MLK
Impressions of the new biography by Jonathan Eig
by Johnathan Eig
2023
I read Johnathan Eig’s 2023 biography of Dr. Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., the first full biography of MLK in decades, which seems scandalous. It moves quickly despite being packed with details and navigating the intricate currents of a complicated life. Taking advantage of the latest available information and deep research into existing archives, this is now the gold standard of MLK biographies — until someone does one better — and more information hits the public sphere. What might that be? Well, the FBI has some classified materials set to be released in 2027, which Eig notes he’s curious to see.
Did you know MLK was known as “Little Mike” as a child? His father was Michael, but they both eventually went by Martin. One of Eig’s finds is audiotape of MLK Sr., who recorded notes towards a memoir that was never completed. Eig is the first biographer to make use of that material. He also finds a transcript of the interview for Playboy MLK did with Alex Haley (yes, of Roots), and he discovers that a notable quotation of MLK talking about Malcolm X wasn’t what everyone thought it was. It had been edited for the print edition, which Eig calls “journalistic malpractice.” Here’s an account not behind a paywall.
On page 60 of the 84-page document, Haley asks, “Dr. King, would you care to comment upon the articulate former Black Muslim, Malcolm X?”
King responds: “I have met Malcolm X, but circumstances didn’t enable me to talk with him for more than a minute. I totally disagree with many of his political and philosophical views, as I understand them. He is very articulate, as you say. I don’t want to seem to sound as if I feel so self-righteous, or absolutist, that I think I have the only truth, the only way. Maybe he does have some of the answer. But I know that I have so often felt that I wished that he would talk less of violence, because I don’t think that violence can solve our problem. And in his litany of expressing the despair of the Negro, without offering a positive, creative approach, I think that he falls into a rut sometimes.”
That is not how King’s response appeared in the published interview. While the top part is nearly identical with the transcript, it ended in Playboy like this: “And in his litany of articulating the despair of the Negro without offering any positive, creative alternative, I feel that Malcolm has done himself and our people a great disservice. Fiery, demagogic oratory in the black ghettos, urging Negroes to arm themselves and prepare to engage in violence, as he has done, can reap nothing but grief.”
Those are a couple of Eig’s newsworthy scoops. But what was my overall impression, of the book, of the man?
I wasn’t sure if I came away with anything overall new, though definitely a fuller appreciation and picture of the times, the evolution of events, the heartbreak of the missed chances and shattered hopes. From our time now, yes, it is interesting to contrast MLK and Malcolm X, both assassinated, both working full out against the legacy of racism against Blacks in America. Even as I write that I think what a weak summary. How to sum up their visions and purpose? They were huge and transformative from the bedrock up, but of course their approaches were different.
Did you know King dated a White woman while away at university? By all accounts they were a solid item.
What amazed me, was how often the Kennedy brothers were calling MLK directly. President Kennedy at one point calls the King home and speaks to Coretta, who relays a message to her husband: “I just spoke to the President.” The Kennedys are trying to warn MLK that he is being watched by the FBI and that he should be careful about people with Communist leanings in his organization. MLK is confident in his people (and no Communist Party affiliations were found), and he thanks the Kennedys as he carries on as usual, including visiting his apparently limitless number of mistresses, which the J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI is tracking through bugged hotel rooms (authorized by Robert Kennedy, Attorney General). The FBI is trying to interest journalists in MLK’s sexy escapades, and for years no journalist will touch it. MLK gets invited to the White House and Coretta want to go: “I’ve spoke to the President on the phone.” But MLK says it can’t be arranged and takes one of his girlfriends.
The boys are out of control, and Coretta is just going to keep looking better and better as time goes along. Queen.
Segregation was evil, sure, but another word came to mind repeatedly: gross. The stories of the sit-ins and the marches are heroic and awesome. And their adversary is what? People who don’t want to mix? It’s just gross. Hannah Arendt wrote about the Nazi’s banality of evil, but the segregationists might the dullest dumbasses I’ve ever had to contemplate. And against this Hoover thought MLK the “greatest threat to the nation”? Numbnuts.
See also David Halberstam’s 1998 book, The Children, described on GoodReads as follows:
[a] moving evocation of the early days of the civil rights movement, as seen thru the story of the young people — the Children…. They came together as part of Rev. James Lawson's workshops on nonviolence…. They risked it all [after] … Martin Luther King Jr recruited Lawson to come to Nashville to train students in Gandhian techniques of nonviolence.
On MLK and Malcolm. They met once, briefly and by accident. Could they not have found at last an afternoon to share notes over coffee? This book seems full of missed connections. The benefit of the rearview mirror, sure. Eig does a good job of showing how MLK was moving closer to Malcolm in his language and strategy over time, as Malcolm moved towards a more inclusive worldview (closer to King). It was surprising to me, though, to be reminded that Malcolm was a segregationist early on, even once attending a public event in 1961 with the Illinois Nazis — each wanted the same thing, to be separated from the other.
The audio book includes an interview with the author after text, and he and other scholars discuss MLK’s current image vs Malcolm X. One professor says his students are surprised to find out how radical King could be, and also how communal Malcolm could be. There were many fruits on these vines not picked — perhaps sources of hope still.
Because, yes, MLK has become a bit of a cartoon, reduced to a couple of sound bites, the dream speech, the mistresses, the FBI tapes. In the interview, Eig is asked what surprised him most during the process of writing this book, and he says it was something he shouldn’t have been surprised about, given that King was not just Dr. King, he was Reverend King. His faith, Eig says. He was most surprised by the role of faith. How it is the basis and motivation for MLK’s vision, his belief that he is called to be an instrument of history that he must accept without fear, even knowing the likelihood of a violent death.
I didn’t know that King has been stabbed in the chest in the early 1960s, coming fractions of a knife blade from dying then. Doctors told him he would have died if he had sneezed, and King was telling that story in the days before he was shot in April 1968. He may not make it to the promised land, he said. But he had been to the mountain top, comparing himself to Moses. The next day he was dead.
I don’t remember the first time I knew about MLK. I’ve been mesmerized by the speeches since the first time I heard or saw them on TV. In the first year of university, I wrote a paper on “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” I also was assigned an excerpt from The Autobiography of Malcom X (1965), which is maybe the first time I had a sense of Malcom or maybe even heard of him. It was a section about Malcom reading the dictionary, and I thought wow wow wow. Later, I read the full memoir and it’s definitely top 5 of all time.
I pasted a photocopy of MLK to my dorm room door (1987). Why? Could I even say? This icon was a star I acknowledged somewhere deep, a guiding light. There were others in my dorm who didn’t feel that way. A living faith was something I was trying to get my head around, then. How to live a good life? How to live a meaningful life? How to be connected to the deep currents of justice that bend with history toward light. Obama would quote that MLK line: history bends towards justice.
Shitballs, but I wish I still felt confident about that.
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