June 28, 2023 • 50 mins
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. needs no introduction. The man changed the course of American history, and paid the ultimate price for his work. But in Jonathan Eig’s biography, King: A Life, we learn more about his personal life and struggle to overcome his own doubts about the Civil Rights movement. Eig joins Khalil and Ben to discuss his book and the new stories he uncovered from FBI documents about the life of Dr. King.
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Speaker 1 (00:14):
Push it in. I'm Khalil Jibron Muhammad.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
I'm Ben Austen. We're two best friends, one black, one white.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
I'm a historian and I'm a journalist. And this is
some of my best friends are.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Some of my best friends are In this show, we
wrestle with the challenges and.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
The absurdities of a deeply.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Divided and unequal country.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
In this episode, we are taking a deeper look at
a human being who helped lead a movement to end
racism in America. He paid the ultimate price for changing
the course of history, even though we still haven't lived
up to his dream.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Hm hm, Well put Khalil because we are talking, of
course about the doctor Martin Luther King Jr. And today
on the show, we're talking to my friend Jonathan I
who has a new biography called King A Life Man.
He did dozens of new interviews of firsthand witnesses to
history and also examine never before seeing FBI documents.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
Jonathan also wrote one of the foremost and most recent
biographies of Muhammad Ali, which includes stories about my great
grandpa Elijah Muhammad Man.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Don't you wish he did someone yours?
Speaker 2 (01:41):
You just stole my line khalil.
Speaker 4 (01:50):
Ah.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
Man, you know, I am excited about this conversation with Jonathan,
but I wanted to start us off by just telling
you and like having a conversation about the first time
I learned about King.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
But you go first.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
When did you first like have a King encounter?
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Okay, So we didn't go to the same grade school,
the same elementary school, but my public school on the
South Side that we had a King celebration every year
in February, and it was it was always music. There
were always like these people who came in and had
us sing songs together, and it was kind of wonderful,
but it was also like the more sort of anodyne
(02:25):
version of King. I now know, you know, like, uh,
you know, doctor King told us about his dream kind
of kind of songs. Yes, what about you.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
Well, the funny thing is, man, I have no recollection
of doctor King throughout middle school or high school, and
that's probably not what happened. I'm sure at some point,
you know, there was one of those really tired, you know,
profile images of him on the bulletin board at some point.
So in college, though, I had a real sort of
come to King moment where I confronted face to face
(02:59):
like the controversy and the politicized backlash against the early
days of King's holiday. So got to Penn in Philadelphia
in late nineteen eighties and I was a freshman. They
were just institutionalizing annual King rituals, and that was kind
of the beginning for me. It was the first time
I ever remember like not doing anything but learning about
(03:20):
doctor King. But fast forward two years later, my junior year,
and a columnist at Penn writes a searing critique of
the annual celebrations of Doctor King now two years later
and basically said, yeah, he said, this dude was a
communist who wanted to take money from white people to
redistribute it to black people. And man, I took this
(03:44):
so personally that I organized one of the first student
demonstrations that I ever participated in. And in some ways,
it was that moment that made me think that I
don't really know enough about doctor King's actual life to
defend his legacy. And I felt a little bit vulnerable
in being emotionally upset about what I read but not
(04:06):
really understanding, like was doctor King communists?
Speaker 2 (04:10):
And what does it mean? And what does that mean
to redistribute wealth. Is that even a bad thing?
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Exactly?
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Yeah, I love that. So let's hear from John. He's
going to help us understand this more. And we both
read this book, King of Life, and let's jump into
this conversation.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
Let's do it, all right, John, John, I welcome to
some of my best friends are man. This is such
a treat to have you a Chicagoan, a biographer of
part of my family history. This is a very special
moment for me, and I know you and Ben have
some history yourselves.
Speaker 4 (04:45):
Thanks Khalil, I'm excited to talk to you guys.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Yeah, yeah, congratulations on this amazing book, King a Life.
It's now a national bestseller and very worthy of it,
and so congrats.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
Thanks feeling Yes, So, I mean, here is a man
who may be one of the most celebrated and misunderstood
figures in American history. I I was really excited to
read this. I know that she found some new things.
And I guess one way to start this conversation is
just like you know, doctor King is captured as its
(05:19):
adult civil rights icon. But of course he was a kid,
and so tell us something new about his childhood that
would surprise our listeners.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
That would surprise us.
Speaker 5 (05:27):
Well, first of all, a lot of people don't know
he went by Mike Little Mike actually for most of
his childhood, and even when he went to college, he
was still introducing himself as Mike Little Mike. King was
little because his dad was big Mike, and also because
he was small. He was, you know, at maximum height,
he reached five to seven, so he was he was.
He skipped a couple grades, so, you know, elementary school,
(05:50):
high school. He was two years younger than his classmates.
And he was short to begin with, so that might
be why he grew the mustache as quickly as he could,
as soon as he could.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Yeah, that reminds me.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
I tell people all the time, you know, I'm not
much taller than five seven myself. I skipped a gray.
All the great leaders.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
In the world are short, guy.
Speaker 4 (06:09):
I mean, it's just yeah, me too. It's the only
thing King and I have in common.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Yeah, at me too, as somebody who's six three and
lean and handsome.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
Yeah you're not even sixty three whatever whatever, at best
six y two.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
So John more about his childhood. This is something in
the book that surprised me. Can you tell us about
the premiere of Gone with the Wind and Little Mike's
role in this premiere.
Speaker 5 (06:35):
Yeah, this is fascinating. You know, the movie premieres and
it's it's based off the huge best selling books. So
this is a major event when the movie comes out.
The biggest stars in Hollywood, Clark Gable is the.
Speaker 4 (06:46):
You know, is the start.
Speaker 5 (06:46):
He flies in on a special jet from Hollywood to
Atlanta for the premiere and this is the biggest event
that's hit Atlanta in ages. You know, Atlanta's trying to
step out, trying to prove that they're a big sophisticated city,
so they roll out the for Kate Oh man, you're
gonna put me on the spot nineteen I think the
film was.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
Thirty nine. Yeah, so.
Speaker 5 (07:12):
This is a great whitewashing of history, of course, because
we're celebrating the plantation era, we're celebrating slavery, we're celebrating
you know, this this vision that really cleans up a
lot of the history. Right, But when it comes to Atlanta,
Atlanta is just thrilled to have this thing, except maybe
(07:32):
some people in the black community are not so thrilled
because they see they're not allowed to go see the
Hollywood premiere.
Speaker 4 (07:39):
They're not They're not.
Speaker 5 (07:39):
Invited except as servants to work at this great, big
party that they're throwing for the premiere of the movie.
And Daddy King's church, Martin Luther King Senior's church, is
invited to perform at the opening. They still can't come
in to see the movie, but they're invited to sing
dressed as slaves standing in front of this mockup of
(08:00):
the Tara Plantation. And Daddy King accepts the invitation. A
lot of black leaders in Atlanta are furious with him,
saying that he should not be endorsing this this event.
But Martin Luther King Senior, you know, has this complicated
relationship with the city powers of Atlanta. He wants to
(08:22):
be a fighter, he wants to stand up for civil rights,
he wants to push for integration, but he also enjoys
the fact that he has an audience with with white leaders,
business leaders, and politicians. So he gives permission for his
church to appear at this thing, and his wife, Alberta King,
leads the choir, and the choir is dressed in garments
(08:43):
depicting them as enslaved people, and young Martin Luther King
Junior age ten is sitting in the front row singing along.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Man, John, I want to thank you for telling us
that that was great, powerful, And I want to follow
up with something that Khalil said at the start, which
is like how daunting it is to write a biography
of King. You know, not only is he mythologized, but
there's been a lot of other writing. And I'll just say,
for my part, one of the ways that you kind
of conquer this is just the writing is so damn good.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
Yes, snap snaps over here, and.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Just you know, I'll think of one part, which is
the nineteen sixty three March on Washington when King gives
his most famous speech. I have a dream. Everyone knows
this moment, and you tell this moment like almost through
a prism. You've interviewed a woman who attended, and so
you shift to her point of view sometimes, and you
have a guard, this white guard on stage with King
(09:36):
who's known only for like his hand moving the microphone.
But you've interviewed him, and so you're able to sort
of pivot and create this prismatic, full on kind of
like omniscient moment. It's really just amazing. Can you talk
a little about about the actual archival research, the documents,
the things that make this biography different than all the
(09:59):
previous ones.
Speaker 5 (10:00):
Yeah, you know, I went around the country and interviewed
everybody I could who had any connection to King, and
I found hundreds of people, lots of scores of people
who actually knew King. And this is I figured the
last chance to really run around and meet these people.
And I've even before I thought about doing a book,
I just thought, I'm going to travel the country.
Speaker 4 (10:17):
And interview people who knew King.
Speaker 5 (10:18):
And then I interviewed dozens of people who were at
the march on Washington, as you said.
Speaker 4 (10:21):
And I also had just a ton.
Speaker 5 (10:24):
Of new archival material. You know, we have thousands of
pages that the FBI has released just in the last
few years. They keep issue releasing new stuff. And at
the same time I found Martin Luther King, Senior's unpublished autobiography,
I found maybe tens of thousands of pages at your
(10:44):
old favorite haunt, Khalil, the Schomberg Library in Harlem. King's
personal archivist L. D.
Speaker 4 (10:52):
Reddick.
Speaker 5 (10:53):
He was the official archivist for the for the Southern
Christian Leadership Conference, and all of his papers were at
the Schomburg unopened the boxes had not yet been opened,
they had not even been cataloged.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
Yet most people don't realize that biographies are essentially the
life blood of biography are the documents. And here you've
just given us a kind of an insider's perspective on
what it means to crack open a new collection. But
you also talk about the FBI records, and in some
ways they are the backbone of the book. You essentially
(11:27):
say that these newest FBI records that have recently been
released show definitively that King was not a tool, not
connected to had nothing to do with the Communist Party
of the United States. And in fact, in exploring these
FBI records, you come to an even more definitive conclusion
that he was always couching his critique in the American dream,
(11:51):
in this notion of a kind of constitution that had
created the possibility for the nation to quote unquote live
up to its promises.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Do I have that right? I mean, are we going
to put this to bed?
Speaker 3 (12:02):
Now?
Speaker 5 (12:02):
Yeah, let's put it to bed. I think the FBI
have put it to bed. The FBI knew that King
had nothing, no interest in commune, and they knew that
he was only using these You know, he had these
allies who had communists passed because he was trying to
build a more democratic American society.
Speaker 4 (12:19):
They knew that all along.
Speaker 5 (12:20):
They just couldn't deal with it because they hated him
so much and because they by that point had him
in their sights intent on destroying his reputation and breaking
up you know, his works.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
So yeah, so listen, this is this is a show
that talks about the absurdities of race, built around an
interracial friendship that's you know, almost forty years in the making.
And you are Chicago based author. But I'm always ribbing
Ben about sort of his choices in life, and one
of your choices is to focus on black men and
(12:53):
these biographies you've written about Ali, So tell us, like,
how did you, as a white writer, come to take
such a great interest in these, you know, significant black
figures in American history.
Speaker 5 (13:05):
Well, since you guys go back and talk about childhood
a lot and show, I'll have to do the same.
Speaker 4 (13:10):
I mean, yes, I'm a little bit older than you guys.
Speaker 5 (13:13):
I was born in sixty four, so I'm going to
school and I can remember the first day of kindergarten.
There are no black kids in my neighborhood. But I
pull up to school and there's busses of white kids
and there's buses of black kids, and my little six
year old brain must have been going, Okay, what's going
on here? And over time, you know, I just normalized it.
(13:35):
I made friends all through elementary school and high school,
and by the time I got to college, there were
African American studies classes available. I didn't realize that that
was like a fairly new thing at the time, but
I was excited and I grew up. Also, it's the seventies, right,
so it's.
Speaker 4 (13:53):
In the air.
Speaker 5 (13:54):
Muhammad Ali is the most famous man on earth, and
everybody's trying to figure out what he means in terms
of race relations in America because he's calling it out,
he's calling out racists, but he's also yucking it up
on TV with Johnny Carson. So like, my little brain
is trying to figure this stuff out. Good Time, Sandford
and Sun like all of this is like, you know,
(14:16):
it must have been something about that environment I grew
up in that's drawing me to these questions. So I
think it developed organically because of the way I was
raised and where I was raised and just what was
in the culture at the time.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
So you are a product of black studies.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Hallelujah.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
See this is what happens. This is what happens white
folks when you get exposed to black writers, black literature.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
And black whole culture. Yeah, exactly, John, We're going to
take a quick break and we come back. We're going
to talk more about Martin Luther King as a complicated,
actual living person. We are back on Some of my
(15:01):
best friends are with Jonathan. I. You know, one of
the things you've dug into all of these new FBI
wiretaps that have been released, and they tell us something
that we already knew. We knew that King had lots
of affairs, but they tell it in much more detail.
We actually know who the affairs are with. We know
the actual words that he said when he called these women.
(15:23):
And I just like, I know, you don't really I know,
you don't psychoanalyze King in this book, But this has
been sitting with me and troubling me. And since I've
read the book, it's like, what was King actually thinking? Like,
here's a guy who's in charge of this movement, and
he's so busy and exhausted, and the stakes are so
damn high, and he's he's undertaking like not like two
(15:45):
or three affairs, like six and eight at a time.
And there's like even in the language he's using with
these women, there's like actual expressions of love of need,
and I just don't really know, like what's going on?
How do you make sense of that?
Speaker 4 (16:03):
It's hard, It's really hard. You know.
Speaker 5 (16:05):
We see this with a lot of powerful, famous men,
this this need for attention, this need for constant gratification.
And maybe, as Ralph Aberneth he said, it's a stress
release because he's under such enormous pressure, and yet he
knows that it's that he's risking everything. He knows that
any day he could wake up and read this in
(16:26):
the paper, because he knows the FBI is listening to
his phone calls and why are tapping his hotel rooms
and leaking it to the to the press. So the
strain he's under is just unbelievable, and you constantly ask yourself,
why doesn't he just stop? Why does he keep subjecting
himself to this risk? But you know, as Ralph Abernethy
and others who knew him said, he couldn't it became
(16:47):
a compulsion. And he did also have a lot of
mental health issues. You know, he was hospitalized numerous times
for what he called exhaustion, but you know, others close
to him called anxiety and depression. So I don't think
it was a logical rational choice.
Speaker 4 (17:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
If King lived in a different time, he would have
gone to see there's one of those sex addiction specialists
like Eric eric Ay, the R and B artist. When
who's cheating on halle Berry, you just go, you know
and talk to somebody to help work it out. I mean,
I agree with Ben, we don't learn anything new, But
not only is it humanizing, but it also you know,
(17:24):
you can kind of see a struggle in this that
there is something that feels like he's lost control of
himself in this way because the risks are great, and
he's constantly fretting about whether or not the movement can
succeed based on the choices they make, and here obviously
his personal ones are part of that risk analysis.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
And John, I want to I want to ask you
a follow up to that, which is, I'm curious, what
new did you learn about Koreta Scott King? Like, what
what's the what's your sort of new insight into her.
Speaker 5 (18:00):
Well, first of all, I think she's a far greater
hero than than she's been portrayed.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
She was.
Speaker 5 (18:07):
More of an activist than King was when they I
think that's the main thing that attracted King to her.
Of course, she was, you know, intelligent and beautiful, but
she came with a pedigree for activism. She'd been at
Antioch and involved in all these protests, and King was
really attracted to that. And then, of course, you know,
she gets shut down because of the sexism of the
time and the sexism.
Speaker 4 (18:27):
Of the church.
Speaker 5 (18:28):
She's not allowed to be as activist as she wants
to be. But she still pushes King all the way.
When when King wins the Nobel Prize, Coreda is the
first one that says that we have an even greater
responsibility now to speak out not just on voting rights
and integration, but on war and materialism and poverty. It's Kreta, really,
who's you know, giving them a little nudge every step
(18:48):
of the way. And yeah, she she certainly knew about
his extramarital affairs, even though she denied it all of
her her life. But that to me makes her even
more heroic. Because the FBI is trying to drive a
wedge between King and Coreta, and she's just not going
to let it happen.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
One of the things that I took from your treatment
of Caretta and these notes that she kept, is the
extent to which King himself, who was criticized at the
time by people in the movement, women in particular like
Ele Baker, who helped to lead the NAACP and eventually
the Student Non Violent Coordinating Committee, You basically show that
(19:29):
King himself was a sexist. He didn't really value the
voice of women in the movement, including his own wife.
Speaker 5 (19:37):
Yeah, he had a serious blind spot there, as did
many women. I mean, as did many men of that time,
and certainly many Southern Baptist preachers.
Speaker 4 (19:46):
People like Ella Baker.
Speaker 5 (19:47):
Called him on it, and his own wife called him
on it, and he wasn't He just wasn't there yet.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
And John, what evidence is there or is there any
evidence that the FBI fabricated or distorted what they found
about King? You know, so they have actual tape. Did
they make anything up about him?
Speaker 4 (20:06):
Great question? So we have the transcripts of the tapes.
Speaker 5 (20:08):
The tape themselves won't be released until twenty twenty seven,
although I think some people are trying to suppress that
from being released then. But the transcripts are accurate, according
to everybody I spoke to who's on those tapes. Andrew
Young has read the transcript he's on the recordings, and
he says that his words are accurately transcribed. Bayard Rustin
got ahold of his own FBI files and said the
(20:30):
transcripts were accurate. So I don't think there's much doubt
when we read transcripts that they're accurate. But the memos
are that summarize what's being heard in these hotel rooms
are definitely open to scrutiny, and that, you know, we'll
just have to see if and when those tapes are
released in twenty twenty seven, whether the FBI was in
fact embellishing some of what they heard in the memos.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
Got it, got it well.
Speaker 3 (20:53):
One of the things that the transcripts don't distort it
in which drive a lot of your new ways in
which you reveal the complexity, particularly of King's own doubts
and frustrations, are the conversations he's having with his own
own team. I mean, you just mentioned Andy Young actually
reviewing the transcripts for accuracy. So talk to us a
(21:16):
little bit about what more we learn in terms of
the internal dialogue between King and his close advisors.
Speaker 5 (21:24):
The FBI transcripts, to me are so important because we
see how the FBI is trying to weaponize King's behavior
against himself. That's what's most important about his about the
tawdry details of his sex life, that our government is
trying to weaponize it. But the other there's a there's
a hidden benefit to these transcripts, and that's that we
get this really intimate view of King on the phone
(21:44):
with his closest friends and advisors. We hear his doubts,
we hear his concerns, we hear him suffering as he's
saying that he feels like he's losing sway with the
American public, that people aren't listening to him anymore. And
then his own advisors are urging him, you know, stick
with where you're good at, stick with where you're most effective,
focus on voting rights in the South. And King is saying, no,
(22:05):
don't you understand me. His best friends don't understand that
this this is about something bigger than voting rits in
the South. This is about the Bible for him, and
that he has to speak out about racism in the North.
He has to speak out about segregation in the northern
schools and about the war in Vietnam. This is what
the Bible commands him to do, and his own closest
advisors don't get it. And you could just hear his
(22:27):
pain that he's feeling about this. It's really heartbreaking.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
Yeah, that's really fascinating. I had a chance to meet
Andy Young a few years ago. We actually did a
panel together.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
And it was a kind of retrospective there.
Speaker 5 (22:38):
I saw it.
Speaker 3 (22:39):
Yeah, Yeah, Ben was in the audience, and it was
a kind of generational dialogue about like where do we
go from here. The Charlottesville riot of twenty seventeen with
the tiki torch mob down in Virginia had just happened
a day or two before, and I remember talking to
Andy after the panel discussion and he shared a moment
(22:59):
that you actually have in the book.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
It almost verbatim.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
It may be that you had not talked to him
long before that, but he said, you know, King's inner
circle included James Bevel, who he said, and you right,
was certifiably insane, and that King himself often wanted this
kind of team of rivals around him, and that Andy
(23:23):
Jung was always positioned as the most conservative, the most thoughtful,
the most you know, deliberative, and these other folks around
him were like, let's burn this shit down or let's
do this. You know, he said, you know, people wanted
to get themselves killed the way they're behaving. And I'd
love that you are able to capture some of that
energy and uncertainty because so often these histories of social
(23:47):
movements are so linear. You know, everything is foreordained, it's
all looking back, and you really do capture the way
in which in these moments they really don't know what
to do, They really are unsure, and they are just
taking risks and leaps of faith.
Speaker 5 (24:02):
That's one of the things I love about King is
that he's throwing himself into stuff where he doesn't know
how it's going to turn out. He goes down to
Mississippi and marches with Stokely Carmichael after the James Meredith shooting,
and and and Stokely says, you know, I'm using you right,
you know, like all this black power stuff sounds a
lot more fiery when I'm standing next to Martin Luther King,
(24:23):
and King says, yeah, it's okay.
Speaker 4 (24:24):
I've been used before.
Speaker 5 (24:26):
And you can actually see some of Stokely's philosophy sort
of creeping into King's speeches. It's beautiful because he's because
he's really a listener's and he's learning as he goes.
Speaker 4 (24:36):
And that's Martin Luther King.
Speaker 5 (24:37):
You know, you could just he could just be the
He could just bigfoot everybody if he wanted to, but
that's not his style.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
Maybe one of the things this is well known, but
reading the book made me think of it even more
is that his career is essentially thirteen years. He dies
at thirty nine. He sort of starts in organizing at
twenty six, which is such a short amount of time.
And maybe what you're describing there is not a middle
(25:04):
aged person or an older person who's stuck in their ways,
You know that we don't. We like to think of King,
because of his whole aura, as somebody who's older. But
he's he's young still and he's still like it sounds
like he's still learning all the time.
Speaker 4 (25:18):
No question about that.
Speaker 5 (25:20):
You know, he wanted to be a college professor, he
wanted to maybe be a president, of university. He wanted
to be like Benjamin Mays at Morehouse, given you know,
inspirational lectures to the student body. I think he was
always into learning, and he got thrust into this position
of leadership, but it was not his first choice, and
in some ways he wasn't really suited for it personality wise.
He didn't ever really feel like the need to be
(25:40):
the center of attention. That was just not his not
his vibe.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
A man named King did not want to be King.
Speaker 5 (25:46):
Yeah, and our greatest protest leader hated conflict.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
So a last question about the FBI tapes. So much
of what you just said, like we understand King through
these tapes, and so I want to know how should
we how we should understand the FBI, Like what is
what's our government's role in the history of the civil
rights movement in undermining the pursuit for equality.
Speaker 5 (26:11):
Yeah, it's one of the most shameful chapters in our
country's history that you know, we take this guy who
I think should be on Mount Rushmore, one of the
greatest heroes of American history, whose main mission is to
try to make this a greater democracy, to live up
to the words in the Constitution and our government can't
(26:32):
can't handle that and attacks him and really tries to
destroy him. A lot of it is based on racism.
Hoover was absolutely racist, but a lot of it is
just also based on his seeing his job and not
just him, but all of the power structure seeing their
job is maintaining the status quo that we're in power,
(26:52):
we want to stay in power, and sharing it with
Black Americans is not really in our not to our benefit.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
And j Edgar Hoover, you said Hoover, j ed Gar
Hoover is the head of the FBI who just went
after King relentlessly.
Speaker 5 (27:08):
Yeah, he's the he's the main guy. But we shouldn't
just blame it on him because LBJ was complicit. The
Kennedys authorized the wiretaps, members of Congress knew about the surveillance,
did nothing about it. The white media didn'tknew about the surveillance,
did nothing about it. So Jane Hoover is a big
part of the problem, but not the whole problem.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
Yeah, And I just want to echo because I think
as a historian, as someone who writes about this period,
who teaches this period, we as Americans do not fully
appreciate how central our own federal government was in destroying
the promise of the Civil rights era and the black
(27:50):
freedom movement more generally, like that, that is that just
has to be said again and again and again, because
the extent to which we always think about the white
supremacists of the South and the KKK, or we think
about white moderates in there weak response to the possibility
that unfold around them, which we're going to talk about,
(28:12):
we still have to take ownership of the efforts of
the most powerful law enforcement agency working against change.
Speaker 4 (28:21):
I couldn't agree more.
Speaker 5 (28:23):
And there was a moment in this book where I
really got my blood started to boil. You know, I
writing the scene of the march on Washington, and it's
one of the most beautiful moments in American history. Literally
feels like we're at a turning point, that America might.
Speaker 4 (28:37):
Be ready to change. And you know, you've.
Speaker 5 (28:39):
Got nationally televised millions and millions of people watching as
black and white people are literally singing in harmony, holding hands.
And then the next day the FBI isshes this memo
saying King must be considered the most dangerous man in
America because he threatens status quo and That's just such
a sad moment in American history because we had a
chance to Really it felt like we had a chance,
(29:02):
and the people who were there that day and even
people watching it on TV felt like this could be
the moment that we change, that we leave our are
passed behind, and the FBI say no, no, We're not
gonna do that.
Speaker 3 (29:14):
Come on, that is a disturbing and also appropriate moment.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
To take a break.
Speaker 3 (29:20):
We are going to talk about what comes after the
I have a dream speech, what comes after the civil
rights achievements of nineteen sixty four and sixty five.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
When we get back from a short.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
Break, All right, John, I want to talk about King's
popularity or lack of it, So you righte that, like
(29:51):
in nineteen sixty three, babies all over the country are
being named Martin, and by nineteen sixty six there aren't
that many babies being named Martin. You also tell us
that in nineteen sixty four there's this list of the
most admired men in the entire WORL world and he's
right up there on the top of it. And then
(30:12):
by nineteen sixty six is a survey and sixty three
percent of those who were interviewed have a negative view
of King. What happened? Why did he become so unpopular.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
And so quickly?
Speaker 4 (30:27):
So quickly?
Speaker 5 (30:28):
For sure, he decided that he was going to say
what he believed, and that was not a good move.
You know, he was popular as long as he was
criticizing Bull Connor in Birmingham. He was popular as long
as he was talking about voting rights for people in Mississippi,
because northern liberals could get behind that. But when he
starts saying, you know, you northern liberals got a problem too.
(30:50):
You're fleeing the cities for the safe white enclaves of
the suburbs, and your schools are just as segregated as
the schools in Birmingham, Alabama. And when he begins speaking
out against the Vietnam War, which was still relatively popular
at the time, all these white Americans in the North
in particular, are saying, wait a second, we thought you know,
you were talking about those those.
Speaker 4 (31:11):
Other racists of sticking white people right, stay.
Speaker 5 (31:15):
In your lane. And even King's advisors are saying to him,
you know, we might be more effective if we just
focused on the South. And people can't understand even though
you know the reason King becomes successful in the first
place is because he's preaching this very mainstream view really
in a way like, I just want us to live
(31:36):
up to the democracy, to the promises of democracy and
the Constitution.
Speaker 4 (31:39):
I just want us to live up to the words
in the Bible. We can all agree on that, right.
Speaker 5 (31:44):
But when he when he starts getting specific and pushing
it beyond the Deep South, suddenly people be it, get
uncomfortable with that.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
Yeah, and listen, So, John, you and I are in Chicago,
and you talked about him. Him bringing this message up north.
Chicago is one of his main destinations. So in nineteen
sixty three there's this amazing school boycott in Chicago to
protest segregation. Two hundred thousand and students leave public schools
in Chicago to say, we can't have segregated schools any longer.
(32:15):
We can't be taught in these like you know, buses
that are outside the schools, mobile mobile trailers. And King
comes up and lends his support to that, and then
he comes back up to Chicago and actually moves here
with Correta to the West side of Chicago to highlight
to protest housing issues here. He wants open housing nineteen
(32:37):
sixty is open housing that you know, Chicago has such
is in many ways the most segregated city in the country.
And you know that there are all these restrictions on
where black people could live. They're not actually allowed to
enjoy the open market of housing. Yeah, and he talks
about finding racists here that are you know, would make
people in Mississippi blush. Yeah. I mean even throw that
(33:00):
to you, Khalil, because you know, what did you think
of those moments? And you know when the story returns
to Chicago.
Speaker 3 (33:07):
Well, I've often had to disabuse young people, particularly my students,
of this idea that we historians called Southern exceptionalism, because
it is such a deeply conventional notion that the racism
of yesterday was a Southern problem and that the issues
(33:29):
in the North were really about ungrateful black people in
their dysfunctional homes with fathers missing, who become welfare dependents
and turn to pathology and gangs and all of this.
In other words, racism has been written out of most
textbooks that teach this period of US history, and so
(33:51):
I actually do think of it as a backlash moment
because white liberals and moderates do have to confront doctor
King's moral authority on their own ground, and they show
their fucking asses big time, like you know, in a
way that is very powerful even to this day, to
(34:11):
see the venomous Confederate flag waving rage that we see
in video archival footage of the protest Engage Park, for example, Jonathan,
which which you've written about.
Speaker 5 (34:24):
Yeah, and you know, it's interesting what you're saying to
Khlill is really powerful because we see the people throwing
rocks and bricks at King Engage Park and that's famous.
And King leaves here saying these these white people waving
the Nazi flags could teach people in Birmingham about racism.
But the piece that we don't see and we don't
talk about as much is the fact that King was
getting all of the support from the northern suburbs, from
(34:46):
the white supporters around on the periphery of Chicago and
being invited to speak at churches and synagogues up there.
But those folks weren't marching with them Engage Park. You know,
they were comfortable sending their support their checks in the mail.
But when he moved to Chicago, he did not find
the groundswell of support that he was looking for, and
(35:06):
he also found divisions in the black community too. He
wasn't able to rally the kind of backing here that
he that he needed, in part because so many people
here in the city were dependent on mayor daily for
their jobs, and church leaders were divided to not all
of the black churches got behind King in the way
he had hoped. So it was he found and you know,
(35:28):
his advisors warned him, Chicago's a lot more complicated. The
moral issues aren't as black and white, no pun intended.
Speaker 4 (35:34):
It's going to be.
Speaker 5 (35:35):
Harder to really focus the media on your message here
because it's more nuanced. And all that played against him.
But that having been said, you know, King really pushed
for specific reforms. He got the city to agree to make,
you know, important changes in laws and policies, and then
once he left town.
Speaker 4 (35:54):
The city just abandoned all that said. Yeah, don't let
the door hit you on the way out.
Speaker 2 (35:59):
You have a line and of what King sort of
has this revelation about white people after coming north and
he says they're all unconscious racists.
Speaker 4 (36:09):
Yeah that hit heard, Yeah yeah.
Speaker 3 (36:11):
And also the kind of language that today is had
been completely removed from any notion of what King actually
stood for. You also tell the story of Mike Wallace
telling a CBS audience in the summer of nineteen sixty
six that white people were fed up with racial turmoil,
which is, like, you know, the perfect both honest expression
(36:33):
of what is actually happening and also an echo of
the Reconstruction period, when white people were fed up with
the racial turmoil of white Southern Democrats deciding that they
were going to take back control of the South, and
the federal government deciding, you know what, the costs are
too great, We're done with this, We're out, and so
there we are. But King doesn't help himself, right, he
(36:55):
doesn't help himself because with all of that, he adds
insult to injury by saying this war in Vietnam is
a moral abomination and unmitigatingly calls publicly calls for an
end to the US involvement, and holds LBJ to task
for escalating the war.
Speaker 5 (37:17):
And what I love about that is that he's saying
that the war is not just about you know, losing lives.
It's not just about the fact that we're killing our
brothers in Vietnam. That we're all children of God, He's
saying that war has another consequence, that it leads to
immortal rot in society, that it undermines all of the
goodness that we're trying to teach. That you can't teach war,
(37:38):
you can't advocate for war and still say that we
are that we are committed to love and kindness and peace.
Speaker 4 (37:46):
He's seeing the big.
Speaker 5 (37:46):
Picture and in a way that you know, very few
leaders are brave enough to call out.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
Yeah, Okay, John, maybe you're already answering this question that
I'm about to ask, but it's something I thought about
reading the book, is whether it actually was a strategic
mistake on his part to bring the Vietnam War also
in to these major issues that he's trying to tackle,
and King's own leadership is saying like this is a mistake.
Speaker 4 (38:15):
Yeah, that's a great question.
Speaker 5 (38:18):
And people are a lot smarter than I am, you know,
like fired Russ and we're saying exactly what you're saying,
that you're you're wasting your energy, that you're never going
to accomplish all of these things that you're talking about.
If you just focus on where your strongest, we can
change the country. If we change if we get enough
people registered to vote in the South. We change the
(38:38):
balance of power in every state legislature, we change the
balance of power in Congress. We tip presidential elections, we
start to see more black people being elected to office.
All of that will will help us in the long run,
and then you can start talking about you know, demilitarization
and attacking materialism. But like lay the groundwork. That's how
(38:59):
fired rust In, a brilliant strategist saw things. But King
just couldn't do it. Like he said, you know, he
wasn't a politician. He wasn't Machiavelli, and he wasn't thinking
about what made the most sense. He was thinking about
what was the right thing to do. He was a
you know, he was a minister primarily fundamentally.
Speaker 1 (39:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (39:18):
Yeah, Well, I I'm fascinated by this issue too, and
I don't think it's it's clear like in terms of
political strategy. But what I have to say for me
personally that I admire so much about doctor King is
what you just said, John, that he wasn't a politician.
And when he tells the country that he's not going
(39:40):
to support lbj reelection bid, it really strikes me as
a moment when we saw kind of the last time
that black leadership, organic black leadership, social media leadership was
not captured by the Democratic Party that King maintained as
independence in such a way that you cannot find today.
(40:03):
You have people who are civil rights leaders, who are
who are essentially an extension of the Democratic Party, and
I would say, for me, it has hurt us. And
so one lesson coming out of this is that King's independence,
even in the critique of Bayad Rustin, gets lost in
what for that generation was a brass ring which was
(40:26):
to participate in electoral politics, but it was also a
devil's bargain because once you started participating, then you had
debts to be paid, you had loyalties to protect, and
I think that the independence of social movements have been
lost in that translation.
Speaker 5 (40:41):
That's a really interesting point. And when you think about
what King was trying to do when he was assassinated
was to pull together all of these factions in the
Poor People's Campaign and to basically occupy Washington and force
the nation to pay attention to all of the injustices.
I mean, it's incredibly audacious and maybe by Ourdrustin would
have said it was naive, but he was trying to
(41:02):
find a way to do it. He wasn't just talking
about it. He wasn't just writing op eds or.
Speaker 4 (41:05):
Going on TV.
Speaker 5 (41:06):
He was trying to build a new coalition.
Speaker 3 (41:09):
I love that term occupy, occupy Washington, DC, because that's
exactly what it feels like looking back on the promise
of it. But let's talk just for a second about
the enduring relevance of King. I mean, doctor King today
is a symbol of American exceptionalism, and it seems to me,
I mean, just certainly from my reading of your biography
(41:31):
and the teaching that I do in the classroom that
I mean, this guy is as relevant today and death
as he was when he was alive. I mean, was
that a motivating factor even several years ago, not counting
the madness of anti CRT and the misappropriation of King's content,
of our character stuff that goes on now. I mean,
how were you thinking about King's legacy when you first
(41:51):
set out to do this biograph.
Speaker 5 (41:53):
I started this book I think even before yeah, before
Trump was elected. So, but there was so much in
the air at the time that was was relevant. Obviously,
because so much of what King had to say is
still you know, ringing in our ears. You know, he
called out not just racism, but income inequality and and incarceration,
(42:15):
and he talked about reparations, he talked about police brutality.
You know, the issues are still so alive. And at
the same time, I felt like, where's King now? We're
not teaching his works, We're not you know, kids aren't
reading him. I wasn't reading him in college. We've turned
him into this really safe, watered down figure, and his
life and his words don't bear that out. So I
(42:36):
just felt like, especially when I was meeting people who
knew King during my ALI work, I felt like we
needed to hear his voice again. We needed a more
intimate portrait of King. That was really what got me started.
Speaker 3 (42:48):
So you just mentioned reparations and the Poor People's Campaign
and the possibility that it held, you know, at the
height of the apotheosis of King and his vision for
the future of America. So what are some of the
lessons that we should take from King's own commitment to
this bold, challenging vision of a multi racial demid percy
(43:09):
that was more egalitarian.
Speaker 5 (43:11):
I don't know where to start on that one, Khalil,
but I think the main message is that it's okay
to be idealistic, it's okay to and it's in it's
necessary to fight for what you truly believe in. And
yes there's there's time and a place for compromise, but
not everybody has to be a compromiser. I think King
was pushing us to really fight for what we believed in,
(43:33):
and in some ways the man who best recognized that
was j Edgar Hoover. He truly recognized the threat that
that posed.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
Hmmm, yeah, that's something that Khalil Lexto always say that
the backlash is so strong because the danger of multiracial
democracy is real. One of the lessons that I took
away from reading the book is what you talked about earlier,
kind of a mission on King's part, which is overlooking
women in the movement. And you know, it's so clear
(44:03):
that that women need to be part of the struggle
going forward, and they were, they were diminished somewhat during
his time, and so there seems to be like, when
I think of the lessons for today, that seems to
be part of it for sure.
Speaker 5 (44:18):
Yeah, that's one of the negative lessons, and you know,
we can see it. King missed out on a huge
opportunity there, and everybody from Ella Baker to King's own
wife was trying to wake him up to that, and
he failed. And maybe if he'd lived longer, he would
have come around and seen the light.
Speaker 3 (44:36):
Yeah, well, you just used a word wake up, which
it actually is a term that comes up in the
very last sentence of the book. And Ben and I
were joking about the fact that this notion of being
woke right has become essentially criminalized in something like twenty
(44:57):
states in terms of what it means to teach children
the actual king, the radical king, the king who believed
in a revolution of values, or even to teach about
the FBI's Hitler.
Speaker 2 (45:09):
Right, I'm the very last line of the book. Re
read the line.
Speaker 3 (45:12):
No, no, I'm going to I'm want to ask John, John,
I'm going to have you say it.
Speaker 1 (45:17):
Do you know the last line of the book?
Speaker 4 (45:18):
I don't you do it?
Speaker 1 (45:20):
All right? All right, find it. It's the very last line.
Speaker 5 (45:23):
You got to read it are very Survival depends on
our ability to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas,
to remain vigilant, and to face the challenge of change.
Speaker 2 (45:34):
Thank you for reading that. Were you thinking there. Even
in writing that about sort of all the current attacks,
I'm being called wokeness, like the anti wokeness movement from
the right.
Speaker 5 (45:44):
Yeah, that was that was a part of it. But
the main point I think is that he's saying we
have to stay alert and if you want to use
the word woke, fine, but we have to be aware
that that conditions always change, but our principles don't have to,
and that we have to keep fighting no matter what
the conditions we're in. And if you're not, if you're
so set in your way, is that you're not paying
(46:05):
attention to the changes and you're not adapting to them,
and you're not renewing your call and renewing your vision,
then you're not going to get it done. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:15):
Yeah, well that's encouraging.
Speaker 3 (46:17):
Let's let's hope the book doesn't end up on any
banned book list, so.
Speaker 5 (46:20):
It might be good for some more people, you know,
I do want it to be in everybody's hands.
Speaker 2 (46:26):
Yeah, people who might Yeah, people who might not initially
embraced King but could learn a lot from this book
and can learn about our democracy.
Speaker 3 (46:35):
Well, John, it was a true delight to have you
on some of my best friends, are I learned some
new things in reading your biography. I hope that our
listeners pick it up and check it out as well.
We're excited to see what comes next.
Speaker 4 (46:49):
For you don't even ask oh, thank you guys man.
Speaker 2 (47:09):
So John's book and maybe even more so, the conversation
that we just had made me think about King differently. Okay,
it made me think about King really as part of
the complex history and politics of his moment, you know,
like we often think about King or the fight for
(47:30):
civil rights almost in kind of biblical terms, like you know,
Moses getting the Israelites out of Egypt, and as you said,
there was like this brass ring of fighting for voting rights.
But he was also just like part of history, like
he had to think about the political moment, like there's
a war going on, I gotta say something, and like
(47:52):
there's a Democrat running for president LBJ, Do I support
him or not? That's right to me. That's so interesting
because it makes me think of like any leader today,
you know, you know, do you support Biden his re
election campaign? You know, do you talk about climate change? Also?
Do you talk about immigration? Like everything is watered down?
And that's yeah, it's just a different view of King.
(48:15):
It's a different way to think about him, and it's
also what makes John's book unique.
Speaker 3 (48:20):
I think, well, I think in general, biographies at their
best capture the indeterminacy, the uncertainty, the emotional rollercoaster that
leaders experience, and people who are involved in work that
is disruptive, that is dangerous. And I love that in
this conversation with Jonathan we were able to hear from
(48:43):
him and of course, having read the book, just how
much this new information draws our attention to these guys.
You know, they were all young. King was mostly you know,
the late nineties and early thirties, I mean, unbelievable, right,
So I hope that people pick this biography up. You know,
this is a moment for revisiting this past that will
(49:04):
help us hopefully see our way through the battles ahead.
Speaker 2 (49:08):
Right right, Well, love you, Khalil.
Speaker 1 (49:11):
Love you too.
Speaker 3 (49:18):
Some of My Best Friends Are is a production of
Pushkin Industries. The show is written and hosted by me Khalil,
Jabon Muhammad, and my best friend Ben Austin.
Speaker 2 (49:28):
It's produced by Lucy Sullivan. Our associate producer is Rachel Yang.
It's edited by Sarah Nix with help from Keishel Williams.
Our engineer is Amanda ka Wang and our managing producer
is Constanza Guyardo.
Speaker 3 (49:42):
At Pushkin thanks to Leitol, Molad, Julia Barton, Heather Faine,
Carly Migliori, John schnarz Retta Cone, and Jacob Weisberg.
Speaker 2 (49:52):
Our theme song, Little Lily, is by fellow chicagoan the
Brilliant Avery R. Young from his album Tubman. You definitely
want to check out his music at his website Averyaryong
dot com.
Speaker 3 (50:04):
You can find Pushkin on all social platforms at Pushkin Pods,
and you can sign up for our newsletter at pushkin
dot fm. To find more Pushkin podcasts, listen on the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you like to listen.
Speaker 2 (50:18):
And if you like our show, please give us a
five star rating and a review and listen. Even if
you don't like it, give it a five star rating
and a review, and please tell all of your best
friends about it. Thank you. If that aside Khalil remains it,
(50:42):
I'm gonna buy you lunch okay, whatever man
Push it in. I'm Khalil Jibron Muhammad.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
I'm Ben Austen. We're two best friends, one black, one white.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
I'm a historian and I'm a journalist. And this is
some of my best friends are.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Some of my best friends are In this show, we
wrestle with the challenges and.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
The absurdities of a deeply.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Divided and unequal country.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
In this episode, we are taking a deeper look at
a human being who helped lead a movement to end
racism in America. He paid the ultimate price for changing
the course of history, even though we still haven't lived
up to his dream.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Hm hm, Well put Khalil because we are talking, of
course about the doctor Martin Luther King Jr. And today
on the show, we're talking to my friend Jonathan I
who has a new biography called King A Life Man.
He did dozens of new interviews of firsthand witnesses to
history and also examine never before seeing FBI documents.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
Jonathan also wrote one of the foremost and most recent
biographies of Muhammad Ali, which includes stories about my great
grandpa Elijah Muhammad Man.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Don't you wish he did someone yours?
Speaker 2 (01:41):
You just stole my line khalil.
Speaker 4 (01:50):
Ah.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
Man, you know, I am excited about this conversation with Jonathan,
but I wanted to start us off by just telling
you and like having a conversation about the first time
I learned about King.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
But you go first.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
When did you first like have a King encounter?
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Okay, So we didn't go to the same grade school,
the same elementary school, but my public school on the
South Side that we had a King celebration every year
in February, and it was it was always music. There
were always like these people who came in and had
us sing songs together, and it was kind of wonderful,
but it was also like the more sort of anodyne
(02:25):
version of King. I now know, you know, like, uh,
you know, doctor King told us about his dream kind
of kind of songs. Yes, what about you.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
Well, the funny thing is, man, I have no recollection
of doctor King throughout middle school or high school, and
that's probably not what happened. I'm sure at some point,
you know, there was one of those really tired, you know,
profile images of him on the bulletin board at some point.
So in college, though, I had a real sort of
come to King moment where I confronted face to face
(02:59):
like the controversy and the politicized backlash against the early
days of King's holiday. So got to Penn in Philadelphia
in late nineteen eighties and I was a freshman. They
were just institutionalizing annual King rituals, and that was kind
of the beginning for me. It was the first time
I ever remember like not doing anything but learning about
(03:20):
doctor King. But fast forward two years later, my junior year,
and a columnist at Penn writes a searing critique of
the annual celebrations of Doctor King now two years later
and basically said, yeah, he said, this dude was a
communist who wanted to take money from white people to
redistribute it to black people. And man, I took this
(03:44):
so personally that I organized one of the first student
demonstrations that I ever participated in. And in some ways,
it was that moment that made me think that I
don't really know enough about doctor King's actual life to
defend his legacy. And I felt a little bit vulnerable
in being emotionally upset about what I read but not
(04:06):
really understanding, like was doctor King communists?
Speaker 2 (04:10):
And what does it mean? And what does that mean
to redistribute wealth. Is that even a bad thing?
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Exactly?
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Yeah, I love that. So let's hear from John. He's
going to help us understand this more. And we both
read this book, King of Life, and let's jump into
this conversation.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
Let's do it, all right, John, John, I welcome to
some of my best friends are man. This is such
a treat to have you a Chicagoan, a biographer of
part of my family history. This is a very special
moment for me, and I know you and Ben have
some history yourselves.
Speaker 4 (04:45):
Thanks Khalil, I'm excited to talk to you guys.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Yeah, yeah, congratulations on this amazing book, King a Life.
It's now a national bestseller and very worthy of it,
and so congrats.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
Thanks feeling Yes, So, I mean, here is a man
who may be one of the most celebrated and misunderstood
figures in American history. I I was really excited to
read this. I know that she found some new things.
And I guess one way to start this conversation is
just like you know, doctor King is captured as its
(05:19):
adult civil rights icon. But of course he was a kid,
and so tell us something new about his childhood that
would surprise our listeners.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
That would surprise us.
Speaker 5 (05:27):
Well, first of all, a lot of people don't know
he went by Mike Little Mike actually for most of
his childhood, and even when he went to college, he
was still introducing himself as Mike Little Mike. King was
little because his dad was big Mike, and also because
he was small. He was, you know, at maximum height,
he reached five to seven, so he was he was.
He skipped a couple grades, so, you know, elementary school,
(05:50):
high school. He was two years younger than his classmates.
And he was short to begin with, so that might
be why he grew the mustache as quickly as he could,
as soon as he could.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Yeah, that reminds me.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
I tell people all the time, you know, I'm not
much taller than five seven myself. I skipped a gray.
All the great leaders.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
In the world are short, guy.
Speaker 4 (06:09):
I mean, it's just yeah, me too. It's the only
thing King and I have in common.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Yeah, at me too, as somebody who's six three and
lean and handsome.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
Yeah you're not even sixty three whatever whatever, at best
six y two.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
So John more about his childhood. This is something in
the book that surprised me. Can you tell us about
the premiere of Gone with the Wind and Little Mike's
role in this premiere.
Speaker 5 (06:35):
Yeah, this is fascinating. You know, the movie premieres and
it's it's based off the huge best selling books. So
this is a major event when the movie comes out.
The biggest stars in Hollywood, Clark Gable is the.
Speaker 4 (06:46):
You know, is the start.
Speaker 5 (06:46):
He flies in on a special jet from Hollywood to
Atlanta for the premiere and this is the biggest event
that's hit Atlanta in ages. You know, Atlanta's trying to
step out, trying to prove that they're a big sophisticated city,
so they roll out the for Kate Oh man, you're
gonna put me on the spot nineteen I think the
film was.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
Thirty nine. Yeah, so.
Speaker 5 (07:12):
This is a great whitewashing of history, of course, because
we're celebrating the plantation era, we're celebrating slavery, we're celebrating
you know, this this vision that really cleans up a
lot of the history. Right, But when it comes to Atlanta,
Atlanta is just thrilled to have this thing, except maybe
(07:32):
some people in the black community are not so thrilled
because they see they're not allowed to go see the
Hollywood premiere.
Speaker 4 (07:39):
They're not They're not.
Speaker 5 (07:39):
Invited except as servants to work at this great, big
party that they're throwing for the premiere of the movie.
And Daddy King's church, Martin Luther King Senior's church, is
invited to perform at the opening. They still can't come
in to see the movie, but they're invited to sing
dressed as slaves standing in front of this mockup of
(08:00):
the Tara Plantation. And Daddy King accepts the invitation. A
lot of black leaders in Atlanta are furious with him,
saying that he should not be endorsing this this event.
But Martin Luther King Senior, you know, has this complicated
relationship with the city powers of Atlanta. He wants to
(08:22):
be a fighter, he wants to stand up for civil rights,
he wants to push for integration, but he also enjoys
the fact that he has an audience with with white leaders,
business leaders, and politicians. So he gives permission for his
church to appear at this thing, and his wife, Alberta King,
leads the choir, and the choir is dressed in garments
(08:43):
depicting them as enslaved people, and young Martin Luther King
Junior age ten is sitting in the front row singing along.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Man, John, I want to thank you for telling us
that that was great, powerful, And I want to follow
up with something that Khalil said at the start, which
is like how daunting it is to write a biography
of King. You know, not only is he mythologized, but
there's been a lot of other writing. And I'll just say,
for my part, one of the ways that you kind
of conquer this is just the writing is so damn good.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
Yes, snap snaps over here, and.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Just you know, I'll think of one part, which is
the nineteen sixty three March on Washington when King gives
his most famous speech. I have a dream. Everyone knows
this moment, and you tell this moment like almost through
a prism. You've interviewed a woman who attended, and so
you shift to her point of view sometimes, and you
have a guard, this white guard on stage with King
(09:36):
who's known only for like his hand moving the microphone.
But you've interviewed him, and so you're able to sort
of pivot and create this prismatic, full on kind of
like omniscient moment. It's really just amazing. Can you talk
a little about about the actual archival research, the documents,
the things that make this biography different than all the
(09:59):
previous ones.
Speaker 5 (10:00):
Yeah, you know, I went around the country and interviewed
everybody I could who had any connection to King, and
I found hundreds of people, lots of scores of people
who actually knew King. And this is I figured the
last chance to really run around and meet these people.
And I've even before I thought about doing a book,
I just thought, I'm going to travel the country.
Speaker 4 (10:17):
And interview people who knew King.
Speaker 5 (10:18):
And then I interviewed dozens of people who were at
the march on Washington, as you said.
Speaker 4 (10:21):
And I also had just a ton.
Speaker 5 (10:24):
Of new archival material. You know, we have thousands of
pages that the FBI has released just in the last
few years. They keep issue releasing new stuff. And at
the same time I found Martin Luther King, Senior's unpublished autobiography,
I found maybe tens of thousands of pages at your
(10:44):
old favorite haunt, Khalil, the Schomberg Library in Harlem. King's
personal archivist L. D.
Speaker 4 (10:52):
Reddick.
Speaker 5 (10:53):
He was the official archivist for the for the Southern
Christian Leadership Conference, and all of his papers were at
the Schomburg unopened the boxes had not yet been opened,
they had not even been cataloged.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
Yet most people don't realize that biographies are essentially the
life blood of biography are the documents. And here you've
just given us a kind of an insider's perspective on
what it means to crack open a new collection. But
you also talk about the FBI records, and in some
ways they are the backbone of the book. You essentially
(11:27):
say that these newest FBI records that have recently been
released show definitively that King was not a tool, not
connected to had nothing to do with the Communist Party
of the United States. And in fact, in exploring these
FBI records, you come to an even more definitive conclusion
that he was always couching his critique in the American dream,
(11:51):
in this notion of a kind of constitution that had
created the possibility for the nation to quote unquote live
up to its promises.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Do I have that right? I mean, are we going
to put this to bed?
Speaker 3 (12:02):
Now?
Speaker 5 (12:02):
Yeah, let's put it to bed. I think the FBI
have put it to bed. The FBI knew that King
had nothing, no interest in commune, and they knew that
he was only using these You know, he had these
allies who had communists passed because he was trying to
build a more democratic American society.
Speaker 4 (12:19):
They knew that all along.
Speaker 5 (12:20):
They just couldn't deal with it because they hated him
so much and because they by that point had him
in their sights intent on destroying his reputation and breaking
up you know, his works.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
So yeah, so listen, this is this is a show
that talks about the absurdities of race, built around an
interracial friendship that's you know, almost forty years in the making.
And you are Chicago based author. But I'm always ribbing
Ben about sort of his choices in life, and one
of your choices is to focus on black men and
(12:53):
these biographies you've written about Ali, So tell us, like,
how did you, as a white writer, come to take
such a great interest in these, you know, significant black
figures in American history.
Speaker 5 (13:05):
Well, since you guys go back and talk about childhood
a lot and show, I'll have to do the same.
Speaker 4 (13:10):
I mean, yes, I'm a little bit older than you guys.
Speaker 5 (13:13):
I was born in sixty four, so I'm going to
school and I can remember the first day of kindergarten.
There are no black kids in my neighborhood. But I
pull up to school and there's busses of white kids
and there's buses of black kids, and my little six
year old brain must have been going, Okay, what's going
on here? And over time, you know, I just normalized it.
(13:35):
I made friends all through elementary school and high school,
and by the time I got to college, there were
African American studies classes available. I didn't realize that that
was like a fairly new thing at the time, but
I was excited and I grew up. Also, it's the seventies, right,
so it's.
Speaker 4 (13:53):
In the air.
Speaker 5 (13:54):
Muhammad Ali is the most famous man on earth, and
everybody's trying to figure out what he means in terms
of race relations in America because he's calling it out,
he's calling out racists, but he's also yucking it up
on TV with Johnny Carson. So like, my little brain
is trying to figure this stuff out. Good Time, Sandford
and Sun like all of this is like, you know,
(14:16):
it must have been something about that environment I grew
up in that's drawing me to these questions. So I
think it developed organically because of the way I was
raised and where I was raised and just what was
in the culture at the time.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
So you are a product of black studies.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Hallelujah.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
See this is what happens. This is what happens white
folks when you get exposed to black writers, black literature.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
And black whole culture. Yeah, exactly, John, We're going to
take a quick break and we come back. We're going
to talk more about Martin Luther King as a complicated,
actual living person. We are back on Some of my
(15:01):
best friends are with Jonathan. I. You know, one of
the things you've dug into all of these new FBI
wiretaps that have been released, and they tell us something
that we already knew. We knew that King had lots
of affairs, but they tell it in much more detail.
We actually know who the affairs are with. We know
the actual words that he said when he called these women.
(15:23):
And I just like, I know, you don't really I know,
you don't psychoanalyze King in this book, But this has
been sitting with me and troubling me. And since I've
read the book, it's like, what was King actually thinking? Like,
here's a guy who's in charge of this movement, and
he's so busy and exhausted, and the stakes are so
damn high, and he's he's undertaking like not like two
(15:45):
or three affairs, like six and eight at a time.
And there's like even in the language he's using with
these women, there's like actual expressions of love of need,
and I just don't really know, like what's going on?
How do you make sense of that?
Speaker 4 (16:03):
It's hard, It's really hard. You know.
Speaker 5 (16:05):
We see this with a lot of powerful, famous men,
this this need for attention, this need for constant gratification.
And maybe, as Ralph Aberneth he said, it's a stress
release because he's under such enormous pressure, and yet he
knows that it's that he's risking everything. He knows that
any day he could wake up and read this in
(16:26):
the paper, because he knows the FBI is listening to
his phone calls and why are tapping his hotel rooms
and leaking it to the to the press. So the
strain he's under is just unbelievable, and you constantly ask yourself,
why doesn't he just stop? Why does he keep subjecting
himself to this risk? But you know, as Ralph Abernethy
and others who knew him said, he couldn't it became
(16:47):
a compulsion. And he did also have a lot of
mental health issues. You know, he was hospitalized numerous times
for what he called exhaustion, but you know, others close
to him called anxiety and depression. So I don't think
it was a logical rational choice.
Speaker 4 (17:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
If King lived in a different time, he would have
gone to see there's one of those sex addiction specialists
like Eric eric Ay, the R and B artist. When
who's cheating on halle Berry, you just go, you know
and talk to somebody to help work it out. I mean,
I agree with Ben, we don't learn anything new, But
not only is it humanizing, but it also you know,
(17:24):
you can kind of see a struggle in this that
there is something that feels like he's lost control of
himself in this way because the risks are great, and
he's constantly fretting about whether or not the movement can
succeed based on the choices they make, and here obviously
his personal ones are part of that risk analysis.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
And John, I want to I want to ask you
a follow up to that, which is, I'm curious, what
new did you learn about Koreta Scott King? Like, what
what's the what's your sort of new insight into her.
Speaker 5 (18:00):
Well, first of all, I think she's a far greater
hero than than she's been portrayed.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
She was.
Speaker 5 (18:07):
More of an activist than King was when they I
think that's the main thing that attracted King to her.
Of course, she was, you know, intelligent and beautiful, but
she came with a pedigree for activism. She'd been at
Antioch and involved in all these protests, and King was
really attracted to that. And then, of course, you know,
she gets shut down because of the sexism of the
time and the sexism.
Speaker 4 (18:27):
Of the church.
Speaker 5 (18:28):
She's not allowed to be as activist as she wants
to be. But she still pushes King all the way.
When when King wins the Nobel Prize, Coreda is the
first one that says that we have an even greater
responsibility now to speak out not just on voting rights
and integration, but on war and materialism and poverty. It's Kreta, really,
who's you know, giving them a little nudge every step
(18:48):
of the way. And yeah, she she certainly knew about
his extramarital affairs, even though she denied it all of
her her life. But that to me makes her even
more heroic. Because the FBI is trying to drive a
wedge between King and Coreta, and she's just not going
to let it happen.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
One of the things that I took from your treatment
of Caretta and these notes that she kept, is the
extent to which King himself, who was criticized at the
time by people in the movement, women in particular like
Ele Baker, who helped to lead the NAACP and eventually
the Student Non Violent Coordinating Committee, You basically show that
(19:29):
King himself was a sexist. He didn't really value the
voice of women in the movement, including his own wife.
Speaker 5 (19:37):
Yeah, he had a serious blind spot there, as did
many women. I mean, as did many men of that time,
and certainly many Southern Baptist preachers.
Speaker 4 (19:46):
People like Ella Baker.
Speaker 5 (19:47):
Called him on it, and his own wife called him
on it, and he wasn't He just wasn't there yet.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
And John, what evidence is there or is there any
evidence that the FBI fabricated or distorted what they found
about King? You know, so they have actual tape. Did
they make anything up about him?
Speaker 4 (20:06):
Great question? So we have the transcripts of the tapes.
Speaker 5 (20:08):
The tape themselves won't be released until twenty twenty seven,
although I think some people are trying to suppress that
from being released then. But the transcripts are accurate, according
to everybody I spoke to who's on those tapes. Andrew
Young has read the transcript he's on the recordings, and
he says that his words are accurately transcribed. Bayard Rustin
got ahold of his own FBI files and said the
(20:30):
transcripts were accurate. So I don't think there's much doubt
when we read transcripts that they're accurate. But the memos
are that summarize what's being heard in these hotel rooms
are definitely open to scrutiny, and that, you know, we'll
just have to see if and when those tapes are
released in twenty twenty seven, whether the FBI was in
fact embellishing some of what they heard in the memos.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
Got it, got it well.
Speaker 3 (20:53):
One of the things that the transcripts don't distort it
in which drive a lot of your new ways in
which you reveal the complexity, particularly of King's own doubts
and frustrations, are the conversations he's having with his own
own team. I mean, you just mentioned Andy Young actually
reviewing the transcripts for accuracy. So talk to us a
(21:16):
little bit about what more we learn in terms of
the internal dialogue between King and his close advisors.
Speaker 5 (21:24):
The FBI transcripts, to me are so important because we
see how the FBI is trying to weaponize King's behavior
against himself. That's what's most important about his about the
tawdry details of his sex life, that our government is
trying to weaponize it. But the other there's a there's
a hidden benefit to these transcripts, and that's that we
get this really intimate view of King on the phone
(21:44):
with his closest friends and advisors. We hear his doubts,
we hear his concerns, we hear him suffering as he's
saying that he feels like he's losing sway with the
American public, that people aren't listening to him anymore. And
then his own advisors are urging him, you know, stick
with where you're good at, stick with where you're most effective,
focus on voting rights in the South. And King is saying, no,
(22:05):
don't you understand me. His best friends don't understand that
this this is about something bigger than voting rits in
the South. This is about the Bible for him, and
that he has to speak out about racism in the North.
He has to speak out about segregation in the northern
schools and about the war in Vietnam. This is what
the Bible commands him to do, and his own closest
advisors don't get it. And you could just hear his
(22:27):
pain that he's feeling about this. It's really heartbreaking.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
Yeah, that's really fascinating. I had a chance to meet
Andy Young a few years ago. We actually did a
panel together.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
And it was a kind of retrospective there.
Speaker 5 (22:38):
I saw it.
Speaker 3 (22:39):
Yeah, Yeah, Ben was in the audience, and it was
a kind of generational dialogue about like where do we
go from here. The Charlottesville riot of twenty seventeen with
the tiki torch mob down in Virginia had just happened
a day or two before, and I remember talking to
Andy after the panel discussion and he shared a moment
(22:59):
that you actually have in the book.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
It almost verbatim.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
It may be that you had not talked to him
long before that, but he said, you know, King's inner
circle included James Bevel, who he said, and you right,
was certifiably insane, and that King himself often wanted this
kind of team of rivals around him, and that Andy
(23:23):
Jung was always positioned as the most conservative, the most thoughtful,
the most you know, deliberative, and these other folks around
him were like, let's burn this shit down or let's
do this. You know, he said, you know, people wanted
to get themselves killed the way they're behaving. And I'd
love that you are able to capture some of that
energy and uncertainty because so often these histories of social
(23:47):
movements are so linear. You know, everything is foreordained, it's
all looking back, and you really do capture the way
in which in these moments they really don't know what
to do, They really are unsure, and they are just
taking risks and leaps of faith.
Speaker 5 (24:02):
That's one of the things I love about King is
that he's throwing himself into stuff where he doesn't know
how it's going to turn out. He goes down to
Mississippi and marches with Stokely Carmichael after the James Meredith shooting,
and and and Stokely says, you know, I'm using you right,
you know, like all this black power stuff sounds a
lot more fiery when I'm standing next to Martin Luther King,
(24:23):
and King says, yeah, it's okay.
Speaker 4 (24:24):
I've been used before.
Speaker 5 (24:26):
And you can actually see some of Stokely's philosophy sort
of creeping into King's speeches. It's beautiful because he's because
he's really a listener's and he's learning as he goes.
Speaker 4 (24:36):
And that's Martin Luther King.
Speaker 5 (24:37):
You know, you could just he could just be the
He could just bigfoot everybody if he wanted to, but
that's not his style.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
Maybe one of the things this is well known, but
reading the book made me think of it even more
is that his career is essentially thirteen years. He dies
at thirty nine. He sort of starts in organizing at
twenty six, which is such a short amount of time.
And maybe what you're describing there is not a middle
(25:04):
aged person or an older person who's stuck in their ways,
You know that we don't. We like to think of King,
because of his whole aura, as somebody who's older. But
he's he's young still and he's still like it sounds
like he's still learning all the time.
Speaker 4 (25:18):
No question about that.
Speaker 5 (25:20):
You know, he wanted to be a college professor, he
wanted to maybe be a president, of university. He wanted
to be like Benjamin Mays at Morehouse, given you know,
inspirational lectures to the student body. I think he was
always into learning, and he got thrust into this position
of leadership, but it was not his first choice, and
in some ways he wasn't really suited for it personality wise.
He didn't ever really feel like the need to be
(25:40):
the center of attention. That was just not his not
his vibe.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
A man named King did not want to be King.
Speaker 5 (25:46):
Yeah, and our greatest protest leader hated conflict.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
So a last question about the FBI tapes. So much
of what you just said, like we understand King through
these tapes, and so I want to know how should
we how we should understand the FBI, Like what is
what's our government's role in the history of the civil
rights movement in undermining the pursuit for equality.
Speaker 5 (26:11):
Yeah, it's one of the most shameful chapters in our
country's history that you know, we take this guy who
I think should be on Mount Rushmore, one of the
greatest heroes of American history, whose main mission is to
try to make this a greater democracy, to live up
to the words in the Constitution and our government can't
(26:32):
can't handle that and attacks him and really tries to
destroy him. A lot of it is based on racism.
Hoover was absolutely racist, but a lot of it is
just also based on his seeing his job and not
just him, but all of the power structure seeing their
job is maintaining the status quo that we're in power,
(26:52):
we want to stay in power, and sharing it with
Black Americans is not really in our not to our benefit.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
And j Edgar Hoover, you said Hoover, j ed Gar
Hoover is the head of the FBI who just went
after King relentlessly.
Speaker 5 (27:08):
Yeah, he's the he's the main guy. But we shouldn't
just blame it on him because LBJ was complicit. The
Kennedys authorized the wiretaps, members of Congress knew about the surveillance,
did nothing about it. The white media didn'tknew about the surveillance,
did nothing about it. So Jane Hoover is a big
part of the problem, but not the whole problem.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
Yeah, And I just want to echo because I think
as a historian, as someone who writes about this period,
who teaches this period, we as Americans do not fully
appreciate how central our own federal government was in destroying
the promise of the Civil rights era and the black
(27:50):
freedom movement more generally, like that, that is that just
has to be said again and again and again, because
the extent to which we always think about the white
supremacists of the South and the KKK, or we think
about white moderates in there weak response to the possibility
that unfold around them, which we're going to talk about,
(28:12):
we still have to take ownership of the efforts of
the most powerful law enforcement agency working against change.
Speaker 4 (28:21):
I couldn't agree more.
Speaker 5 (28:23):
And there was a moment in this book where I
really got my blood started to boil. You know, I
writing the scene of the march on Washington, and it's
one of the most beautiful moments in American history. Literally
feels like we're at a turning point, that America might.
Speaker 4 (28:37):
Be ready to change. And you know, you've.
Speaker 5 (28:39):
Got nationally televised millions and millions of people watching as
black and white people are literally singing in harmony, holding hands.
And then the next day the FBI isshes this memo
saying King must be considered the most dangerous man in
America because he threatens status quo and That's just such
a sad moment in American history because we had a
chance to Really it felt like we had a chance,
(29:02):
and the people who were there that day and even
people watching it on TV felt like this could be
the moment that we change, that we leave our are
passed behind, and the FBI say no, no, We're not
gonna do that.
Speaker 3 (29:14):
Come on, that is a disturbing and also appropriate moment.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
To take a break.
Speaker 3 (29:20):
We are going to talk about what comes after the
I have a dream speech, what comes after the civil
rights achievements of nineteen sixty four and sixty five.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
When we get back from a short.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
Break, All right, John, I want to talk about King's
popularity or lack of it, So you righte that, like
(29:51):
in nineteen sixty three, babies all over the country are
being named Martin, and by nineteen sixty six there aren't
that many babies being named Martin. You also tell us
that in nineteen sixty four there's this list of the
most admired men in the entire WORL world and he's
right up there on the top of it. And then
(30:12):
by nineteen sixty six is a survey and sixty three
percent of those who were interviewed have a negative view
of King. What happened? Why did he become so unpopular.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
And so quickly?
Speaker 4 (30:27):
So quickly?
Speaker 5 (30:28):
For sure, he decided that he was going to say
what he believed, and that was not a good move.
You know, he was popular as long as he was
criticizing Bull Connor in Birmingham. He was popular as long
as he was talking about voting rights for people in Mississippi,
because northern liberals could get behind that. But when he
starts saying, you know, you northern liberals got a problem too.
(30:50):
You're fleeing the cities for the safe white enclaves of
the suburbs, and your schools are just as segregated as
the schools in Birmingham, Alabama. And when he begins speaking
out against the Vietnam War, which was still relatively popular
at the time, all these white Americans in the North
in particular, are saying, wait a second, we thought you know,
you were talking about those those.
Speaker 4 (31:11):
Other racists of sticking white people right, stay.
Speaker 5 (31:15):
In your lane. And even King's advisors are saying to him,
you know, we might be more effective if we just
focused on the South. And people can't understand even though
you know the reason King becomes successful in the first
place is because he's preaching this very mainstream view really
in a way like, I just want us to live
(31:36):
up to the democracy, to the promises of democracy and
the Constitution.
Speaker 4 (31:39):
I just want us to live up to the words
in the Bible. We can all agree on that, right.
Speaker 5 (31:44):
But when he when he starts getting specific and pushing
it beyond the Deep South, suddenly people be it, get
uncomfortable with that.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
Yeah, and listen, So, John, you and I are in Chicago,
and you talked about him. Him bringing this message up north.
Chicago is one of his main destinations. So in nineteen
sixty three there's this amazing school boycott in Chicago to
protest segregation. Two hundred thousand and students leave public schools
in Chicago to say, we can't have segregated schools any longer.
(32:15):
We can't be taught in these like you know, buses
that are outside the schools, mobile mobile trailers. And King
comes up and lends his support to that, and then
he comes back up to Chicago and actually moves here
with Correta to the West side of Chicago to highlight
to protest housing issues here. He wants open housing nineteen
(32:37):
sixty is open housing that you know, Chicago has such
is in many ways the most segregated city in the country.
And you know that there are all these restrictions on
where black people could live. They're not actually allowed to
enjoy the open market of housing. Yeah, and he talks
about finding racists here that are you know, would make
people in Mississippi blush. Yeah. I mean even throw that
(33:00):
to you, Khalil, because you know, what did you think
of those moments? And you know when the story returns
to Chicago.
Speaker 3 (33:07):
Well, I've often had to disabuse young people, particularly my students,
of this idea that we historians called Southern exceptionalism, because
it is such a deeply conventional notion that the racism
of yesterday was a Southern problem and that the issues
(33:29):
in the North were really about ungrateful black people in
their dysfunctional homes with fathers missing, who become welfare dependents
and turn to pathology and gangs and all of this.
In other words, racism has been written out of most
textbooks that teach this period of US history, and so
(33:51):
I actually do think of it as a backlash moment
because white liberals and moderates do have to confront doctor
King's moral authority on their own ground, and they show
their fucking asses big time, like you know, in a
way that is very powerful even to this day, to
(34:11):
see the venomous Confederate flag waving rage that we see
in video archival footage of the protest Engage Park, for example, Jonathan,
which which you've written about.
Speaker 5 (34:24):
Yeah, and you know, it's interesting what you're saying to
Khlill is really powerful because we see the people throwing
rocks and bricks at King Engage Park and that's famous.
And King leaves here saying these these white people waving
the Nazi flags could teach people in Birmingham about racism.
But the piece that we don't see and we don't
talk about as much is the fact that King was
getting all of the support from the northern suburbs, from
(34:46):
the white supporters around on the periphery of Chicago and
being invited to speak at churches and synagogues up there.
But those folks weren't marching with them Engage Park. You know,
they were comfortable sending their support their checks in the mail.
But when he moved to Chicago, he did not find
the groundswell of support that he was looking for, and
(35:06):
he also found divisions in the black community too. He
wasn't able to rally the kind of backing here that
he that he needed, in part because so many people
here in the city were dependent on mayor daily for
their jobs, and church leaders were divided to not all
of the black churches got behind King in the way
he had hoped. So it was he found and you know,
(35:28):
his advisors warned him, Chicago's a lot more complicated. The
moral issues aren't as black and white, no pun intended.
Speaker 4 (35:34):
It's going to be.
Speaker 5 (35:35):
Harder to really focus the media on your message here
because it's more nuanced. And all that played against him.
But that having been said, you know, King really pushed
for specific reforms. He got the city to agree to make,
you know, important changes in laws and policies, and then
once he left town.
Speaker 4 (35:54):
The city just abandoned all that said. Yeah, don't let
the door hit you on the way out.
Speaker 2 (35:59):
You have a line and of what King sort of
has this revelation about white people after coming north and
he says they're all unconscious racists.
Speaker 4 (36:09):
Yeah that hit heard, Yeah yeah.
Speaker 3 (36:11):
And also the kind of language that today is had
been completely removed from any notion of what King actually
stood for. You also tell the story of Mike Wallace
telling a CBS audience in the summer of nineteen sixty
six that white people were fed up with racial turmoil,
which is, like, you know, the perfect both honest expression
(36:33):
of what is actually happening and also an echo of
the Reconstruction period, when white people were fed up with
the racial turmoil of white Southern Democrats deciding that they
were going to take back control of the South, and
the federal government deciding, you know what, the costs are
too great, We're done with this, We're out, and so
there we are. But King doesn't help himself, right, he
(36:55):
doesn't help himself because with all of that, he adds
insult to injury by saying this war in Vietnam is
a moral abomination and unmitigatingly calls publicly calls for an
end to the US involvement, and holds LBJ to task
for escalating the war.
Speaker 5 (37:17):
And what I love about that is that he's saying
that the war is not just about you know, losing lives.
It's not just about the fact that we're killing our
brothers in Vietnam. That we're all children of God, He's
saying that war has another consequence, that it leads to
immortal rot in society, that it undermines all of the
goodness that we're trying to teach. That you can't teach war,
(37:38):
you can't advocate for war and still say that we
are that we are committed to love and kindness and peace.
Speaker 4 (37:46):
He's seeing the big.
Speaker 5 (37:46):
Picture and in a way that you know, very few
leaders are brave enough to call out.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
Yeah, Okay, John, maybe you're already answering this question that
I'm about to ask, but it's something I thought about
reading the book, is whether it actually was a strategic
mistake on his part to bring the Vietnam War also
in to these major issues that he's trying to tackle,
and King's own leadership is saying like this is a mistake.
Speaker 4 (38:15):
Yeah, that's a great question.
Speaker 5 (38:18):
And people are a lot smarter than I am, you know,
like fired Russ and we're saying exactly what you're saying,
that you're you're wasting your energy, that you're never going
to accomplish all of these things that you're talking about.
If you just focus on where your strongest, we can
change the country. If we change if we get enough
people registered to vote in the South. We change the
(38:38):
balance of power in every state legislature, we change the
balance of power in Congress. We tip presidential elections, we
start to see more black people being elected to office.
All of that will will help us in the long run,
and then you can start talking about you know, demilitarization
and attacking materialism. But like lay the groundwork. That's how
(38:59):
fired rust In, a brilliant strategist saw things. But King
just couldn't do it. Like he said, you know, he
wasn't a politician. He wasn't Machiavelli, and he wasn't thinking
about what made the most sense. He was thinking about
what was the right thing to do. He was a
you know, he was a minister primarily fundamentally.
Speaker 1 (39:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (39:18):
Yeah, Well, I I'm fascinated by this issue too, and
I don't think it's it's clear like in terms of
political strategy. But what I have to say for me
personally that I admire so much about doctor King is
what you just said, John, that he wasn't a politician.
And when he tells the country that he's not going
(39:40):
to support lbj reelection bid, it really strikes me as
a moment when we saw kind of the last time
that black leadership, organic black leadership, social media leadership was
not captured by the Democratic Party that King maintained as
independence in such a way that you cannot find today.
(40:03):
You have people who are civil rights leaders, who are
who are essentially an extension of the Democratic Party, and
I would say, for me, it has hurt us. And
so one lesson coming out of this is that King's independence,
even in the critique of Bayad Rustin, gets lost in
what for that generation was a brass ring which was
(40:26):
to participate in electoral politics, but it was also a
devil's bargain because once you started participating, then you had
debts to be paid, you had loyalties to protect, and
I think that the independence of social movements have been
lost in that translation.
Speaker 5 (40:41):
That's a really interesting point. And when you think about
what King was trying to do when he was assassinated
was to pull together all of these factions in the
Poor People's Campaign and to basically occupy Washington and force
the nation to pay attention to all of the injustices.
I mean, it's incredibly audacious and maybe by Ourdrustin would
have said it was naive, but he was trying to
(41:02):
find a way to do it. He wasn't just talking
about it. He wasn't just writing op eds or.
Speaker 4 (41:05):
Going on TV.
Speaker 5 (41:06):
He was trying to build a new coalition.
Speaker 3 (41:09):
I love that term occupy, occupy Washington, DC, because that's
exactly what it feels like looking back on the promise
of it. But let's talk just for a second about
the enduring relevance of King. I mean, doctor King today
is a symbol of American exceptionalism, and it seems to me,
I mean, just certainly from my reading of your biography
(41:31):
and the teaching that I do in the classroom that
I mean, this guy is as relevant today and death
as he was when he was alive. I mean, was
that a motivating factor even several years ago, not counting
the madness of anti CRT and the misappropriation of King's content,
of our character stuff that goes on now. I mean,
how were you thinking about King's legacy when you first
(41:51):
set out to do this biograph.
Speaker 5 (41:53):
I started this book I think even before yeah, before
Trump was elected. So, but there was so much in
the air at the time that was was relevant. Obviously,
because so much of what King had to say is
still you know, ringing in our ears. You know, he
called out not just racism, but income inequality and and incarceration,
(42:15):
and he talked about reparations, he talked about police brutality.
You know, the issues are still so alive. And at
the same time, I felt like, where's King now? We're
not teaching his works, We're not you know, kids aren't
reading him. I wasn't reading him in college. We've turned
him into this really safe, watered down figure, and his
life and his words don't bear that out. So I
(42:36):
just felt like, especially when I was meeting people who
knew King during my ALI work, I felt like we
needed to hear his voice again. We needed a more
intimate portrait of King. That was really what got me started.
Speaker 3 (42:48):
So you just mentioned reparations and the Poor People's Campaign
and the possibility that it held, you know, at the
height of the apotheosis of King and his vision for
the future of America. So what are some of the
lessons that we should take from King's own commitment to
this bold, challenging vision of a multi racial demid percy
(43:09):
that was more egalitarian.
Speaker 5 (43:11):
I don't know where to start on that one, Khalil,
but I think the main message is that it's okay
to be idealistic, it's okay to and it's in it's
necessary to fight for what you truly believe in. And
yes there's there's time and a place for compromise, but
not everybody has to be a compromiser. I think King
was pushing us to really fight for what we believed in,
(43:33):
and in some ways the man who best recognized that
was j Edgar Hoover. He truly recognized the threat that
that posed.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
Hmmm, yeah, that's something that Khalil Lexto always say that
the backlash is so strong because the danger of multiracial
democracy is real. One of the lessons that I took
away from reading the book is what you talked about earlier,
kind of a mission on King's part, which is overlooking
women in the movement. And you know, it's so clear
(44:03):
that that women need to be part of the struggle
going forward, and they were, they were diminished somewhat during
his time, and so there seems to be like, when
I think of the lessons for today, that seems to
be part of it for sure.
Speaker 5 (44:18):
Yeah, that's one of the negative lessons, and you know,
we can see it. King missed out on a huge
opportunity there, and everybody from Ella Baker to King's own
wife was trying to wake him up to that, and
he failed. And maybe if he'd lived longer, he would
have come around and seen the light.
Speaker 3 (44:36):
Yeah, well, you just used a word wake up, which
it actually is a term that comes up in the
very last sentence of the book. And Ben and I
were joking about the fact that this notion of being
woke right has become essentially criminalized in something like twenty
(44:57):
states in terms of what it means to teach children
the actual king, the radical king, the king who believed
in a revolution of values, or even to teach about
the FBI's Hitler.
Speaker 2 (45:09):
Right, I'm the very last line of the book. Re
read the line.
Speaker 3 (45:12):
No, no, I'm going to I'm want to ask John, John,
I'm going to have you say it.
Speaker 1 (45:17):
Do you know the last line of the book?
Speaker 4 (45:18):
I don't you do it?
Speaker 1 (45:20):
All right? All right, find it. It's the very last line.
Speaker 5 (45:23):
You got to read it are very Survival depends on
our ability to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas,
to remain vigilant, and to face the challenge of change.
Speaker 2 (45:34):
Thank you for reading that. Were you thinking there. Even
in writing that about sort of all the current attacks,
I'm being called wokeness, like the anti wokeness movement from
the right.
Speaker 5 (45:44):
Yeah, that was that was a part of it. But
the main point I think is that he's saying we
have to stay alert and if you want to use
the word woke, fine, but we have to be aware
that that conditions always change, but our principles don't have to,
and that we have to keep fighting no matter what
the conditions we're in. And if you're not, if you're
so set in your way, is that you're not paying
(46:05):
attention to the changes and you're not adapting to them,
and you're not renewing your call and renewing your vision,
then you're not going to get it done. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:15):
Yeah, well that's encouraging.
Speaker 3 (46:17):
Let's let's hope the book doesn't end up on any
banned book list, so.
Speaker 5 (46:20):
It might be good for some more people, you know,
I do want it to be in everybody's hands.
Speaker 2 (46:26):
Yeah, people who might Yeah, people who might not initially
embraced King but could learn a lot from this book
and can learn about our democracy.
Speaker 3 (46:35):
Well, John, it was a true delight to have you
on some of my best friends, are I learned some
new things in reading your biography. I hope that our
listeners pick it up and check it out as well.
We're excited to see what comes next.
Speaker 4 (46:49):
For you don't even ask oh, thank you guys man.
Speaker 2 (47:09):
So John's book and maybe even more so, the conversation
that we just had made me think about King differently. Okay,
it made me think about King really as part of
the complex history and politics of his moment, you know,
like we often think about King or the fight for
(47:30):
civil rights almost in kind of biblical terms, like you know,
Moses getting the Israelites out of Egypt, and as you said,
there was like this brass ring of fighting for voting rights.
But he was also just like part of history, like
he had to think about the political moment, like there's
a war going on, I gotta say something, and like
(47:52):
there's a Democrat running for president LBJ, Do I support
him or not? That's right to me. That's so interesting
because it makes me think of like any leader today,
you know, you know, do you support Biden his re
election campaign? You know, do you talk about climate change? Also?
Do you talk about immigration? Like everything is watered down?
And that's yeah, it's just a different view of King.
(48:15):
It's a different way to think about him, and it's
also what makes John's book unique.
Speaker 3 (48:20):
I think, well, I think in general, biographies at their
best capture the indeterminacy, the uncertainty, the emotional rollercoaster that
leaders experience, and people who are involved in work that
is disruptive, that is dangerous. And I love that in
this conversation with Jonathan we were able to hear from
(48:43):
him and of course, having read the book, just how
much this new information draws our attention to these guys.
You know, they were all young. King was mostly you know,
the late nineties and early thirties, I mean, unbelievable, right,
So I hope that people pick this biography up. You know,
this is a moment for revisiting this past that will
(49:04):
help us hopefully see our way through the battles ahead.
Speaker 2 (49:08):
Right right, Well, love you, Khalil.
Speaker 1 (49:11):
Love you too.
Speaker 3 (49:18):
Some of My Best Friends Are is a production of
Pushkin Industries. The show is written and hosted by me Khalil,
Jabon Muhammad, and my best friend Ben Austin.
Speaker 2 (49:28):
It's produced by Lucy Sullivan. Our associate producer is Rachel Yang.
It's edited by Sarah Nix with help from Keishel Williams.
Our engineer is Amanda ka Wang and our managing producer
is Constanza Guyardo.
Speaker 3 (49:42):
At Pushkin thanks to Leitol, Molad, Julia Barton, Heather Faine,
Carly Migliori, John schnarz Retta Cone, and Jacob Weisberg.
Speaker 2 (49:52):
Our theme song, Little Lily, is by fellow chicagoan the
Brilliant Avery R. Young from his album Tubman. You definitely
want to check out his music at his website Averyaryong
dot com.
Speaker 3 (50:04):
You can find Pushkin on all social platforms at Pushkin Pods,
and you can sign up for our newsletter at pushkin
dot fm. To find more Pushkin podcasts, listen on the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you like to listen.
Speaker 2 (50:18):
And if you like our show, please give us a
five star rating and a review and listen. Even if
you don't like it, give it a five star rating
and a review, and please tell all of your best
friends about it. Thank you. If that aside Khalil remains it,
(50:42):
I'm gonna buy you lunch okay, whatever man
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