Published by Simon & Schuster UK, 2023, softcover, illustrated, index, 669 pages, condition: as new.
In this revelatory new portrait of the preacher and activist who shook the world, the bestselling biographer gives us an intimate view of the courageous and often emotionally troubled human being who demanded peaceful protest for his movement but was rarely at peace with himself. He casts fresh light on the King family's origins as well as MLK's complex relationships with his wife, father, and fellow activists. King reveals a minister wrestling with his own human frailties and dark moods, a citizen hunted by his own government, and a man determined to fight for justice even if it proved to be a fight to the death.
As he follows MLK from the classroom to the pulpit to the streets of Birmingham, Selma, and Memphis, Eig dramatically re-creates the journey of a man who recast American race relations and became its only modern-day founding father as well as the nation's most mourned martyr. In this landmark biography, Eig gives us an MLK for our times: a deep thinker, a brilliant strategist, and a committed radical who led one of history's greatest movements, and whose demands for racial and economic justice remain as urgent today as they were in his lifetime.
In this monumental biography. Meticulously researched with compassion, and a love for the most iconic American Civil Rights Leader of all time, Mr. Eig deservedly won his Pulitzer Prize for writing "King". Eig writes of Dr. King's life and death as if it were a kaleidoscope of images and moments that sear themselves into the reader's mind. Since MLK has become so iconic in the American lexicon, I read about a human being whose life mirrored those classic heroes that rise and fall. I did not know Dr. King almost died from a stabbing made by a mentally disturbed woman named Izola Wade Curry in Harlem. I learned that Dr. King had an ambivalent relationship with President Kennedy when it came to Civil Rights. I learned that Dr. King had a far better working relationship with President Johnson who later signed the Civil Rights Act and the Fair Housing Act into law. Their collaboration fell apart when Dr. King became vocal about his antiwar stance on Vietnam. King's relationship with his equally iconic wife Coretta was a reserved one. She stood quietly on the sidelines, pushing her own agendas of Civil Rights as she supported her husband. She took the high road when her husband's several infidelities came into light. After King was assassinated, Mrs. King became a staunch supporter of "women's rights, gay rights, religious freedom, AIDS awareness, nuclear disarmament" (Eig 556). She would pass away in 2006. Dr. King's relationship with his father, Daddy King was also fraught with tension, and I did not know that his mother Alberta would later be murdered shortly after his assassination by James Earl Ray.Eig also chronicles with a deft hand of King's triumphs: With the help of Bayard Rustin, Dr. King was able to organize the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. This becomes the time and place where history was made when King orated the legendary "I Have a Dream" speech in 1963. Eig writes about the impact of this speech, "King reminded listeners that his people have suffered, that their trust had been violated...fought and died in the struggle for freedom".Also he recounts when King wrote "Letter from Birmingham Jail", of how this would become "part of American History that captured the spirit of the Civil Rights movement and the fierce brilliance of its leader" .King would go on to spar, and in equal measure have friendships and professional relationships with historical icons Bayard Rustin, Malcolm X, Rosa Parks, Robert F. Kennedy, President Nixon (whom he was on friendlier terms with, ironically instead of President Kennedy) . King would see the birth of Brown vs Board of Education, the Selma March of 1965, the murder of Emmett Till, and the genesis of the Vietnam War just to list a few of the world events that would dominate during King's life.
