Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Martin Luther King,jr. biography is an excellent book to buy or checkout at your local library. This book was written about his life and the struggles he endured as a young African American man and his life as a Civil Rights leader.The book goes through his whole life from his childhood to his assasination. It tells the reader about the discrimination and racism he went through. I reccomend this book to people of all ages.

In a short space, Marshall Frady has written an informative, inspiring and thoughtful biography of Martin Luther King Jr., of the nature of his achievement, of his America, and of his vision. The book does not engage in hero-worship or myth-making but rather presents Dr. King as a tortured.conflicted, and lonely individual. Frady writes at the close of his introduction (p.10) (itself a wonderful summation of the book and of Dr. King's achievement): "And what the full-bodied reality of King should finally tell us, beyond all the awe and celebration of him, is how mysteriously mixed, in what torturously complicated frms, our moral heroes -- our prophets --actually come to us."A theme of this book is how Dr. King's moral vision and achievement emerged from moral conflict. Dr King spent most of his career walking a difficult path between extremes. At the beginning of his career, he was criticized by the more conservative black establishment which preferred to use the courts rather than demonstrations as a means to promote racial equality. Indeed, Frady tells us, the Mongomery bus boycott of 1955, which catapaulted Dr. King into national prominence, did not end the segregation of the city's bus system -- a court decision did. Towards the end of his career, black leaders such as Malcolm X and Stokely Charmichael pressured Dr. King to abandon his philosophy of nonviolence. He did not do so. But Frady shows us how Dr. King and Malcolm X near the end of their lives each learned something from the other.King's most difficult moral struggle was with himself. Frady gives us a convincing picture of how Dr. King, whose appeal rested upon an ability to convey moral and religous principle, struggled (unsuccessfully) with sexuality. A myriad of affairs followed him and his mission from beginning to end. Frady has insightful things to say about the relationship between Dr. King's tortured, complex personal life and his public mission.Frady also describes how near the end of his career with segregation on the decline in the South, Dr. King tried to expand his mission by opposing the war in Vietnam and by his "poor peoples campaign" which Dr. King saw as an attack on the materialism, impersonality, and greed that he found pervaded American life. In so expanding his mission, Dr. King alienated many of his followers. His lasting achievement does not rest upon these later activities, according to Frady, but rather upon the idealism and moral committment with which he was able to infuse American life during a few short years.Frady gives us an eloquent discussion of Dr. King's "I have a dream" speech in Washington D.C. Later in his career, Dr King set forth his vision for America by speaking in terms of a "Beloved Community", a phrase adopted from the early 20th Century American philosopher, Josiah Royce. Dr King said (p. 183) "When I talk about power and the need for power, I'm talking in terms of the need for power to bring about ... the creation of the Bel

This is one of the best of the often excellent Penguin Lives series. Martin Luther King is presented as a real man with insecurities, self-doubts, college plagarizing and womanizing. But he is also shown as the key individual in the incredible progress (I know it doesn't feel like it--but read the book and its picture of the country in the fifties!) we have made in the area of race relations. MLK is portrayed as a man who rose above his everydayness to achieve insights into the areas of race, poverty and oppression which would move a nation. Blessed in his enemies--the egregious Bull Connor, the banty rooster George Wallace (in his first incarnation) and the despicable J. Edgar Hoover--gave the nation a contrast in possibilities. Despite the reluctance of the Kennedys, the backbiting of his own lieutenants and the inconstancy of the national media, MLK made a difference. To read about his speech at the Linclon Memorial still gives me shivers. This is a fair, honest portrait of a man who made a difference.

Marshall Frady's book is an invaluable addition to the historical, sociological, and psychological understanding of this country's race relations. In particular, he does not limit the story to what happened decades earlier, but relates the historical events to more recent history. Thankfully, the book treats Dr. King as a human being with faults (e.g., his insecurities, self-doubts, womanizing), and not as a saint (as sometimes portrayed in MLK day celebrations) or as a commodity (as marketed by his family). The value of discussing Dr. King honestly is that his vision for society is not limited to the saints, but can be more practically considered by us regular folks with our shortcomings.

Simply put, this is the finest of the Penguin Lives series. It gives Dr. King in simple sentences, does not ignore the complexities of his life, and does not indulge in the myth making of previous biographers. You get the man, with his failures, successes, obsessions and ironies, all in one tight package. Wonderful read.