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We speak in depth with journalist Jonathan Eig about his new book, King: A Life, the first major biography of the civil rights leader in more than 35 years, which draws on unredacted FBI files, as well as the files of the personal aide to President Lyndon Baines Johnson, to show how Johnson and others partnered in the FBI’s surveillance of King and efforts to destroy him, led by director J. Edgar Hoover. Eig also interviewed more than 200 people, including many who knew King closely, like the singer, actor and activist Harry Belafonte. The book has also drawn attention for its revelation that King was less critical of Malcolm X than previously thought.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
We spend the rest of the hour with the author of the first major biography of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in decades. Jonathan Eig’s King: A Life was published this month and draws on unredacted FBI files, as well as the files of the personal aide to President Lyndon Johnson, that shows how he and others partnered with the FBI’s surveillance of King and efforts to destroy him, led by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.
Eig wrote in a New York Times opinion essay about the book that the documents reveal how, quote, “Johnson was more of an antagonist to King and a conspirator with Hoover than he has been portrayed. By personalizing the F.B.I.’s assault on King, Americans cling to a view of history that isolates a few bad actors who opposed the civil rights movement — including Hoover, Gov. George Wallace of Alabama and the Birmingham lawman Bull Connor. They thus fail to acknowledge the institutionalized, well-organized resistance to change in our society.” That’s Jonathan Eig, author of King: A Life, for which he also interviewed more than 200 people, including many who knew King closely, like the singer, actor and activist, the late, great Harry Belafonte.
The book has also drawn attention for its revelation that King was less critical of Malcolm X than previously thought. Eig found the original transcript of an interview King did with Alex Haley, who’s the author who collaborated with Malcolm X on his autobiography. The transcript shows how Haley misquoted and even made up part of King’s response. In fact, King never said, “Malcolm has done himself or our people a great disservice.” And King’s comment about “fiery, demagogic oratory” was not related to Malcolm X.
To talk about all of this, we’re joined in Chicago by Jonathan Eig.
Welcome to Democracy Now!, Jonathan. This is an epic work. Congratulations on years of research and writing. Why don’t we begin where I left off, on this exposé around what Martin Luther King really thought of Malcolm X? Talk about the significance of how Alex Haley shaped the narrative for so many decades, and who Haley was.
JONATHAN EIG: Alex Haley was one of the best-known African American journalists of his era. He wrote for a lot of mainstream white publications, like Reader’s Digest and Playboy. And the Playboy interview that he did with Martin Luther King was the longest interview — the longest published interview that King ever gave. So it had significant impact. It reached a lot of white readers who were not otherwise going to be exposed to such a long interview with King.
And because of the comments that King made, or supposedly made, about Malcolm X, it’s been handed down for decades, for generations, that this is what King actually thought about Malcolm X. And it was, as you pointed out in the introduction, largely fabricated.
AMY GOODMAN: And talk about how you found this out and what you understand King really thought about Malcolm X. They actually only met in person once — right? — in Washington, D.C., although Malcolm X did go to Selma. And talk about what he said to Martin Luther King’s wife, Coretta Scott King.
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