“‘If people think that it was Martin Luther King’s movement, then today they – young people – are more likely to say, ‘gosh, I wish we had a Martin Luther King here today to lead us.’…If people knew how that movement started, then the question they would ask themselves is, ‘What can I do?’”
Our society – or human nature possibly- tends to validate truth according to the perfection of its bearer. Witness a crime? The lawyer has only to attack your character to strike the truth from the record. They say never meet your heroes.
We’ve reduced Martin Luther King, Jr. to a name, a photograph, a national holiday, a historical icon. David Garrow introduces us to the man, the fallible yet passionate human. Someone with an uncanny oratory talent fueled by the highest moral convictions. Someone who dreamed of a society of brotherhood but could not see beyond his present sexist culture. Someone who held firm to the binding principles of that society but floundered in engineering the political mechanics of its creation. Someone who rebeled. Someone who never reached the land to which he led people. Someone anxious. Someone weak. Someone full of doubt. Someone like us.
This book does not explain the national holiday or celebrate the icon. It follows the evolutionary development of a man enveloped in the needs of his people; absorbed by the culminating events of his time. People rallied around his talents in Montgomery and his moral aptitude would not allow him to turn away. His convictions motivated him; not his skills. He learned that leadership demands a narrow focus for successful results but that it also demands consideration of where to focus; on the vision and purpose rather than incremental goals and outcomes. He developed his vision and convictions beyond those of his peers. He dared to activate on making his dreams a reality. He transcended the image his oppressors preferred and now try and reinvent.
He did not enter the civil rights arena with the answers. I don’t know if he had them at the end of his life. He bore a vision and the moral conviction to accept the burden of his time and people. He may not have had the How or What but the Why carried him. How many of us have a Why and the courage to activate?
This book is long. This book is incredibly detailed, exhaustively researched and avoids editorial speculation, as King deserves. It exposes the valiant heart of a flawed human which may make some people squirm. But if we don’t honor that flawed human, we risk ostricizing other flawed humans in the continuous struggle to not only realize America’s promise, but foster it, root it. America is a fleeting hope that can disappear when you lose vigilence. It is not a hidden place or a promised land but an active life that requires constant nurturing and diligent cultivation. If nothing else, King embraced that calling.
The Immersion Library 
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