Synopses & Reviews
As a young journalist in the South in the 1960s, Marshall Frady walked the hot sidewalks, sat in crowded churches and courtrooms, and interviewed prominent civil rights leaders. Now the critically acclaimed biographer joins the bestselling
Penguin Lives series to profile the man whose spiritual and political leadership has gained him an indelible place in twentieth-century history. In the masterly and riveting
Martin Luther King, Jr., Frady draws on his twenty-five years of award-winning commentary on American race relations to give an inspiring portrait of this amazing leader and the turbulent era in which he lived.
Martin Luther King, Jr., deftly interweaves the history of the civil rights movement with King's rise to fame and influence and includes fascinating insight into factions within the movement itself. Frady explores the complexities of King's relationship with the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, J. Edgar Hoover's relentless pursuit of King's demise, and King's own anticipation of his death. Above all, Frady's spellbinding voice brings to new life the ambitious, pious son of an Atlanta Baptist minister thrust onto a national platform of moral grandeur and shows, in vividly recalled scenes, recalling how both King and his country reacted to those cataclysmic years.
Synopsis
An inspiring, uniquely firsthand portrait of the civil rights icon is penned by "one of the best political biographers of our time" ("Los Angeles Times").
About the Author
Marshall Frady, a critically acclaimed biographer and veteran journalist, is the author of Wallace, a biography of George Wallace, and most recently of Jesse: The Life and Pilgrimage of Jesse Jackson (a 1996 New York Times Notable Book, excerpted in The New Yorker). He has written for Nightline and for numerous publications, including Newsweek, Life, and Harper's, and been a host, chief writer, and award-winning correspondent for ABC News, where his pieces won many awards.