Vietnam War, a fear that racism in the north might be more extreme and intractable than in the south, and a mission to eradicate poverty nationwide -- when we reduce him to his most famous "I have a dream" soundbyte (stirring though it was and remains).
Eig shows us the human Martin too, an individual with his share of uncertainties and weaknesses. He cheated on his wife with multiple women, was rarely home to spend time with his kids, and plagiarized many of his early speeches along with a significant portion of his doctoral dissertation. Like Marvel's Stan Lee, he lied about elements of his personal history as he retold it, strategically shaping a larger-than-life persona that would render his arguments more appealing to his growing national audience. He was also attacked and severely injured several times over the years, and spoke bitterly / prophetically that he would likely be killed before achieving his goals. This account captures all of that, as well as the background violence of the era -- the rapes, the lynchings, the police brutality, and more -- that Black people and their allies were experiencing. It all weighed heavily on his soul every time he considered orchestrating a new demonstration somewhere that would inevitably spark such backlash among the most outspoken local racists.
Although the book doesn't dwell too long on King's legacy, it does a fine job of conveying his organizing and oratorical skills and everything they helped him to achieve. He did not originally set out to become a leader -- or even a clergyman at all -- but he was repeatedly in the right place to step up when various opportunities arose. He had friendly working relationships with US presidents even while their intelligence officers spied on him, and he used his platform to continually shine a light on injustice everywhere. While the movement started before him and continued on after his murder, he was utterly instrumental in a way Eig's writing makes plain.
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There are few big revelations here, although I was interested to learn both the extent of the Bureau's monitoring of King and the fact that it primarily stemmed from his friendship with Stanley Levison, a Jewish man with former Communist ties whom J. Edgar Hoover erroneously believed was somehow using the preacher's activism to subvert American capitalism. (While Eig doesn't make the point explicitly, there are definite echoes to the modern conspiracy theory that accuses Jews of secretly fomenting social unrest amongst other minority groups.) The writer also places King's radical commitment to non-violent protest in the context of his contemporaries, indicating when the wider movement generally supported his tactics as well as those moments when criticism flared and he seemed to have lost a clear moral mandate. Above all, the book illustrates what a disservice we do to King and his evolving philosophies -- at the time of his death encompassing objections to the Vietnam War, a fear that racism in the north might be more extreme and intractable than in the south, and a mission to eradicate poverty nationwide -- when we reduce him to his most famous "I have a dream" soundbyte (stirring though it was and remains).
Eig shows us the human Martin too, an individual with his share of uncertainties and weaknesses. He cheated on his wife with multiple women, was rarely home to spend time with his kids, and plagiarized many of his early speeches along with a significant portion of his doctoral dissertation. Like Marvel's Stan Lee, he lied about elements of his personal history as he retold it, strategically shaping a larger-than-life persona that would render his arguments more appealing to his growing national audience. He was also attacked and severely injured several times over the years, and spoke bitterly / prophetically that he would likely be killed before achieving his goals. This account captures all of that, as well as the background violence of the era -- the rapes, the lynchings, the police brutality, and more -- that Black people and their allies were experiencing. It all weighed heavily on his soul every time he considered orchestrating a new demonstration somewhere that would inevitably spark such backlash among the most outspoken local racists.
Although the book doesn't dwell too long on King's legacy, it does a fine job of conveying his organizing and oratorical skills and everything they helped him to achieve. He did not originally set out to become a leader -- or even a clergyman at all -- but he was repeatedly in the right place to step up when various opportunities arose. He had friendly working relationships with US presidents even while their intelligence officers spied on him, and he used his platform to continually shine a light on injustice everywhere. While the movement started before him and continued on after his murder, he was utterly instrumental in a way Eig's writing makes plain.
Like this review?
--Throw me a quick one-time donation here!
https://ko-fi.com/lesserjoke
--Subscribe here to support my writing and weigh in on what I read next!
https://patreon.com/lesserjoke
--Follow along on Goodreads here!
https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/6288479-joe-kessler
--Or click here to browse through all my reviews!
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slb05's review against another edition
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.75