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| Carol M. Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division. |
Except, of course, for those left earthbound, who remained unmoved by his vision of an America where people are not judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.
Maybe that’s why I never cared for the King Memorial in Washington, D.C. First, the statue doesn’t look enough like him, in my estimation. Second, the entity honoring King is the same federal government that allowed the FBI to hound him, bugging his hotel rooms and tapping his phones, peddling his darkest secrets as punishment for the crime of trying to make the country a better place.
Even setting that aside, the government rendering the man into granite 30 feet tall is still a two-edged honor. Official approval helped and hurt him. One of the many challenges King faced was being co-opted. King was a man squeezed — haters to the right, radicals like Malcolm X to his left, impatient young people pushing up from below, inert officials clucking concern from above.
For the past few weeks, I’ve been immersed in King’s brief life and turbulent times because I’ve been lucky enough to get my hands on an advance copy of “King: A Life.” The first major biography of King in decades is written by Jonathan Eig, the Chicago author of “Ali: A Life,” the truly excellent, bestselling biography of Muhammad Ali (and the truly excellent, bestselling biography of Al Capone and the truly excellent, bestselling ... well, you get the idea).
“King: A Life” is such a nuanced, detailed biography, it’s like having Martin Luther King sitting in your living room, reading a newspaper. Every day, I get to join him, to hurry downstairs, pour myself a cup of coffee and get to know the man better. You’ll have to wait until May when it’s published, but don’t worry, I’ll be sure to remind you.
To continue reading, click here.
Sadly, the torch was never passed and his accomplishments seem to be eroding. Many think it might have been Fred Hampton who could continue King’s efforts. The Cook County’s State Attorney’s office put the kibosh on that.
ReplyDeletePlease keep your promise to let us know when the book appears.
ReplyDeleteCount on it. In mid-May.
DeleteAny book by Jonathan Eig, the Brooklyn-born Medill graduate, is going to be a winner, and a best-seller. "King: A Life" should prove to be no exception. I own a copy of his first book--"Luckiest Man"--the 2005 biography of Lou Gehrig, and it is outstanding. Esquire Magazine named it as one of the top 100 baseball books of all time. His biography of Muhammad Ali is also on a number of lists of all-time best sports books.
ReplyDeleteEig has won nearly a dozen awards for sports writing and non-fiction. He worked as a reporter in New Orleans, Dallas, New York, and Chicago. He was also a freelancer for the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the online edition of the New Yorker.
In addition to his published works about the lives of Lou Gehrig, Al Capone, Jackie Robinson, and Muhammad Ali, Eig also appeared in two Ken Burns PBS documentaries—"Prohibition" and "Jackie Robinson"--and was a consulting producer in a third Ken Burns production...the 2021 documentary about Ali.
"The Birth of the Pill" (2014), Eig's fourth book, told the story of the invention of Enovid, the first commercial oral contraceptive, which was released by G D. Searle (the pharmaceutical manufacturer, then based in Skokie) in 1960.The father of a close high school friend of mine was a member of Searle's Enovid research team.
What are the "sources never before available"? The FBI bugs and plagiarism accusations are in the Pulitzer Prize winning book, Bearing the Cross, by David Garrow, written in 1986, which I found invaluable. Garrow also wrote a book about the FBI and King in 1981 (which I didn't read).
ReplyDeleteIt seems LBJ parked material with his secretary that was slow being publically known, and Eig seems to have unearthed other sources — I'll go into that in the full treatment in May.
DeleteThanks for the advance book review. I think part of King’s legacy comes from his being co-opted. Now, his words are taught to and his message absorbed by younger Americans. It seems that they are not as bigoted as their elders.
ReplyDelete