And they said one to another,
Behold, this dreamer cometh…
Let us slay him..
And we shall see what will become of his dreams.
—Genesis 37:19
Just finished Jonathan Eig’s King: A Life, and wow, what a great read! This biography gives us a front-row seat to Martin Luther King Jr.'s life, using newly released documents like White House telephone transcripts, F.B.I. documents, and letters.
King didn’t set out to lead the civil rights movement, he just wanted to be a preacher in Montgomery, Alabama. Then came Rosa Parks and the bus boycott, and suddenly, he’s the star of the movement. His speech during the Montgomery bus boycott was powerful:
If we are wrong, the Supreme Court of this nation is wrong.
If we are wrong, the Constitution of the United States is wrong.
The man knew how to rally a crowd.
The book doesn’t shy away from King’s flaws. He disliked conflict, struggled with anxiety, depression, and guilt over his personal failings. Interestingly, the FBI leaked King’s extramarital affairs to many reporters, but they refused to publish, deeming it unethical.
King’s commitment to his beliefs was unwavering. Even when advised to stay quiet on Vietnam, he stood his ground:
Don’t you understand me? Don’t you know what I’ve been saying all these years? It’s not out of pragmatism. I may have been wrong politically, but I was not wrong morally.
And went on to say:
As I have walked among the desperate, rejected and angry young men, I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they ask, and rightly so, “What about Vietnam?” And they ask if our own nation wasn’t using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home. And I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today: my own government.
King stood firm and never compromised, even when easier paths were available. He risked everything for his vision of justice and equality, embodying the true essence of courage.
Oh my. What an incredible Spark. Martin Luther King, Jr., was a guiding light during tumultuous
and dangerous times, spearheading the Civil Rights movement. He gave everything for his beliefs, including his own life. Unfortunately, we are again facing issues of civil rights, racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, and rampant hate against people of color. Hopefully, if we keep our democracy in tact, the haters will fade into the background , where they belong.