MADreads

Love despite everything

April 30th, 2008 Jon - Central Library

Marshall Frady’s biography, Martin Luther King, Jr., manages to do two things well.  First, it illustrates the depth and breadth of Dr. King’s nonviolent movement.  There wasn’t just a bus boycott in Memphis and a speech at the Lincoln Memorial, there were other triumphs, of course, along with setbacks and organizational divisions. And there were other, more violent elements to contend with, like the Black Panthers or the people surrounding Malcolm X.

Second, Frady’s biography conveys the way nonviolence is an active method of resisting inequality.  Nonviolence does not mean passively letting others do whatever they want.  Instead, it means deliberately putting thousands of people in harm’s way, knowing full well that life and limb are on the line.  Frady uses the phrase “love despite everything” when discussing Dr. King’s movement, but there were complex organizational efforts underlying this simple idea.  It’s hard to believe the terrible things human beings can do to each other, but Dr. King, like Viktor Frankl, believed our ability to overcome violent injustice would carry the day.

Though I’m sure Frady’s two-hundred-page biography is no substitute for Taylor Branch’s three-volume account of Dr. King’s life and times, it’s still a satisfying introduction to one of the most influential Americans who ever lived.  One complaint: all nonfiction books, no matter how small, should have an index.

To read reminiscences of Dr. King by local residents, see this article in The Isthmus.  You can see other titles in the Penguin Lives Series by clicking here.

Entry Filed under: Memoir & Biography