I already knew the basics of King's life from school, but I'd never done any independent studying on him. Eig provides a lot of detailed information about how he grew up, when he met Coretta, and the early days before King became the powerful figure that he was. Eig also delves deeply into the FBI tapes as well as King's relationship with the FBI, which was fascinating. In addition, Eig discusses King's relationship and attitudes towards women. Although it was sometimes difficult to keep all the names straight, which is often a challenge for me with Audiobooks, I enjoyed this book. It was interesting to listen to, and I learned a lot.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was only 39 years old when he was shot on a motel balcony in Memphis, Tennessee. He lived so much in such a short time, impacting countless people's lives and strongly impacting the United States as well as the rest of the world. He was an icon, but he was also a husband and father. His children found out their father was killed when the cartoon they were watching was interrupted with the breaking news. They ran to their mother who was on the phone, hearing the same news.
Eig hits on every known detail of King's life in this biography, beginning with his parents, and moving on to his death. Some of the most interesting information was gleaned from the FBI tapes. The FBI was covertly taping MLK for years. I had known this going into the book, but I did not know to what extent this was happening. I also didn't know that at the same time, MLK was having productive discussions with Kennedy and Johnson about the Civil Rights movement. Then they were going behind his back, gathering evidence of his womanizing and trying to sell it to newspapers to discredit him.
Even now the tapes make for an uncomfortable situation: They were a blatant and unnecessary violation of privacy. However, because of the tapes, we know so much more about King than we ever would have before. Eig liberally used them for his book, and more tapes may become available in the near future. This does not justify the FBI taping MLK in any way, but historians are getting something out of it now.
Although MLK was an inspiring, progressive man in many ways, this did not hold true in how he treated women. Coretta was very interested in being more active, but was consistently held back by MLK. Coretta knew she had to give up her career interests when she married, and she did. MLK was also a womanizer. Eig did not want the entire book to become a prurient look into MLK's sex life, but he did discuss Dorothy Cotton, a woman he worked with and had an affair with for many, many years. She was almost like a second wife. There were many other women, as well, and MLK seemed comfortable flirting with a married woman at a dinner filled with other churchmen. It's not a great look.
Sometimes I felt that Eig skipped over a little too much of King's treatment of women. I understand his point, but I also don't want the women that may have been hurt by him to be forgotten. Specifically, I found out on the Internet that the night before he died, King was supposed to meet up with Dorothy Cotton at the motel (they had rooms next to each other). He never showed up, though, because he was sleeping with another woman he'd met. Cotton had been up late waiting for King and was mad at him when he was murdered outside of her room. I was surprised that Eig did not include this in the book. He went into a fair bit of detail about the murder, and Cotton was an important person in his life. This was disappointing.
On the whole, though, this book was interesting and informative. I'm glad I read it.
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