King: A Life

by Jonathan Eig

“words are shared assets, not personal belongings.”

“Racial discrimination in the United States remains a source of constant embarrassment to this Government in the day-to-day conduct of its foreign relations,” wrote Dean Acheson, the secretary of state in the Truman administration, as part of a brief filed in Brown v. Board of Education, “and it jeopardizes the effective maintenance of our moral leadership of the free and democratic nations of the world.”

Gayle did what every politician did when he hoped to see an issue die a slow death: he appointed a committee.

King would go to jail twenty-nine times in the years ahead, often by plan, but he would never get used to it.

“I am convinced that God lives.” Those who stand with God, he continued, “stand in the glow of the world’s bright tomorrows.”

Years later, scholars would analyze the elements of King’s speeches and conclude that he employed many of the same skills as the finest professional singers. He controlled his tempo, picking up speed in a way that made his audience feel as if they were moving with him, as if they wanted to sing along. He used harmonics, varying his pitch, to make his speech melodic and never monotonous. And he controlled his rhythm masterfully, pausing when he wanted his audience to contemplate his words and repeating phrases without pause when he wanted listeners to feel those same words.

now it had a telegenic young preacher, declaring that racism was both unpatriotic and a sin against God, and building a following of his own.

“To other countries I may go as a tourist,” King said upon arrival in New Delhi on February 10, 1959, “but to India I come as a pilgrim.”

The cross stands as a reminder of the way Jesus lived, not merely the way he died, King said. The cross calls us to action. The cross expresses a commitment to the faith that God would go to any length to “restore a broken community.” The cross promises that the whole world will one day be free and “segregation will one day die … And this is the hope that can keep us going and keep us from getting frustrated as we walk along the way of life.”

“Every man should have something he’d die for. A man who won’t die for something is not fit to live.”

issue of legal segregation would soon be less pressing than the issue of discrimination in housing and employment, “which creates a de facto segregation,” sorting Black people into low-paying jobs and poverty-stricken neighborhoods.

Southern bigots described Black people as genetically inferior, he wrote, while northern segregationists argued that Black people were victims of the culture of poverty who needed better work habits and stronger family values.

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,”

segregation was morally wrong and it did something to the souls of both the segregator and the segregated.

“Please don’t be too soft,” he wrote from jail to Young. “We have the offensive. It was a mistake not to march today. In a crisis we must have a sense of drama … We may accept the restraining order as a partial victory, but we cannot stop.”

the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.

As a minister, I cannot advocate racial peace and non-violence for black men alone, nor white men alone, nor for yellow men alone … If a man of God fails to see this; if he fails to seek to help bring about peace on earth as well as good will among mankind, he isn’t much of a spokesman for the Christ who predicted, centuries ago, that he who lives by the sword shall perish by the sword.”

So long as war, poverty, and racism remain part of “normal” America, he wrote, “then I prefer to be maladjusted.”

Norman Cousins, editor of the Saturday Review, had decided he would no longer publish King’s work. Cousins called the peace movement a “Hate America” movement, according to Levison, and went on to predict that “King and the SCLC would be mud within six months” if they persisted in opposing the war. King said he didn’t care.

I think ultimately freedom does mean fearlessness.”

Everyone can be great because everyone can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve … You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love, and you can be that servant.

“Every racist in the country has killed Dr. King,” the activist James Farmer told a reporter. “Evil societies always destroy their consciences.”

“Starving a child is violence. Suppressing a culture is violence. Punishing a mother and her family is violence … Ghetto housing is violence. Ignoring medical needs is violence. Contempt for poverty is violence.”

“Our very survival,” he wrote, “depends on our ability to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas, to remain vigilant and to face the challenge of change.”