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22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Insights into a Man and his Times, May 11, 2002
This review is from: Martin Luther King, Jr. (Penguin Lives) (Hardcover)
This is one of the best of the often excellent Penguin Lives series. Martin Luther King is presented as a real man with insecurities, self-doubts, college plagarizing and womanizing. But he is also shown as the key individual in the incredible progress (I know it doesn't feel like it--but read the book and its picture of the country in the fifties!) we have made in the area of race relations. MLK is portrayed as a man who rose above his everydayness to achieve insights into the areas of race, poverty and oppression which would move a nation. Blessed in his enemies--the egregious Bull Connor, the banty rooster George Wallace (in his first incarnation) and the despicable J. Edgar Hoover--gave the nation a contrast in possibilities. Despite the reluctance of the Kennedys, the backbiting of his own lieutenants and the inconstancy of the national media, MLK made a difference. To read about his speech at the Linclon Memorial still gives me shivers. This is a fair, honest portrait of a man who made a difference.
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16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Martin Luther King and Moral Struggle, September 17, 2002
This review is from: Martin Luther King, Jr. (Penguin Lives) (Hardcover)
In a short space, Marshall Frady has written an informative, inspiring and thoughtful biography of Martin Luther King Jr., of the nature of his achievement, of his America, and of his vision. The book does not engage in hero-worship or myth-making but rather presents Dr. King as a tortured.conflicted, and lonely individual. Frady writes at the close of his introduction (p.10) (itself a wonderful summation of the book and of Dr. King's achievement): "And what the full-bodied reality of King should finally tell us, beyond all the awe and celebration of him, is how mysteriously mixed, in what torturously complicated frms, our moral heroes -- our prophets --actually come to us." A theme of this book is how Dr. King's moral vision and achievement emerged from moral conflict. Dr King spent most of his career walking a difficult path between extremes. At the beginning of his career, he was criticized by the more conservative black establishment which preferred to use the courts rather than demonstrations as a means to promote racial equality. Indeed, Frady tells us, the Mongomery bus boycott of 1955, which catapaulted Dr. King into national prominence, did not end the segregation of the city's bus system -- a court decision did. Towards the end of his career, black leaders such as Malcolm X and Stokely Charmichael pressured Dr. King to abandon his philosophy of nonviolence. He did not do so. But Frady shows us how Dr. King and Malcolm X near the end of their lives each learned something from the other. King's most difficult moral struggle was with himself. Frady gives us a convincing picture of how Dr. King, whose appeal rested upon an ability to convey moral and religous principle, struggled (unsuccessfully) with sexuality. A myriad of affairs followed him and his mission from beginning to end. Frady has insightful things to say about the relationship between Dr. King's tortured, complex personal life and his public mission. Frady also describes how near the end of his career with segregation on the decline in the South, Dr. King tried to expand his mission by opposing the war in Vietnam and by his "poor peoples campaign" which Dr. King saw as an attack on the materialism, impersonality, and greed that he found pervaded American life. In so expanding his mission, Dr. King alienated many of his followers. His lasting achievement does not rest upon these later activities, according to Frady, but rather upon the idealism and moral committment with which he was able to infuse American life during a few short years. Frady gives us an eloquent discussion of Dr. King's "I have a dream" speech in Washington D.C. Later in his career, Dr King set forth his vision for America by speaking in terms of a "Beloved Community", a phrase adopted from the early 20th Century American philosopher, Josiah Royce. Dr King said (p. 183) "When I talk about power and the need for power, I'm talking in terms of the need for power to bring about ... the creation of the Beloved Community." Our nation is still trying to recover something of Dr. King's idealism and of the best of his vision. This book encourages us to think about and to formulate for ourselves the vision of America as a "Beloved Community" by reflecting on the life and achievement of a complex man.
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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
ANOTHER VIEW, December 26, 2002
This review is from: Martin Luther King, Jr. (Penguin Lives) (Hardcover)
Since his death in 1968, a plethora of books about Martin Luther King, Jr. has inundated the shelves of bookstores. Every angle about his life and work has been explored, critiqued and analyzed. Is there room for one more as we continue the quest for making King's dream for equality a reality? Penquin Lives says yes as it presents a brief biography of Martin Luther King, Jr. as seen through the eyes of a white southern reporter during the era, Marshall Frady. Mr. Frady was one of those reporters assigned to interpret and bring some sense of clarity to the public about the rising civil rights movement and its major leader, King. As a young reporter, he carried out his mission and now as an older statesman of the press he gives us another view about King, his work and his impact on the national scene. Martin Luther King, Jr. focuses on the success, failures and conflicts of a leader caught in a movement that swept him up into the pinacles of history. We see another dimension of King who is vain, unorganized, guilt ridden and a womanizer. His lieutenants are egotistical, mystical, self-serving and dedicated to the cause of freedom. King's genius in keepint these varied personalities in check for a greater cause is a testament to his genius. Frady really doesn't tell the reader anything new about King that hasn't been said before. He merely encapsulates previous information into a format that is readily accessible to those who want to get a brief history of King and the movement but can't endure reading works of countless pages of information. In this Frady excels and does a fine job of being brief but doesn't offer the reader in better insights about the man. I would recommend this book to those who want to get a brief snapshot of King from the perspective of a white southerner. Otherwise I would encourage readers to explore other books that give a more in depth look at the complex life and work of Martin Luther King, Jr.
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