N's Reviews > King: A Life

A 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" (Eig 337).

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" (Eig 296).

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.

He would also unfortunately become the target of J. Edgar Hoover’s racist ire, and he’d pursue on bringing King down at every turn.

Eig manages to capture King's inner life in heartbreaking fashion, "the movement had forced the nation to address some of its inequities, and merely exposed others. The same liberals who helped fight Jim Crow in the South failed to address issues of job discrimination, housing segregation, police assaults on black communities in the North. These conditions would not change" (Eig 533). Though King was able to project a calm, stoic demeanor- he often felt that white allies would not fully acknowledge systemic and racist ideologies that had been put in place.

I truly felt that Dr. King was portrayed as a full fledged human: with hopes, fears, anxieties, lust and sexual desire- all things that J. Edgar Hoover hated about him as he conducted surveillance on him.

I think I walked away with a lot more information about Dr. King than I knew before in a roundabout way, and Mr. Eig has written this splendid and sprawling biography that is equally intimate.

As a kid growing up, I only knew vague information about Dr. King's legacy.

But as an adult and educator, I agree with Eig's opinion that "our simplified celebration of King comes at a cost, sapping the strength of his philosophical and intellectual contributions" (557).

I did not know much, and after reading Eig's book, I know a little more.