Amazing book, even better narration

A fantastic book that takes you inside the civil rights movements origins and it’s members. Dion Graham’s narration is simply wonderful.

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Important life deserves a full treatment

Well done on producing this. It is a long book, but it still falls short. I wish it had more on the legacy. King does in the final 10 minutes or so of the book and the legacy is zoomed instantly. Apart from that I enjoyed the book.

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Good but perhaps not definitive

I enjoyed much of this book, mostly the later parts, which is the first biography of MLK I have read. I found the first half of the book a bit dry. There were generic statements, for example, that MLK’s family didn’t see enough of him; or that Malcolm X didn’t trust white people in power. Obvious perhaps, but they still need facts to support them, and facts would also provide the specific details that might bring the story more to life. The same goes for MLK’s womanising and more detail of those relationships and how they were sustained was needed. I appreciate it might be difficult to obtain details of this kind but these relationships were a major part of his life.

Details were incorporated into descriptions of the boycotts, sit ins, and marches, and made these sections more powerful.

There were jumps in the narrative I found hard to follow, particularly at the start of some chapters. The March on Detroit is introduced without clear explanation of how it came about. There’s no explanation that much of the speech MLK gave there would become the famous speech at the subsequent March on Washington, so when the Detroit speech was described I had to refer to the internet to clarify what was happening. I accept that perhaps most people know more about these events than I do and might not require the context.

From the March on Washington the book becomes much more engaging and feels like a coherent narrative idea is carrying it along, as MLK both civil rights and anti-war activist, attracting the ire of LBJ and J Edgar Hoover, and creating tension with partners in the civil rights movement.

This was a rewarding book and helped me more fully to understand why MLK is one of the most remarkable people in modern history. The book conveys his brilliance and bravery, But perhaps the author’s stated commitment to avoid hallowing MLK with a two dimensional hagiographic portrait is what renders the book a bit two dimensional. Perhaps avoiding hagiography is itself a kind of moralising. I would rather the author recounted the available facts in an engaging way.

On the reading/performance: When read in understated and straightforward style it was excellent. However, I do not like it when readers perform different voices for different speakers in a book, as in this case. The recurring impersonation of MLK when quoting him directly was distracting rather than enriching, and recordings of the speeches are available. Similarly distracting was the slight falsetto adopted for quoting Coretta Scott King and other women. I assume some producers prefer this performative approach but I can’t believe any listener finds it helpful.

Overall I recommend this book but that is partly because this is the only major bio of MLK on Audible. My sense is that at least in terms of style and narrative approach it is not definitive, and I will be reading David Garrow’s trilogy next (which regrettably is not on audible).

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A must read and listen

This story helps explain so much about the current state of the USA . Amazing man but he was just a man . Flawed and great and trying his best. Stepping up where many did not.

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