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Lädt ... Death of a King: The Real Story of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Final Yearvon Tavis SmileyAn excellent account of Martin Luther King Jr.'s last year. The Baptist preacher from Georgia takes on an insane schedule to fight for his beliefs and he feels increasingly misunderstood and rejected by his own people. Before I read this book, I was not aware how strongly Martin Luther King opposed the Vietnam war - he saw the bigger connection between poverty, war and race. Many others criticized him saying he was taking on too much - and how could he oppose President Lyndon Johnson, after he had made concessions toward civil rights. MLK even considers a fast like Gandhi to show that he is firm in his conviction - he disregards politics, popularity, but sometimes also his own safety. "I am not a consensus leader", he says, "a genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus, but a molder of consensus." He wanted to substitute courage for caution. An impressive testimony to one of America's greatest democratic public intellectuals. Zeige 2 von 2 |
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Google Books — Lädt ... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)323.092Social sciences Political Science Civil and political rights Civil Rights Biography And History BiographyKlassifikation der Library of Congress [LCC] (USA)BewertungDurchschnitt:
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There were a couple of small irritations with the book for me. Smiley insisted on continually referring to MLK as "Doc," which was his nickname among his friends and advisors. I didn't feel that was necessarily appropriate here and it irked me from time to time, though not seriously. Also, Smiley relatively frequently writes as if he knows King's thoughts. He explains this in his introduction, saying he only does this when his interviews with King's close advisors reveal what these people felt sure King was thinking, or sometimes what he said to them. I was willing to give Smiley the benefit of the doubt on this effect, basically trusting that he had the ideas and emotions correct. Somebody who knew King might have a different idea.
All in all, I thought this book was very much worth reading, though frequently depressing. I had tended to think of King's live as mostly single-toned, if that makes sense. King was just King, the great man who sometimes had his missteps but was consistent in the long run. Understanding the that the enormous pressures of the times--the discord, hatred and doubt--had on King during his last year only adds to my esteem for his life and what he was able to accomplish. ( )