King a critical biography
King: A Biography
February 3, 2018
This is a quality biography of the life of one of America's greatest figures written by one of its top historians.
For many Americans, Martin Luther King, Jr., remains a larger than life figure 38 years after his assassination in Memphis, Tennessee. King, with honorable mention to Rosa Parks and Malcolm X, is far and away the most recognizable figure from the Civil Rights Movement. Everyone associates his name with nonviolent protest and the “I Have a Dream” speech given at the Lincoln Memorial in 1963. However, despite decades of school assemblies dedicated to the man, most Americans, even those who care deeply about civil rights and equality, grow up blissfully ignorant of the majority of King’s life, his struggles, and his philosophical background. David Lewis explains each of these aspects of King, and more, in his biography.
Like other historian of the Civil Rights Movement such as David Chappell, Lewis traces much of King’s personal philosophy to the teachings of Reinhold Niebuhr. This theologian offered a pessimistic view of man’s nature; evil was a real and permanent force in people’s lives. For King, Niebuhr “refuted the false optimism characteristic of a great segment of Protestant liberalism.” (37) However, according to Lewis, the more positive Social Gospel teachings of Walter Rauschenbusch also had an influence. King eventually concluded that, “While I still believe in man’s potential for good, Niebuhr made me realize his potential for evil as well.” (37) These philosophical underpinnings, combined with the embrace of nonviolence as a protest tactic, set the stage for all of King’s subsequent endeavors.
The Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955-6 catapulted King to national prominence, and his subsequent activities kept him there for more than a decade. However, Lewis realizes that with a few exceptions, such as the Chicago campaign, it was up to local people to provide the spark that King’s appearance and rhetoric could fan into a flame. African Americans had a long tradition of resistance in some areas, dating back as far as Reconstruction in some cases. He mentions a subaltern consciousness that produced occasional acts of protest from blacks in cities like Birmingham. In 1944, South Carolina blacks sent a delegation to the Democratic National Convention in an open challenge to the all-white official delegation, presaging the better-known attempt by the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party to do the same in 1964. This scholarship de-emphasizes the importance of white liberals in the movement by playing up the importance of multigenerational tactics of opposition.
This theme of the relationship of civil rights to white liberals and the power structure they presided over in the 1960s is very important. Lewis writes, “Curiously, both points of view—that of the friendly whites and that of the SNCC students—derived from the same fallacious supposition, which credited the white Southerner with a residual humanitarianism. Subsequent developments unfortunately belied this.” (135) While Lewis was speaking of the Freedom Riders on this occasion, the criticism extends to liberal politicians in general. While not all of them lacked humanitarianism, perhaps, he believes that the Cold War harmed the movement in disastrous ways: “With the advent of the Cold War, segregationists regained the upper hand, as the wartime rhetoric of racial inclusion was quickly discarded. The white South added anti-communist hysteria to its litany of racial and sexual epithets and taboos invoked to justify its violent defense of white supremacy.” (220) The anti-communism of the Cold War also imposed serious limitations on the tactics available to the Civil Rights Movement. It stigmatized movement leaders forced to adopt an internationalist perspective by the reluctance of federal authorities to persecute lawbreakers within the United States. Many leaders, like Bob Moses, eventually left the country. “That exile—and assassination—proved to be the common fate of black radicals attests to the magnitude of their indictment of the violence and bad faith inherent in American liberalism.” (225)
One of the central goals of King and the Civil Rights Movement was for blacks to reassert their rights to the ballot and register to vote. Lewis states, “Martin’s greatest ally—indeed the staunchest force promoting the cause of Civil Rights—was invariably the tactical imbecility of the white South.” (164-5) This part of the movement’s history is the most well-known one. The violence perpetrated against the movement in places such as Birmingham and Selma made national news and cast southerners as angry, semi-literate rednecks against the forgiving, praying, peaceful black population, giving white southerners a black mark in public opinion they had difficulty countering.
Following those well-publicized events of 1964 and 1965, however, one of King’s most ambitious projects was the Chicago campaign, where he attempted to expand the idea of civil rights to include equality of economic opportunity. From the beginning, he realized that he faced long odds: “Jobs are harder and costlier to create than voting rolls. The eradication of slums housing millions is complex far beyond integrating buses and lunch counters.” (295) However, the odds were much longer than he knew. Though he would remain nonviolent to the end, saying, “fewer people had been killed in ten years of nonviolent demonstrations across the nation than in one night of rioting in Watts” (330) in Chicago he was up against obstacles over which no tactics could possibly triumph. This was because “there was virtually no possibility of White House assistance in Chicago. The political power of the Daley machine within the Democratic Party, the socioeconomic thrust, as opposed to the formerly legalistic, of the SCLC’s Northern Campaign, the complex interrelationships of Eastern finance, Midwestern industry and labor, and federal power” (343) constituted an immovable object against which no moral force could hope to prevail. The entrenched forces of money and political power would brook no rivals.
The same goes for King’s opposition to the Vietnam War. No matter how much he railed against the useless killing and piles of money spent on that unsuccessful conflict, he made little impact on national decision making regarding the war. In fact, his stance probably cost him support because his opponents could label him soft on communism.
King’s tragic death from an assassin’s bullet dealt the Civil Rights Movement a severe blow. While the movement he helped energize continued, the role of Martin Luther King, Jr., had come to an end.
For many Americans, Martin Luther King, Jr., remains a larger than life figure 38 years after his assassination in Memphis, Tennessee. King, with honorable mention to Rosa Parks and Malcolm X, is far and away the most recognizable figure from the Civil Rights Movement. Everyone associates his name with nonviolent protest and the “I Have a Dream” speech given at the Lincoln Memorial in 1963. However, despite decades of school assemblies dedicated to the man, most Americans, even those who care deeply about civil rights and equality, grow up blissfully ignorant of the majority of King’s life, his struggles, and his philosophical background. David Lewis explains each of these aspects of King, and more, in his biography.
Like other historian of the Civil Rights Movement such as David Chappell, Lewis traces much of King’s personal philosophy to the teachings of Reinhold Niebuhr. This theologian offered a pessimistic view of man’s nature; evil was a real and permanent force in people’s lives. For King, Niebuhr “refuted the false optimism characteristic of a great segment of Protestant liberalism.” (37) However, according to Lewis, the more positive Social Gospel teachings of Walter Rauschenbusch also had an influence. King eventually concluded that, “While I still believe in man’s potential for good, Niebuhr made me realize his potential for evil as well.” (37) These philosophical underpinnings, combined with the embrace of nonviolence as a protest tactic, set the stage for all of King’s subsequent endeavors.
The Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955-6 catapulted King to national prominence, and his subsequent activities kept him there for more than a decade. However, Lewis realizes that with a few exceptions, such as the Chicago campaign, it was up to local people to provide the spark that King’s appearance and rhetoric could fan into a flame. African Americans had a long tradition of resistance in some areas, dating back as far as Reconstruction in some cases. He mentions a subaltern consciousness that produced occasional acts of protest from blacks in cities like Birmingham. In 1944, South Carolina blacks sent a delegation to the Democratic National Convention in an open challenge to the all-white official delegation, presaging the better-known attempt by the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party to do the same in 1964. This scholarship de-emphasizes the importance of white liberals in the movement by playing up the importance of multigenerational tactics of opposition.
This theme of the relationship of civil rights to white liberals and the power structure they presided over in the 1960s is very important. Lewis writes, “Curiously, both points of view—that of the friendly whites and that of the SNCC students—derived from the same fallacious supposition, which credited the white Southerner with a residual humanitarianism. Subsequent developments unfortunately belied this.” (135) While Lewis was speaking of the Freedom Riders on this occasion, the criticism extends to liberal politicians in general. While not all of them lacked humanitarianism, perhaps, he believes that the Cold War harmed the movement in disastrous ways: “With the advent of the Cold War, segregationists regained the upper hand, as the wartime rhetoric of racial inclusion was quickly discarded. The white South added anti-communist hysteria to its litany of racial and sexual epithets and taboos invoked to justify its violent defense of white supremacy.” (220) The anti-communism of the Cold War also imposed serious limitations on the tactics available to the Civil Rights Movement. It stigmatized movement leaders forced to adopt an internationalist perspective by the reluctance of federal authorities to persecute lawbreakers within the United States. Many leaders, like Bob Moses, eventually left the country. “That exile—and assassination—proved to be the common fate of black radicals attests to the magnitude of their indictment of the violence and bad faith inherent in American liberalism.” (225)
One of the central goals of King and the Civil Rights Movement was for blacks to reassert their rights to the ballot and register to vote. Lewis states, “Martin’s greatest ally—indeed the staunchest force promoting the cause of Civil Rights—was invariably the tactical imbecility of the white South.” (164-5) This part of the movement’s history is the most well-known one. The violence perpetrated against the movement in places such as Birmingham and Selma made national news and cast southerners as angry, semi-literate rednecks against the forgiving, praying, peaceful black population, giving white southerners a black mark in public opinion they had difficulty countering.
Following those well-publicized events of 1964 and 1965, however, one of King’s most ambitious projects was the Chicago campaign, where he attempted to expand the idea of civil rights to include equality of economic opportunity. From the beginning, he realized that he faced long odds: “Jobs are harder and costlier to create than voting rolls. The eradication of slums housing millions is complex far beyond integrating buses and lunch counters.” (295) However, the odds were much longer than he knew. Though he would remain nonviolent to the end, saying, “fewer people had been killed in ten years of nonviolent demonstrations across the nation than in one night of rioting in Watts” (330) in Chicago he was up against obstacles over which no tactics could possibly triumph. This was because “there was virtually no possibility of White House assistance in Chicago. The political power of the Daley machine within the Democratic Party, the socioeconomic thrust, as opposed to the formerly legalistic, of the SCLC’s Northern Campaign, the complex interrelationships of Eastern finance, Midwestern industry and labor, and federal power” (343) constituted an immovable object against which no moral force could hope to prevail. The entrenched forces of money and political power would brook no rivals.
The same goes for King’s opposition to the Vietnam War. No matter how much he railed against the useless killing and piles of money spent on that unsuccessful conflict, he made little impact on national decision making regarding the war. In fact, his stance probably cost him support because his opponents could label him soft on communism.
King’s tragic death from an assassin’s bullet dealt the Civil Rights Movement a severe blow. While the movement he helped energize continued, the role of Martin Luther King, Jr., had come to an end.
Bio of stephen king Stephen King was born in Portland, Maine in 1947, the second son of Donald and Nellie Ruth Pillsbury King. He made his first professional short story sale in 1967 to Startling Mystery Stories. In the fall of 1971, he began teaching high school English classes at Hampden Academy, the public high school in Hampden, Maine.