King: A Life

“Jim King—born the year before the abolition of chattel slavery—personified the crushing frustrations of Black life in the South. He never learned to read or write. He never voted. He never owned property. Instead, he lived in a perpetuate state of debt to the white men for whim he farmed. He grew lean, edgy, and angry. America hadn’t given Jim King much, and then, bit by bit, it took away what little had managed to accumulate, leaving frustration, travail, and rage.”

Reconstruction is widely considered one of the greatest failures in American history. The promise of emancipation and political rights quickly soured into a reality of economic exploitation and rampant cruelty. As Eig notes, this accumulation of indignities inflicted enormous psychological costs on countless Black Americans, which helps to explain why King’s message would center on the restoration of human dignity.

“Life is what we make it by how we do our work. The hardest work in the world is the best work if we do it with dedication and passion for the cause. Learn to like the best things. Learn to handle life’s difficulties with kindness and courage. Learn to do good work well, with the goal of improving the world.”

The message of King’s first-ever sermon was not exactly original (he almost certainly lifted it from another sermon) but the occasion proved an early test of the 18-year-old’s delivery style and themes. The idea of maintaining a constant internal disposition no matter what one endures from the outside world would prove vital in campaigns of nonviolent resistance.

“He learned to accept contradiction. He studied with distinguished scholars who said the Bible could only be understood by considering the historical context in which it was written, by stripping away the colorful legends. But on Sundays he went to Black churches and preached to worshippers for whom Moses was as real and relevant as Abraham Lincoln. Exodus was not only understandable to his church audiences; it was underway.”

In addition to mixing the style of the preacher with the content of the academic in his sermons, King also integrated a host of contradictory academic influences. From Paul Tillich, the subject of his dissertation, he imbibed an optimistic message about the power of faith to change the world. At the same time, he studied Reinhold Niebuhr, a Lutheran like Tillich, who argued that human nature was essentially fallen and that sometimes only coercion could effect meaningful change. King would not necessarily resolve contradictions, but he did learn to apply different truths to different situations.

“‘I felt that if I got the training, developed my personality and my talents to the fullest possible extent, I would be able to make a contribution to society.’ But, as a minister’s wife and mother, Coretta would be expected to play a more traditional role. Martin was ‘very definite,’ Coretta said, that he wanted his wife waiting for him every day when he came home from work.”

Coretta Scott King’s legacy has been largely swallowed up by her husband’s, and Eig emphasizes that Coretta was aware of this possibility long before they were married. Coretta was exceptionally well educated with her own ambitions to advance the cause of civil rights. She ultimately decided that she could do so as the wife of a politically active minister, so long as she pushed back somewhat on his expectations of her.

“And we are not wrong […] if we are wrong, the Supreme Court of this nation is wrong. If we are wrong, the Constitution of the United States is wrong. If we are wrong, God Almighty is wrong. If we are wrong, Jesus of Nazareth was merely a utopian dreamer that never came down to earth. If we are wrong, justice has a lie. Love has no meaning. And we are determined here to work and fight until justice runs down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

This excerpt of the speech that turned King into a public figure introduces some of the themes that would infuse his later oration, such as the 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech. In his challenge to segregation, he was holding the United States accountable to its own professed ideals, most notably the natural right of every human being to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. He simultaneously defended his actions on the grounds of Christianity, calling out the hypocrisy of those who profess belief in Christ while denying dignity to their fellow human beings.

“Years later, Thurgood Marshall would say that the NAACP deserved more credit for its role in ending Montgomery’s system of segregated busing, telling one interviewer that he perceived King and the boycotters as a sideshow. It was true that the city of Montgomery had proved mostly impervious to protest and economic pressure, and that litigation had won the day. But the biggest development in Montgomery was the creation of a new state of mind, a new sense of power, coalesced around King, who described the Montgomery movement as ‘our twelve months of glorious dignity.’”

The legend of the Montgomery bus boycott may in fact outpace its actual effectiveness, but legends have effects far beyond the circumstances of their origin. The idea that King, Rosa Parks, and other civil rights leaders could ground an entire city to a halt gave them a distinct psychological advantage in subsequent showdowns over segregated facilities in various southern cities. The boycott also turned King into a major public figure, amplifying his voice and laying the groundwork for his later involvement in devising civil rights legislation.

“In Rustin’s experience, two unfortunate things happened when interracial organizations formed: white communists joined, and Black leaders lost control. In the SCLC, white supporters would remain behind the scenes. The SCLC would stress Christian love even as it fought aggressively for equality. It would strive not to defeat white oppressors but to bring reconciliation. In short, the SCLC would try to repeat the Montgomery miracle across the South.”

Bayard Rustin, like King, aimed at an integrated society and thus found it necessary to work with white allies in pursuit of that goal. At the same time, both were concerned that white people might use their greater social power to take control, or even inadvertently court disproportionate attention from the media. The SCLC would have to strike a delicate balance between a movement that needed white support and an organization firmly under Black leadership.

“While many southern white reporters viewed the student protestors cynically, and white business leaders and politicians dismissed the young upstarts, King embraced them. As in Montgomery, he didn’t start the uprising, and yet again, eh found himself thrust into a position of leadership, improvising all the way. On February 16, he traveled to Durham and spoke to a packed crowd of more than 12,000 […] telling them they had the moral advantage over their opponents. ‘Let us not fear going to jail,’ he said. He also cautioned: ‘Our ultimate aim is not to humiliate the white man but to win his understanding.’”

The civil rights movement was divided among many different organizations that often had different priorities and conflicting goals. The student sit-in movement that began in Greensboro, North Carolina, was non-religious, led by young people, and more radical in its demands than the SCLC, but the students were often able to work in conjunction with King. They shared a commitment to Nonviolent Resistance and a willingness to suffer to demonstrate the injustices of the laws that punished them. Their alliance reached its climax in the March on Washington, although here also the speeches by King and SNCC leader John Lewis displayed markedly different tones.

“Even as he grew more political, more powerful, and more respected, he drew his authority from the Bible and relished every opportunity to speak from a pulpit. ‘In the quiet recesses of my heart,’ he said, ‘I am fundamentally a clergyman, a Baptist minister.’ His mission, he said, was not simply to change the laws and values of America but to redeem the nation’s soul.”

King struggled throughout his career to balance his original career as a Baptist minister with the calling that had been thrust upon him. One way to reconcile those two roles was to suffuse his political message with the language of the pulpit, so that he was not abandoning his flock but rather expanding it to a national scale. Dealing with racism was a fundamentally religious task, he believed, in that it required America to reckon with its own “original sin,” and to achieve redemption through the forgiveness of those it had wronged.

“As a preacher, King understood the importance of living up to the moral standards he preached to his followers. But, as Ralph Abernathy wrote, he ‘had a particularly difficult time’ with sexual temptation. He was a relatively privileged man who had grown up in a time and in a culture in which adulterous activity was commonplace. He knew his father’s reputation. He also knew, Abernathy wrote, that with his good looks and charm, he ‘attracted women, even when he didn’t intend to, and attracted them in droves.’”

Eig draws attention to King’s many extramarital affairs not just to puncture the myth of a beloved figure, but to show how very human flaws affected the work of an extraordinary human being. Fearful of being alone, and yet insistent that his wife maintain a traditional role at home, King was also tormented by the legacy of his father, whose own indiscretions were both a source of disgust and an apparent badge of authority to young Martin. King’s guilt not only stemmed from having violated his own sense of morality, but also from the understanding that the FBI would weaponize his flaws in their campaign to discredit him at all costs.

“King’s letter from the Birmingham Jail had included a searing attack on white moderates. He knew that many of the northern liberals who funded his work in the South resisted change in their own lives, businesses, and communities. He also knew that political leaders, including President Kennedy, found it expedient to treat racism as a purely southern phenomenon. When third-world nations and the Soviet Union criticized America for its treatment of Black citizens, Kennedy could blame the moral failure on racist diehards in the South while bragging about his admiration and support for Martin Luther King, Jr.”

In King’s legendary “Letter From a Birmingham Jail,” he famously argued that the white moderate is in some respects worse than the overt white supremacist. The latter presents a clear obstacle, where the former pledges friendship and support, only to revoke it at the moment it becomes inconvenient to them. Tepid white support fails to treat it as a serious movement, but rather as a prop for their own reputations. This can potentially do more damage to civil rights than the violence of the Klansman or police officer.

“Kennedy called the proposed march on Washington ‘a great mistake.’ King disagreed. The march, he said, would channel the grievances of an oppressed population. It would demonstrate their unity and passion. It would dramatize the issue of American racism and build support for reform in regions of the country that had not yet seen demonstrations. ‘It may seem ill-timed,’ he told the president. ‘Frankly, I have never engaged in any direct-action movement which did not seem ill-timed. Some people thought Birmingham ill-timed.’”

The March on Washington has entered into myth, obscuring its more complicated political origins. The act of marching was seen by many as a flagrant act of disrespect to the Kennedy administration, which was allegedly working behind the scenes to build support for a civil rights bill but needed patience. The march might have put pressure on the administration to move more quickly, or it may have put their backs against the wall and hardened their position. It is difficult to tell whether the strategy succeeded on account of Kennedy’s assassination three months later, but it certainly produced an unforgettable episode in American history.

“He had a dream, he said, that America would one day live up to its foundational promise. ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’ He had a dream, he said, that the children of slave owners and the children of those they’d enslaved would sit together ‘at the table of brotherhood’; that the state of Mississippi would become a land of justice and equality; that his four children would be judged by the content of their character, not the color of their skin. ‘I have a dream today!’”

At the height of his fame and influence, King issued a soaring message of hope, but the speech’s images draw their power from the fact that they are so removed from the realities of American life. His rhetoric helps to expose the monstrosity of racism, which would separate or judge children for the simple fact of their skin color. King masterfully places his movement on the right side of both political and religious conceptions of justice. Even so, toward the end of his life, he openly worried if his dream had become a nightmare.

“On December 29, 1963, Time named King its Man of the Year, the first Black person ever selected for the honor. But the reporter who visited and interviewed King over a period of eight days found a man who did not seem to be enjoying his prominence, and a man who no longer radiated the warmth and optimism he had manifested most of his life. The magazine’s story described him as an ‘unimposing figure’ with a ‘funereal’ wardrobe (five of his six suits were black) and ‘very little sense of humor.’ King, according to the magazine, spent little time at home, slept but four hours a night, and lived under the constant threat of assassination. Even the portrait commissioned for the cover of the magazine—and approved by the subject—made the Man of the Year appear more worried than triumphant, with his shoulders slanted forward and his eyes cast down and to the magazine reader’s right.”

Eig argues that King never sought the national spotlight (never mind the global one) and felt compelled to persevere in it based on the conviction that he was called to do so. The constant travel and public exposure wore him down physically and psychologically, even as he tried to put the best face on his public works. His success in doing so often left interviewers confused when the indefatigable optimist they saw on television was weary and depressed when they met him in person.

“You know, they threaten us occasionally with more than beatings…they threaten us with actual physical death. They think that this will stop the movement. I got word way out in California that a plan was underway to take my life in St. Augustine, Florida. Well, if physical death is the price that I must pay to free my white brother and all of my brothers and sisters from a permanent death of the spirit, then nothing can be more redemptive.”

King was not only aware of the threat of violence that hung over him, but also encountered it on a regular basis. While his reputation is justifiably associated with nonviolence, this has downplayed the brutality that went into the daily maintenance of Jim Crow and the retaliation against activists like King. King’s explicit willingness to face the distinct possibility of death assuredly contributed to King’s moral authority and ability to inspire followers to join him in challenging immense odds.

“King, look into your heart. You know you are a complete fraud and a great liability to all of us Negroes. White people have enough frauds of their own but I am sure they don’t have one at the time that is anywhere near your equal. You are no clergyman and you know it. I repeat you are a colossal fraud and an evil, vicious one at that. You could not believe in God and act as you do. Clearly you don’t believe in any personal moral principles […] You are done. There is but one way out for you. You better take it before your filthy, abnormal fraudulent self is bared to the nation.”

The FBI sent King this letter, in a crude attempt at sounding like a disaffected Black person, and it shows the sheer extent they were willing to go to in order to demoralize and deter him. King did not back down, which was not in his nature, but the FBI campaign proved particularly distressing in the latter portion of his career, in part out of guilt that his own transgressions had given them ammunition, and the realization that no amount of public attention could stay the hand of Hoover, who was far more likely to bend presidents to his will than the other way around.

“Johnson and King shared the vision of a political coalition that would help build a new American South free from segregation and government-sanctioned discrimination. The vision included federal examiners with the power to register voters, a ban on literacy tests, and a mandate that any changes in voting practices receive preapproval from Washington. Johnson had personal and political motivations, of course. Such a coalition would help prevent Republicans from gaining a political stronghold in the Deep South. But the president said he needed King’s help in the fight for the voting rights bill and his other proposed legislation.”

King found a reliable if unlikely ally in Lyndon Johnson, a Southern Democrat who out of some combination of principle and calculation brought about civil rights legislation and an immense change in American politics. King recognized that Johnson’s support was not purely disinterested, and he would lose it once he crossed Johnson’s political agenda with his strident critiques of Vietnam. Yet whatever Johnson’s reasons, the alliance proved remarkably fruitful, proof that King could manage as a political operator without compromising his moral principles.

“King could have announced his intentions before the march. He could have made clear that his goal that day was not a march to Montgomery but a show of brotherhood, white Black and white ministers walking arm in arm to the bridge and back, in support of voting rights. Instead, his fudging brought more criticism. Clergymen who had traveled to Selma from distant cities complained that their efforts had been wasted.”

The names of King and Selma are fused together in historical memory, but as Eig shows, it was not King’s finest hour in every respect. Mere days after John Lewis and others suffered “Bloody Sunday” at the hands of Alabama troopers, King made a compromise that looked to many like capitulation, marching across the same bridge Lewis had crossed, having an open road to Montgomery, and yet turning around. The episode would receive an appropriate conclusion with a successful march to Montgomery weeks later, with King at front, but this episode proves that King made mistakes and sometimes failed to take good counsel.

“King wasn’t coming north because he’d suddenly discovered the issues of urban poverty, police brutality, and slum housing. He was coming north because he had been saying all along that the North, that the whole country, had a problem. As he wrote in Why We Can’t Wait, ‘the depth of racism in American life’ had been underestimated for too long. Only mass action would dissolve the stereotype of the inferior Black man.”

King’s early trips north inspired him to go back south and try to plant the seeds of the interracial society he had seen as a young man. Having recorded several important victories in the struggle against racism, King then turned north once more to prove that the efforts he had undertaken to change the system were no less important in cities like Chicago, where discrimination and inequality were still rife even if they lacked the formal backing of the law.

“The members of his team seldom argued once King had made up his mind, Cotton recalled. ‘When the team got quiet after Dr. King spoke,’ she wrote, ‘it was because he was convincing—coming from a place inside himself that we couldn’t counter, nor did we want to.’ But even after he had made up his mind and won over his associates, King could have chosen to begin his work in Chicago with a more precise target in mind.”

King’s Chicago campaign exposed many of the flaws of his organization and of his own leadership. Believing himself to be following God’s word, King was extremely difficult to talk out of a firmly held position, even when his urge to act vastly outstripped his political resources or the capacity of the SCLC. It may very well have been a mistake he learned from in subsequent years, just as he learned and improved his efforts in the South. But with his life cut short, this episode largely stands as a failure in King’s career.

“King wasn’t happy with Carmichael’s new rallying cry, or with the heightened fury behind it, but he didn’t dismiss it out of hand. In fact, he seemed to reject the motto more than the philosophy. Wasn’t his push into Chicago a push for Black power? Wasn’t Operation Breadbasket an attempt to help launch and support more Black-owned businesses? Even if he avoided the words ‘Black power,’ King spoke more affirmatively and more often on the same subjects as Malcolm X had emphasized during his life, and Carmichael invoked now.”

King was at his most effective when he could appeal to the interests of both Black and white audiences, showing how segregation was a violation of American ideals as well as an unjust condition. As he expanded his reach, he struggled to parse his integrationist message with the militancy of Carmichael and others, because the structural problems King was identifying could not be defeated with protests and federal legislation. They pointed to the very heart of the system, and therefore called for a more revolutionary approach.

“I knew 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. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of the hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent.”

This excerpt from King’s “Beyond Vietnam” speech, delivered exactly one year before his assassination, was controversial in part because it not only criticized the war—an increasingly popular stance at the time—but saw the war as indicative of a much more fundamental injustice being carried out by the United States government in strict defiance of its stated ideals. This may have been the 1960s, but it was also the Cold War, and King’s appeal to empathy for a communist enemy was more than many could take, including his own allies.

“‘I hope the son of a bitch doesn’t die,’ J. Edgar Hoover said when he got the news. ‘If he does, they’ll make a martyr out of him.’ At 6:16, eleven minutes after he was shot, King was wheeled into the emergency room at St. Joseph’s Hospital. His eyes were closed. He died there at 7:05 p.m. on April 4, 1968.”

It is remarkable that after years of hounding King, planting doubt about him to his fellow pastors and even suggesting that he die by suicide, J. Edgar Hoover finally realized the potential downsides of a world without King at the very moment of his death, which indicates the extent to which he regarded the threat of King through the lens of a pathological obsession rather than an objective evaluation of his relationship to national security.