The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr was born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia. That day is now celebrated as a national holiday in the United States of America. Should you wonder why it’s worth commemorating a single individual in this unique way, Jonathon Eig’s book, King A Life, is a good place to start. While certainly not the first, nor the longest biography of King, Eig has kept his focus consistently on his singular subject in a way that highlights the man in all his complexity. His story of course encompasses and reflects much in America’s own during the middle of the 20th century, as well as stretching before and after his time among us. Other figures, especially the Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, as well as civil rights leaders such as Roy Wilkins, A. Philip Randolph, and Bayard Rustin, appear in the book solely as they interact with King.
Exhaustively researched and masterfully written, King benefits from Eig’s deep immersion into the massive volumes of data now available. Two examples: all of King’s sermons and other writing are online through the Stanford Library. And summaries of FBI wiretaps of phone conversations and other surveillance are now public record (transcripts will be released in 2027.) In addition, Eig takes full advantage of the many books already written on King’s life, as well as contemporaneous media sources and private letters and interviews from close associates of King.
What emerges is our most complete picture yet of who King was, his inner thoughts, angels, and demons. At the center, the innermost core and fundamental motivation of his life is as a preacher, in service to others. The son of the pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist church in Atlanta, King from an early age consciously chose to become a Reverend. Whenever he encountered doubt, or trouble in his life, he returned to the knowledge that he felt called by God to preach and serve. Specifically, to help improve the soul of America by empowering its Black population to announce their grievances and, without violence, remove those restraints which kept them from fully engaging in the promise of America as a community where everyone can work to improve themselves.
The decades-long effort to enact laws eliminating discrimination in all aspect of communal life, including voting, is of course central to the work of Dr. King. But this book is not a detailed account of that struggle. Rather, King’s thoughts and efforts in support of that difficult and on-going process are what concern Eig. Likewise, King’s early opposition to the war in Vietnam, which fractured his carefully groomed relationship with an initially supportive President Lyndon Johnson, is treated as a natural response to King’s insistence on solving problems without resort to violence.
I was privileged to attend a small service led by Dr. King in the chapel at my small college in Connecticut several months before his death. There were maybe 40 people in attendance, faculty and students. I came away with two impressions of the man from that short exposure. First, it was clear he was, indeed, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, a preacher at the very essence of his being, immersed in the bible, its teachings, and picture of God as encouraging love above all else from people. And second, he clearly had an uncommon presence, a charisma which demanded attention, support, and a willingness to follow. Those two threads are woven through every page of Eig’s biography, and account for why he is the only American with his own national holiday. We still have much to learn from Martin Luther King, Jr.