Martin Luther King was among the greatest Americans—and the most misunderstood

The phrase “content of their character”, which King used in his “I Have a Dream” speech, delivered at the March on Washington of 1963, has become one of his best known. Out of context, it seems to advocate colour-blindness towards individuals above all else, even to suggest that policies which take account of racial inequities are themselves unfairly biased. That is a misunderstanding of King’s views—and it is far from the only one in wide circulation.

His book will inevitably draw comparisons with “America in the King Years”, a three-volume history by Taylor Branch. But that trilogy was sprawling and expansive—almost 3,000 pages long, and as much about America between 1954 and 1968 as about King. Mr Eig’s is a more traditional biography, and the book benefits from its narrower focus. It gives the reader more insight into the multifaceted man himself.

King was the product of a middle-class upbringing, and of a family ensconced in Atlanta’s black bourgeoisie. His father, affectionately known as “Daddy King”, was strong-willed and stern; he preached at Ebenezer Baptist Church, making it one of the city’s more prominent black churches. King attended Morehouse College, then as now one of America’s best historically black universities, before moving on to seminary in Pennsylvania and graduate school in theology at Boston University.

Mr Eig explains that King “needed to embolden without embittering”. He had to acknowledge his audience’s justified anger yet persuade them to protest righteously and hopefully. Speaking without notes, he advanced a reassuring argument deeply rooted in American and Christian traditions. “We are not wrong,” he declared. “If we are wrong, the Supreme Court of this nation is wrong. If we are wrong, the constitution of the United States is wrong. If we are wrong, God Almighty is wrong.

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