By: Nata Tombari, Nonfiction Reviewer
Jonathan Eig’s Pulitzer-Prize winning biography of the civil rights icon, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., is a moving, visceral, and humanizing portrait of the man whose fierce advocacy, rousing oratory, and unrelenting pursuit of equality for Black people made him one of the most hated people in America at the time of his assassination.
Eig masterfully weaves interviews with Dr. King himself and his contemporaries and other forms of archival research to help construct a multidimensional and intimate look into MLK Jr.’s somewhat sheltered, middle-class upbringing on Sweet Auburn Avenue and his transformation into the civil rights icon we know today. King: A Life is a necessary read for anyone who wants to learn more about the man behind the dream.
As I walked past this book sitting prominently on the bookshelf of the KSU Print Shop on the first floor of the Carmichael Student Center, I couldn’t help but wonder why I had only heard of this book now. It wasn’t until college that my knowledge about Dr. King and the Civil Rights Movement greatly expanded through my U.S. history coursework and spirited discussions with professors.
The Internet as well contributed to my information about his life, but still it was never deep enough and I felt that it left out certain aspects of his life that were seminal in his development as a civil rights leader and orator. Despite what I knew, Dr. King still felt like an enigma to me. Reading the book’s introduction, I knew that Eig’s work would answer the innumerable questions and interests I had about Dr. King’s life, philosophy, and legacy.
This biography doesn’t begin with Dr. King’s birth but rather the story of his father, Michael King, and his paternal grandparents, Delia Linsey and Jim King’s life in Stockbridge, GA amid what has been commonly called “the nadir of race relations” following Reconstruction. Eig’s choice to start his biography with King’s predecessors’ narrative resonates with me because it made me consider how Dr. King’s family and upbringing shaped his career. Moreover, it underscores the Kings’ ascent into the middle class from sharecropping even more inspirational.
Naturally, King remains the focal point of his biography, but Eig highlights the roles his family and loved ones played in his philosophy, teachings, and outlook on life. Eig treats his wife Coretta Scott King as a civil rights activist in her own right who never stopped or backed down from the fight for equality for all people after her husband’s assassination. They also further humanize him. The timid boy who was known as “Little Mike” or M.L. to his family would triumph as a paragon of justice.
If I were to take anything away from this biography, it’s that Martin Luther King Jr. was human. At first glance, such a statement isn’t revelatory, but one must consider how society’s mythologizing of Dr. King has maligned our understanding of King’s message, life’s work, and the history of racial inequality in America. In the prologue, Eig poignantly writes, “King was a man, not a saint, not a symbol.”
King: A Life covers Dr. King’s nuances, complexities, mistakes, insecurities, and, at times, struggles with his faith. Eig doesn’t shy away from covering the good, bad, and the ugly. For example, while Dr. King depended on his wife Coretta Scott King, “he also cheated on her, continually, even when he knew the FBI was tapping his phones and bugging his hotel rooms, trying to destroy his marriage and reputation.”
On the other hand, reading about the foundation of essential civil rights organizations such as the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and the political maneuvering, organization, and collective work required for staging sit-ins, boycotts, and freedom rides within the heart of the racist Deep South are edifying. It’s hard to imagine or fathom the almost insurmountable forces that were against King and other visionaries of the Civil Rights Movement. Closely, Eig illustrates the immense fortitude, bravery, and courage King and his contemporaries possessed in the face of hate.