The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.

I bought this book for a number of reasons. Firstly, I knew precious little about the man who stands as a giant of history. I also knew little about the kind of Christianity he professed, and had heard some people scandalously say that King was in no real way a Christian (i.e. Christopher Hitchens). All I can say after reading this book is WOW - what an amazing story. I heard King's voice speaking every word of every chapter. It was like he was sitting next to you telling you the story of his life. King was most certainly a Christian. He grew up in a Christian home, he went to Seminary, he became a minister and pastored a Church. He spoke of a personal relationship with Jesus. He depended on God for strength during difficult times, he prayed to Jesus, he worshiped Jesus, he preached about Jesus, and led a congregation of Jesus followers. If that's not Christian nothing is. Yet his theology was decidedly liberal. He was embarrassed by his fundamentalist upbringing, especially those who would check their minds in at the door of Church and stomp their feet during the service. He spoke candidly about denying the bodily resurrection of Jesus, and embracing the liberal view of man. However he was an honest man, who at times questioned his presuppositions. I was impressed how he preached a Gospel that led to action in the present world. Not just a gospel of Sunday pieties. In story after story King recounted how he was committed to nonviolence because this was the way of Jesus (and Gandhi whom he was later influenced by). He didn't preach hatred of white people, but reconciliation, with an aim to a fully integrated society. If anyone had reason to hate it was King. His home was bombed, his friends homes were bombed, he and his family were verbally abused and threatened, he was stabbed, he was arrested more times than I can count, and was often the victim of gross injustice. Yet in all that he showed the world that he served another Lord, and preached a different Gospel. Violence, only begets more violence. My heart broke for those who suffered during the era of segregation. At times I was almost reduced to tears, reading about the horrors of what mankind has done to each other. Not only that but I finally came to understand a little of what it was like to grow up as a Black Man in a climate of racism, to suffer under such terrible injustice, disrespect and disenfranchisement. Blessed are the peacemakers like Dr King, for they will be called the children of God. Yet there were times I felt that King's liberalism got the better of him. I felt that King's idea of heaven on earth was simply an integrated society where everyone had equal opportunity to all state services, good jobs, and so on. Yet this idea doesn't go far enough. What about personal repentance and transformation through the power of the Holy Spirit? Can non-violent action really bring this about? Does it treat the symptoms rather than the root cause of the issue? What God's kingdom coming to earth, and us anticipating it in the present, but recognizing it is a future reality? He condemned violent protest, and distanced himself from people like Malcolm X but didn't call on those who had been violent to repent and follow Jesus. Many times he simply rationalized their violence as the understandable reaction of those who had suffered for too long. He often saw the suffering of the negro community as redemptive. But that is to give the community too much power, and a job that only Jesus can truly accomplish. If King meant that through their suffering and weakness, they embodied Jesus' suffering, and pointed people more fully towards Christ, then I have no issues. King's views on poverty and military action were a little naive. Giving away surplus food from the western world to store it in the empty bellies of hungry Indian Children, is a noble thought, but nothing more than a short term solution to a systemic problem. Giving away food like that can drive down the prices of local produce and cause more harm for the local economy than good. Yet those quibbles aside, this is still a fantastic book. Towards the end it gets a little dry and repetitive, but is very readable. If you only read one book on the Civil rights movement and it's pivotal leader, read this one.

The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. is an incredible work; however one needs to remember that it is not a real autobiography. Like The Autobiography of Malcolm X, it was written after he died. It was assembled by the editor, Clayborne Carson, who went over King's papers both public and personnel and edited his work into a biographical format. The book received the endorsement of Coretta Scott King in 1998. The book is a brilliant piece of literature. Carson is careful to let the reader know what the material is and is not edited. When he takes Dr. King's words directly and unaltered he puts them in italics, so the reader knows for certain that he is getting pure primary material. King is a combination of many influences though out his life, he begins by talking about his boyhood growing up in the segregated south, where his father was a preacher in the local church. Martin Luther King, Sr. was a take-no-crap-from-anyone type of guy, which was hard for a black man in the segregated south. His mother, Alberta Williams, he describes as being more of a gentle soul whom a lot of his patience would come from. As the Pastor's son he had a type of special status within the local community. He describes his first experience with racism at the age of six when his white friend told him that his (the white boy's) father would not let them be friends anymore because he was black. As the book goes on King discusses his education and how the works of different scholars and philosophers had upon his world view, whether Reinhold Niebuhr, Karl Marx or Mahatma Gandhi. King discussed meeting his future wife, getting married, and the hard decision to go back to the segregated South. King would take the ministry at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, and from there he would build an activist base. He encouraged his membership to register to vote and to join the NAACP. When the now internationally famous Rosa Parks refused to get from her seat, she started a movement. The Montgomery Bus Boycott did not even start out as a movement to end segregated bussing, just as a movement for more fair treatment. It was not until the outrageous response by those in power backed by the majority of the white community that caused the movement to push further. The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a form of nonviolent protest that was inspired by the Mahatma Gandhi and Christian doctrine. "As the days unfolded, however, the inspiration of Mahatma Gandhi began to exert its influence. I had come to see early that the Christian doctrine of love operating thought the Gandhian method of nonviolence was one of the most potent weapons available to the Negro in his struggle for freedom. About a week after the protest started, a white woman who understood and sympathized with the Negroes' efforts wrote a letter to the editor of the Montgomery Advertiser comparing the buss protest with the Gandhian movement in India. Miss Juliette Morgan, sensitive and frail, did not long survive the rejection and condemnation of the white community, but long before she died in the summer of 1957 the name of Mahatma Gandhi was well known in Montgomery. People who had never heard of the little brown saint of India were now saying his name with an air of familiarity. Nonviolent resistance had emerged as the technique of the movement, while love stood as the regulating ideal. In other words, Christ furnished the spirit and motivation while Gandhi furnished the method." p.67 After victory was achieved in Montgomery, King became internationally famous. This was both a blessing a curse at the same time. A blessing in the way he was now able to carry his message to a much larger audience, but a curse in the way that it set some impossible standards for him to meet in future struggles. King would travel the world eventually going to India, the home of his idol. He was very pleased by what he saw when he got there. "That night we had dinner with Prime Minister Nehru; with us as a guest was Lady Mountbatten, the wife of Lord Mountbatten, who was viceroy of India when it received its independence. They were lasting friends only because Gandhi followed the way of love and nonviolence. The aftermath of nonviolence is the creation of the beloved community, so that when the battle is over, a new relationship comes into being between the oppressed and the oppressor." p.125 At home things were heating up, as the fifties, which had seen some very positive developments such as the Montgomery Bus Boycott and Brown v. the Board of Education, rolled into the sixties things were going to began to move at a much faster pace. Also, 1960 was a presidential election year, with two candidates John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon were trying for the nation's top job. "With Mr. Kennedy, after I looked over his voting record, I felt at points he was so concerned about being president of the United States that he would compromise basic principles to become president. But I had to look at something else beyond the man--the people who surrounded him--and I felt that Kennedy was surrounded by better people. It was on that basis that I felt that Kennedy would make the best president. I never came out with an endorsement. My father did, but I never made one. I took this position in order to maintain a nonpartisan posture, which I have followed all along in order to be able to look objectively at both parties at all times. As I said to him all along, I couldn't, and I never changed that even after he made the call during my arrest. I made a statement of thanks, and I expressed my gratitude for the call, but in the statement I made it clear that I did not endorse any candidate and that this was not to be interpreted as an endorsement. I had to conclude that the then known facts about Kennedy were not adequate to make an unqualified judgment in his favor. I do feel that, as any man, he grew a great deal. After he became president I thought we saw to Kennedys--a Kennedy of the first two years and another Kennedy emerging in 1963. He was getting ready to throw off political considerations and see the real moral issues. Had President Kennedy lived, I would probably have endorsed him in 1964. But, back at that time, I concluded that there was something to be desired in both candidates." p.150 As the battles raged on they moved to a new and more dangerous front, Birmingham, it was here that a great amount of the famous images of dogs and people attacked with high pressure water hoses were captured. In this fight King would be imprisoned and while in jail, he had been criticized by a letter written by a group of white clergy. King responded with his famous 'Letter from Birmingham Jail.' "First I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed in the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to 'order' than to justice; who prefers the a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive which is the presence of justice, who constantly says: 'I agree with you in the goal that you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action'; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a 'more convenient season.' Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection." p.195 "You speak of our activity in Birmingham as extreme. At first I was rather disappointed that fellow clergymen would see my nonviolent efforts as those of an extremist. I began thinking about the fact that I stand in the middle of two opposing forces in the Negro community. One is a force of complacency, made up in part of Negroes who, as a result of long years of oppression, are so drained of self-respect and a sense of 'somebodiness' that they have adjusted to segregation; and in part of a few middle-class Negroes who, because of a degree of academic and economic security and because in some ways they profit by segregation, have become insensitive to the problems of the masses. The other force is one of bitterness and hatred, and it comes perilously close to advocating violence. It is expressed in the various black nationalist movement groups that are springing up across the nation, the largest and best known being Elijah Muhammed's Muslim movement. Nourished by the Negro's frustration over the continued existence of racial discrimination, this movement is made up of people who have lost faith in America, who have absolutely repudiated Christianity, and who have concluded that the white man is an incorrigible 'devil.'" p.196-7 As his work continued things started to change. King's main rival as the primary leader in the struggle for civil rights, Malcolm X, was becoming more popular. The primary difference between the two men was that Malcolm X was an advocate for violent resistance. In some ways he was a help to King, because he represented what the alternative to King's message was. However, as a proponent of violence, he attracted it in kind and otherwise alienated members of the white community who might have otherwise been sympathetic. "Malcolm X came to the fore as a public figure partially as a result of a TV documentary entitled 'The Hate That Hate Produced.' That title points clearly to the nature of Malcolm's life and death. He was clearly a product of the hate and violence invested in the Negro's blighted existence in this nation. He, like so many of our number was a victim of the despair that inevitably derives from the conditions of oppression, poverty, and injustice which engulf that masses of our race. But in his youth, there was no hope no preaching, teaching, or movements of nonviolence. He was too young for the Garvey Movement, too poor to be a Communist--for the Communists geared their work to Negro intellectuals and labor without realizing that the masses of Negroes were unrelated to either--and yet he possessed a native intelligence and drive which demanded an outlet and means of expression. He turned first to the underworld, but this did not fulfill the quest for meaning which grips young minds. It was a testimony to Malcolm's personnel depth and integrity that he did not become an underworld czar, but turned again and again to religion for meaning and destiny. Malcolm was still turning and growing at the time of his meaningless assassination." p.267 As time went on the rise of Black Nationalism, which was abhorrent to King, was growing stronger. Even though the Civil Rights Movement had achieved incredible success, the Civil Rights Act in 1964 had been passed and was breaking down the wall of legalized segregation, some felt unsatisfied. The 'black power' movement, King felt was trying to undo what he had achieved. King began to envision a 'poor people's campaign' that would use the strategy of Civil Rights Movement to achieve economic justice for all citizens of all races. How successful he would have been is unknown because that is where his story untimely ends.

Although it is not an Autobiography penned by MLK himself, in many ways this is a more reliable telling of events in his life since the source material is all his letters, papers, newspaper articles, and contemporaneous writing of people who were present to witness the various events. For me, the important parts include: (1) The Montgomery bus strike lasted over a year. These were some very determined people who walked everywhere they needed to go for over a year! (2) MLK is the kind of religious man we see way too rarely - a man who lives his beliefs every minute of every day. I am pretty stanchly anti-organized religion because of my perceptions about folks not living their beliefs at all times (which is a really, really tall order, I realize), but this book brought me back to questions my personal opinions, prejudices, and beliefs about religion and the practice thereof. (3) In their 2018 article on MLK for MLK day, the Washington Post got it wrong. They said that King was finally swaying to Malcom X's advocacy of violence to try to combat segregation and discrimination during the later part of King's life and that is just completely wrong according to the source materials set forth in this book. This book is excellent.

Below are key excerpts from the book that I found particularly insightful: 1- "We cannot have an enlightened democracy with one great group living in ignorance. We cannot have a healthy nation with one-tenth of the people ill-nourished, sick, harboring germs of disease which recognize no color lines--obey no Jim Crow laws. We cannot have a nation orderly and sound with one group so ground down and thwarted that it is almost forced into unsocial attitudes and crime. We cannot be truly Christian people so long as we flout the central teachings of Jesus: brotherly love and the Golden Rule. We cannot come to full prosperity with one great group so ill-delayed that it cannot.t buy goods. So as we gird ourselves to defend democracy from foreign attack, let us see to it that increasingly at home we give fair play and free opportunity for all people." 2- "Above all, I see the preaching ministry as a dual process. On the one hand I must attempt to change the soul of individuals so that their societies may be changed. On the other I must attempt to change the societies so that the individual soul will have a change. Therefore, must be concerned about unemployment, slums, and economic insecurity. I am a profound advocate of the social gospel." 3- "Admittedly, nonviolence in the truest sense is not a strategy that one uses simply because it is expedient at the moment; nonviolence is ultimately a way of life that men live by because of the sheer morality of its claim. But even granting this, the willingness to use nonviolence as a technique is a step forward. For he who goes this far is more likely to adopt nonviolence later as a way of life." 4- "Ghana has something to say to us. It says to us first that the oppressor never voluntarily gives freedom to the oppressed. You have to work for it. Freedom is never given to anybody. Privileged classes never give up their privileges without strong resistance." 5- "I am often reminded of the statement made by Nkrumah: "I prefer self-government with danger to servitude with tranquility." I think that's a great statement. They were willing to face the dangers and difficulties, but I thought that Ghana would be able to profit by the mistakes of other nations that had existed over so many years and develop into a great nation." 6- "We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct-action campaign that was 'well timed'' in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word ''Wait!'' It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant "Never." We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied."" 7- "Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of Saint Thomas Aquinas: an unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority. Segregation, to use the terminology of the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, substitutes an "I-it" relationship for an "I-thou" relationship and ends up relegating persons to the status of things. Hence segregation is not only politically. economically, and sociologically unsound, it is morally wrong and sinful." 8- "The reason I can't follow the old eye-for-an-eye philosophy is that it ends up leaving everybody blind. Somebody must have sense and somebody must have religion." 9- "Man's inhumanity to man is not only perpetrated by the vitriolic actions of those who are bad. It is also perpetrated by the vitiating inaction of those who are good." 10- "We were all involved in the death of John Kennedy. We tolerated hate; we tolerated the sick simulation of violence in all walks of life; and we tolerated the differential application of law, which said that a man's life was sacred only if we agreed with his views. This may explain the cascading grief that flooded the country in late November. We mourned a man who had become the pride of the nation, but we grieved as well for ourselves because we knew we were sick." 11- "I think there is a lesson that we can all learn from this: that violence is impractical and that now, more than ever before, we must pursue the course of nonviolence to achieve a reign of justice and a rule of love in our society, and that hatred and violence must be cast into the unending limbo if we are to survive." 12- "We also come here today to affirm that we will no longer sit idly by in agonizing deprivation and wait on others to provide "our freedom We will be sadly mistaken if we think freedom is some lavish dish that the federal government and the white man will pass out on a silver platter while the Negro merely furnishes the appetite. Freedom is never voluntarily granted by the oppressor. It must be demanded by the oppressed." 13- "Power, properly understood, is the ability to achieve purpose. It is the strength required to bring about social, political, or economic changes. In this sense power is not only desirable but necessary in order to implement the demands of love and justice. One of the greatest problems of history is that the concepts of love and power are usually contrasted as polar opposites. Love is identified with a resignation of power and power with a denial of love. What is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive and that love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice. Justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love." 14- "Ultimately, a genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus. If every Negro in the United States turns to violence, 1 will choose to be that one lone voice preaching that this is the wrong way...I cannot make myself believe that God wanted me to hate. I'm tired of violence, I've seen too much of it. I've seen such hate on the faces of too many sheriffs in the South. And I'm not going to let my oppressor dictate to me what method I must use. Our oppressors have used violence. Our oppressors have used hatred. Our oppressors have used rifles and guns. I'm not going to stoop down to their level. I want to rise to a higher level. We have a power that can't be found in Molotov cocktails."

Every household in America needs this book. But I had to take a star off because I ordered a "new" edition but got a used one instead.

This book taught me so much about the civil rights movement. I lived through it. I was a young white child. I was in the 1st grade in 1965. I remember when the schools were integrated. When I was in 3rd grade, we had an assembly in the auditorium and the principal informed the parents there would be two negro teachers that school year. This book should be required reading for every student by the time they graduate high school. We do not need to regress, we need to keep moving forward! I highly recommend this book though parts of it were hard to read!

It was unfortunate that Martin Luther King Jr. did not get a chance to write his own autobiography, but Clayborne Carson does a wonderful job piecing together Martin's life struggles, highlights and main ideas. Martin's honesty and quest for justice rings throughout. There were a few sections that were duplicative, but overall I thought it was an excellent, absorbing read. To me, the book really delivered toward the end. Discussions on the concepts of power and love and nonviolence and violence were exceptional. I also really appreciated Martin's digging down to the root cause of black thought in relation to America - why, for example, many young black people leaned toward violence as a method to gain freedom and respect. Finally, there were a number of passages that could have been written today - so many points Martin made are as fresh as ever. Martin's revelations are timeless. Everyone who wants to understand America should read this book.

I bought this book for my wife to go along with the movie 'Selma', which she and I had recently seen at the theater. It's a great film, but I wanted us both to know more about Martin Luther King, Jr. than his great speeches and the events the media reports on during the MLK holiday. The information in this book provides the truth behind the myth that King has become in the years since his untimely death. While King did not actually write this book himself (we should remember he was only 39 years old when he was assassinated in 1968), it's so well researched and edited that you believe it came from his own pen. The book goes deep into King's background, and explains how he came to the philosophy that lead him to take the actions that changed American history. King really believed what he did was for the good of all Americans, not just those of African ancestry. If you read this book, you will find his legacy is exactly that. America is indeed a better place because of his ultimate sacrifice.