Transcripts For CSPAN2 Jonathan 20240704

Now i have the honor introducing jonathan. I. Go, oh, it is it is common me when i visit family and friends to be greeted by an article artistic depiction, a quote of the reverend dr. Martin luther jr plays prominently in the home ive known of the life and of dr. King since childhood. I revere and respect his legacy because the honor deserved and as a black american i owe so much to it. Growing up baptist i was privy to i was privy to sacred conversations about the works of dr. When i heard of jonathan book king a life i wondered and 2023 what could i learn from reading a biography about dr. King that i did not already know but i was eager to out. In fact, i have Meticulous Research and the ability to uncover significant make this book which is the first significant biography written of the civil rights icon in in decades and about 30 years. It makes a must read this is the first king biography to include recently declassified fbi files before reading it, i thought very good, hoover intensely disliked dr. But i Research Suggests that hoover was dangerously obsessed with the reverend as weve seen in the media recently and, the run up to this book release. Mr. Wright has also uncovered details that may cause some of us to rethink kings with malcolm x. Its a finding that could really change the view of and perspective of some of the Civil Rights Movement. And theres a lot, lot im looking forward to this. Great conversation we have chris set, a maryland freelance writer will be doing the interview with jonathan tonight. So please welcome jonathan i thank you. So a of nuggets before we get into serious stuff first of all as an atlanta, im just thrilled to be here talking to you about this book but ive also been stalking you twitter and watching what youve been doing leading up to this event. And i cant help ask the first question, which harder writing a book or promoting one . I definitely prefer writing it because i left alone and dont have anybody to blame but myself. If the social media world confuses me and i dont like it, but its if you want people to read books, thats what you have to do these days. So im happy to do it and im having fun. Were grateful to have you here in gaithersburg. My real first question, id like to hit you with a two parter. You mentioned early in the book that one of the kings first dreams was actually to be firefighter. So question for you is really twofold. The first part is, can you possibly imagine what it would have looked like if a young Martin Luther jr had shown up at a house fire . And secondly, what would have it what would it have looked like if he had chosen to stay in that profession and fight the flames of houses instead of Racial Injustice . Thats a great question. How many men in the audience today . The first thing they wanted to be when they were really little was a firefighter yeah. So he was normal and thats a big part of what i set out to do is you remind that hes normal. How many men women in the audience today wanted to be something whatever their parents were, the opposite of what their parents were doing for a so Martin Luther king not want to be a preacher either because father was a preacher, his maternal grandpa father was a preacher and he grew in a community surrounded by preachers. So Martin Luther king, mike, he was known at the time our little mike because his father was big mike. Little mike wanted to be anything but a preacher because thats what his father did. And he grew up surrounded the church. He learned to read the learned to recite the bible before he read. So even far as when he went to college at morehouse again, thats where his father went. He went to morehouse saying hes going to become a hed moved on from firefighter by that point and it said he wanted to be a doctor or a lawyer because he thought that would be a good way to help the community and perhaps you know engage in the struggle to defeat crow, to fight for justice. But the pull of the church was always there and even when he went in high school, he took a summer job. Think about this, martin. These are the things that either just blow my mind. First of all, they think of him as, mike, until hes like 18, 19, hes still calling himself mike after he took a summer job, high school and college, tobacco farming in connecticut, his first time visiting the north. And there on the tobacco farm, theyre looking for somebody to help out in the kitchen. And hes smart guy. So he volunteers to be a cook because he gets more food and better food and he also volunteers to lead the prayers. So heres this kid whos resisting even age 17, 18, saying, no, im not going to be a preacher, not going to be a preacher, not going to be a preacher. But he finds himself leading the prayers. All the other, you know, high school farmers who were working up in simsbury, connecticut, summer. So its pulling him. And then actually his second summer of tobacco farming, he gets pulled over by the police. We dont know why he and a bunch of friends driving and it might have just been because they were a car full of black men that they got pulled over and there were no charges filed. But we do know that martin mike little michael so worried about what his parents reaction going to be to the fact that he got had a in with the police that he called his parents to tell him about it and use that phone call to tell his father. He decided he wanted to be a preacher after all. So his friends. I interviewed one of his friends who worked as a tobacco farmer with that weather that summer and he said, you know, emil was not called to the to the ministry by a god. He was chased there by the police. So i see that youre on the chance to describe the scene of on a fire. Thats fair enough. Yeah, i think were all curious, but to kind jump ahead a little bit, if he had another career choice, how do you think, america, would look today . Well, this is the thing about any great figure in history, there are so many choices could have made where they they dont end up there. Right. He thought about going the university of edinburgh for doctorate degree. What happens if he goes to to scotland to study instead of boston. He may never come back. He would have certainly taken out of the american system where race. You know, certainly in boston there was no escape from racism. And he learned more northern racism on that during those years of his education. But if he had been in edinburgh, he might have decided just to stay over there a lot simpler when it comes to race relations. But who knows . Theres many of those moments. If he hadnt become a preacher, obviously very unlikely he might have become a lawyer. He might have gone to work for the naacp, but we dont. The important thing to me, its not about those accidental confer of history, the important things to me are the intentional ones. When he graduates from boston university, he had a choice of many jobs. He had job offers in the north he intentionally decided to go south even though coretta who by now he was in love with and engaged who want to she wanted to stay up north because she wanted to be a concert singer. Shed gone to the new england conservatory of music and she knew she could not have a career as a performer in the south. But Martin Luther king by now he is Luther King Jr as hes graduating from boston university. Hes not yet dr. Martin luther king, but hes Martin Luther king jr. Hes very intentional wanting to go south because he wants to be in the fight. He doesnt have any plans to become a leader of any movement. He just wants to run a church in the south where he can make a difference and eventual perhaps become a University Professor or maybe a university president. Thats his thats his career vision. But when the moment comes and again, this is about choice, when he gets to montgomery and a bus boycott begins. We all know theyre looking somebody who would be willing to address the first mass meeting. Thousands of people are gathering at holt Street Baptist Church on december 5th, 1955, trying to whats this going to be . Can we all to stay off the busses tomorrow . Can we do we want to stay off the busses indefinitely until the city integrates those busses . How long we do this and whos going to help decide and they ask king to be the the for the movement for the movement is there not malcolm to lead yet and hes not sure if he wants to do that because hes got new baby at home. Hes just getting used to his new church. And he just turned down a request to become a board member of the acp in alabama. But decides hes going to step up and makes a speech that day. That night. And for these thousands people who are not only filling the biggest in montgomery, but spilling out into streets, thousands of people to the where when king arrives, he cant even get the church. He has to abandon his car blocks away. And thats the night that he has to decide whether hes going to become Luther King Jr, in effect. And thats why i begin the book by saying on december 5th, 1955, a young black man became one of the Founding Fathers of america. And that was that was his choice to take that role and he didnt know how big it was going to get but he made the decision that he was willing to put himself into the breach and and put himself at risk because he certainly knew what kind of risks were involved in standing up to the system. Well speaking of decisions, im really intrigued how you chose to write this book. You mentioned early in the pages that some newly available had hit the world but what was the light bulb for you where you thought, oh im going to go take on one of the worlds biggest icons . You know, it happened so that i never even noticed that there wasnt a light bulb moment. I was working on my muhammad ali book for, i guess from about 2010 to 2015, 16th. And i was interviewing like harry belafonte, gregory, reverend jesse jackson. Andrew young. And i would ask them about the times in which muhammad ali met dr. King and. Then i just became curious and found myself asking more about king. So what was he like . And i just figured if youre going to get a chance to meet gregory and andrew young and, go to Harry Belafontes house and spend hours with him and. You dont and youre not curious about other people that theyve met. You. So i just took the interview beyond a little bit and started asking about king and and then when i got done with the ali book, i realized there were still dozens of people out who knew king, who i hadnt spoken to, maybe even hundreds, because king would only be, i should say only, but he would only be 94. Today, his older sister alive, harry belafonte, who just passed away he was 96. These people were older than king. And there was an opportunity to do what i figured be the last book in which you could interview people who knew. King so i just began it without even being sure that i could get a book contract or that there was a there would be demand for another king book. I just figured, if nothing else, im going to get their on tape. Im to run around. And thats what i did before covid hit. Thank god i traveled the country, interviewed 200 people, and id say about 100 of them knew king personally. I knew him well. And then when covid hit was actually a little bit of an advantage for me, because these folks were or a little bit on the old side and they were trapped at home with not much to do. And i could call them every day. And they were happy to hear from me and literally, literally reverend james lawson, whos one of my great heroes and i called him like three times a week for like months on end. And june dobbs , who . Dr. June, but who grew up with king auburn avenue childhood playmate, says that mlk, by the way, i used to cheat like hell at monopoly. Mel would never cheat. And would slap his brothers hand when he tried to anyway, i talked to her probably 100 times on the phone, visit her. Three times she was in a nursing home just outside of atlanta. And as if talked to her on 100 times, she probably told me same joke about was the only person i know. I never heard of the jokes, slightly bawdy ones about Martin Luther king told me a joke about one thing probably 25 times. Same joke. And i loved it every day. Laughter well, you got it. Im not going to the oh. Thats the first time we sell a lot of books. Gather around. Ill tell you the joke. Fair down in chapter, the seminarian, you say that king described his Mission Early on, and i thought this was such a small, subtle goal to discover a method the elimination of social evils piece of cake, right. How do you think. He did better than just about anybody in american history. That doesnt mean he succeeded. We still have some evils. But this is the thing. What does that goal really mean . His goal is to is to destroy social. What does that mean . Means hes reading the bible and he actually believes it does that so shocking right . Those of us who take the time to read the bible, probably believe it. But how many of us actually dedicate to making the bibles words live up to making to ourselves individually and our society . Live up to the words in the bible . And thats what king tried to do. And you dont you might say, well, of course, he was a preacher thats what all preachers do. But he put his on the line for it. Day after day. And when he knew he was risking his life. And certainly he knew that day, december 5th, 1955, when he stood up in front of the whole Street Baptist Church, he knew that the wasnt going to be happy about this and that this not hypothetical. There still lynchings in alabama in 1955, but after his home gone got bombed after shotguns were through the doors and windows of his house after was stabbed in the chest at bookstore in manhattan after the fbi after his own government brought down the full powers. Its top Law Enforcement agency, to try to destroy him, to urge him to commit to try to break his marriage. After all of that, he still kept doing it. He still kept acting as if he he could rid the world of social evils. And that to me, well, thats i wrote a book about him because that to me makes him maybe the greatest american ive ive ever known. And read about. That is a tough answer. Ask a good follow up question to you. Got me preaching a little bit. Oh well, okay. Well, i have a question later on very subject. So one of the things that struck me and i didnt know how consciously aware you may have been of as a biographer, do you find sometimes that when youre writing, you end up taking on a bit of the voice of that subject . Because there are paragraphs in the book where there words and i feel like im in front of him and im experiencing a bit of a revival myself. Did was it infectious and did that affect your writing process . Well, yeah. You live with this voice in your head for six years and youre trying to tell his story. Im my job as a as a writer. I always feel like its to be invisible. I do not want you to ever stop when youre reading and go. Oh, wow, jonathan is a wonderful writer. Look at that sentence. I want you to be in kings and in his life and. Some writers are really beautiful writers, and i think that sometimes that distracts from the story. I want to really a beautiful who does not distract from the story i want you to be thinking about the story and kings story. And if im getting spirit, if im getting that tone, that you feel like youre hearing a sermon or your hearing this told in a way that makes you feel like king is with you in the room then im doing my job but i would also say just on a a practical standpoint there were moments where i couldnt use kings words and i had to try to create the effect of his speeches because the family would not give me permission to quote from his at length from his speeches which we can talk about if youre interested in that kind of nitty gritty. But as a result of that, you will find passages especially. During the great speeches at the march on washington example, where i only use a certain number of his actual words, and im trying to make sure you dont notice that i want you to feel like all the words are his, but i am legally bound to use only a certain number which was a really interesting exercise writing for me. Well, i would definitely to come back to that. There are some other places, the book, where some of your words are so subtle yet so powerful, that as i was reading them, i sort of felt like i was getting hit with a punch from muhammad ali. And one of the lines it really struck that you wrote, you said, describe kings wedding ceremonies. What happened with credit that night since no hotels in the city would accommodate them . They spent the first night of their marriage in the guest bedroom of funeral parlor. And i read that and my heart sank. And my question is, why didnt you take a more nonviolent to literary change with some of these paragraphs . That one hit me pretty hard. Well, thats my job, is to try to make the facts hit you hard. Because think about it all know in grade school, kids know that america was segregated in the south that black folks couldnt ride the busses and they had to sit in the back of the train and that they couldnt try and Close Department stores. We know that stuff but it doesnt hit you sometimes because you dont think of it in the context of someones life. But when you think about the fact that these people just had what should have been the most magical day of their life, they just committed to spend the rest of their lives together. Its time to start the honeymoon and they have to basically on a cot the back of a funeral home that night because there are no hotels that will let them say that that is the kind of fact that i hope, you know, hits you like a punch in the gut. It did. And it did change subjects just a little bit. One of the one of the one of the areas that people are talking the most with your book is how greatly humanized it. And talking in great detail about his Extracurricular Activities with women and his other flaws is someone who grew up with this image of him high atop a mountain, preferably someday stone mountain. What were your thoughts in being that explicit and such an icon . And then did you have to put some thought into how candid you were willing to be. I put a lot of thought into it for sure, but then the number reason i wanted to write this book is, because over the last 50 years or so, especially, we established a National Holiday for king. We have watered down his life, his story. We watered down his we teach kids in kindergarten about i have a dream and judging people the content of your character. And we dont the first half of that speech or any of his other speeches, we dont have any of his books in our schools. We dont teach that he called for reparations, that he criticized brutality, that he said basically america was the greatest purveyor of, violence on earth during the vietnam war. We forget about that stuff because we want to make him a safe and uncontroversial figure. And i wanted to write a book that would remind people he was human that. He took risks, that he had flaws that he had moments of doubt that he was hospitalized numerous times for this was a man who was under was putting himself, had enormous risk to try to make this better country. And if you want people to believe him and you want people to believe all the amazing, wonderful he did, then you have to be honest and admit that he was human, then he did have flaws. And it was important about the fact that king had affairs with women other than coretta is not the fact that he was flawed. He knew that we knew that whats important it is that our government weaponized those flaws to try to destroy him, to divide black leaders, to do to break up the Civil Rights Movement and to maintain the power as they desired for it to be maintained, which was basically, you know, White Christians supremacy, which was jagger. Hoovers motto. And thats why i felt like you have to be about this stuff or youre never going to understand what king really meant to us, what was really trying to do and why america wasnt prepared to, listen to him. Well, following that up, you write a lot about media and changing public opinion. And you quote a line, a newsweek story that came after birmingham reached as successful conclusion as could be reached at the time in newsweek, we wrote the wellsprings of the river protest lie. In a world as remote and as unfamiliar to most white americans as the far side of the moon, the dark side who these revolutionaries and what do want and . I dont know how comfortable you are trying to take historical and compare them to today, but what struck me as i read that was that that was a time where people some people were at least open to change and open to learning about people different to them. And then it led to all kinds of incredible legislation. Today, i worry that we too many folks that are holding too tightly to sort of a willful and theyre not as open to having their hearts touched. Do you think that in todays age, Martin Luther king jr could have touched the of as many people as he did then and could have affected as much change now then and forgive me if its too of a question. No, i think that absolutely its a great question. And i dont think we incapable today of hearing other voices unless youre the governor of florida. I think most of us are willing to be woke. And i dont mean that in the whatever people i mean, we most of us are will are open to new ideas. Were willing to listen, want to learn. We want to understand the world around us and the beautiful thing about Martin Luther king, i think the reason that he emerged, the great leader of the Civil Rights Movement and not some of the other incredibly brave activists who were out there marching, is that king had a voice that somehow opened the hearts and minds of people who were not prepared for it. It was one thing to get the members of the black baptist in the south to follow him. They were ready to lay down their lives for him, but somehow he also got white liberals. He somehow got black people who thought that he was conservative to listen. He somehow got other white ministers in the south to say, wow, that is he is the bible accurately. Maybe i should rethink that. He had a unique ability to cross over lines to get lots of people from lots of different backgrounds to hear his message and to join him now had limits, of course, because when he began saying, well, you know, thank you for all your support you northern liberals, i appreciate all the money youre sending to support my on Voter Registration in the south. Now lets talk about white flight in new york and in chicago lets talk about segregated schools in, new york and philadelphia and los angeles. Lets talk about income. Well, suddenly they didnt necessarily want to hear that anymore, but nevertheless, more than anyone else, he was able to push us. I think and i think you see this most dramatic right after the march on Washington National television, watching this unbelievable image of black white people literally singing together in harmony and this is a moment where i think a lot of americans felt like, you know, we really can change it felt like this. And people from all different political stripes were writing about it, be time for us to actually move past the age of racism and segregation. America seems its ready to move on and that infuriated the fbi. Thats what led to their decision to start wiretapping his phones. Of course, we all know it led to the bombing of the church in birmingham just days later, because there were some people who just said, oh, hell no, thats not going to happen, including, you know, leaders of our government. A lot of people have weighed in on this question over the decades, but im curious for your take as a biographer, i cant even imagine, number one, being in his shoes. And number two, if i had been in his. How i wouldnt have been overcome by a hatred of white people. And throughout the book. And throughout his life, he talks about love, but just human to human and from the people you talk to. How did he not give in to that . He believed in the in the bible. He believed in jesus. And thats what jesus taught us fundamental. Its the heart of religious belief. All religious belief really. But ill tell you one story about that, about hating white, which he was certainly justified do when he was six years old. King had a playmate across the street from, his house on auburn avenue, the white kids family owned a grocery, a little Mini Convenience store, and king grew up playing with this kid because theyd the kid to the store while parents were working in the store. And when they got be six years old, they went to kindergarten. They went, of course, went to separate schools. And when he came home from kindergarten to look for this little boy, boy said, im not allowed to play with you anymore because youre colored was the word he used as king it. And king had to go home to his parents and say, whats whats this all about . And his parents explained to him that the whole history of america explained to him for the first time about the fact that his family and other black families had been enslaved and that america didnt treat them. The equal right unpacked all of that for this little six year old kid. And he vowed he said that he wrote an essay about this in high school and he said he that day to hate white people forever but he couldnt because. The bible said love your love your neighbors. And the bible said that bible certainly didnt any distinctions between people based on their race or their religion, their nationality. So king couldnt do it. And just as an aside, i should mention that i spent about six months trying to find that little white kid. I tracked all the city directories, census reports. I narrowed it down. I found one family that had a Grocery Store on auburn avenue with a kid the same age as milking it. And figured out the name of the kid and he had passed away and. I tracked down his son and said, did your father ever that hed been friends with Martin Luther king jr and because theres a story about king having this friend and he said. No, i never heard that story from my dad. And if you print, ill sue you. Wow. I wasnt worried about getting sued, but i couldnt prove that it was the kid. Same kid. And so i didnt put his name in the book. Thats thats the kind of thing that know the kinds of rabbit holes i love going down in my research. And and thats why it takes six years to write a book to, well, id like to take you down another rabbit hole, but id like to set this up just a little bit. And the question ultimately going to get at your personal experiences of working on the book, but. One of my favorite memories of living in atlanta, i was working on a social justice at the time, and i had been invited to a Historic Office in atlanta to meet with some black leaders in the city. And when i got to the office, all black gentlemen said, why dont you sit right there . And they pointed to a particular spot and they waited until i was halfway down and said, thats where Martin Luther sat. And i panicked. So that i missed the chair, hit the ground. They all started out. Then when i got out, they told me the chair was a reproduction of a time. Right . But at least i was in the room where king had been and im a history geek. So i know that as a writer and a biographer, youre taking a very objective approach during your research on the book and in the travels that took were moments where just as a human, you thought, i am this close to this man. Oh, without a doubt mean. And all of us can go to his childhood home. They offer tours of it now you can go to the parsonage in montgomery, where he lived, coretta, and theyve all been reproduced in. Amazing detail. You know, ive stood in the pulpit. Ive been these are baptist church. Ive stood the pulpit of dexter avenue baptist church. I mean, its unbelievable, an unbelievable feeling. But all of us can do that. And thats one of the beauties of the fact that you know, these places have been preserved. But for me, i think, the greatest emotional was interviewing who knew him and some of them like reverend jimmy bici who went to seminary with king has become a dear friend and just thought that i have a friend who was a friend of Martin Luther kings. Like, how beautiful is that . Right. So like, thats just thats one of the wonders of the world that, you know, like, can connect with people who feel like theyre ancient history, but theyre not. If we open our eyes and we look around, thats great. Youre the paperback version of your book is about 600 pages and weighs about £20. And every pound is fantastic. But even at that length, as you look back at, the finished product are there subjects that you wish you had gone into. Are there other things might like to explore in future work . Well, i could have written this book three times the length. In fact, i asked my editor at one point if i could make it a three volume project because, you know, i found so many new sources of docu. It wasnt just the fbi documents and the fbi has released thousands of new pages on kings on its surveillance of king. And thats one thing. But i also found thousands pages from the kelseys historian kings basically like his private archivist i found tapes that coretta made when she began working on memoir just months after the assassination of her husband. One of my favorite discoveries was during the montgomery bus boycott. A team of sociologists from Fisk University went down and began the boycott, taking notes, interviewing all of the i mean, everybody they could hundreds of people who were walking to work they interviewed klan members as well they had it was an interracial team of sociologists and this you have the very first interview that rosa parks gave explaining what happened on the bus. It was to a Fisk University sociologist long before she started repeating it for newspaper reporters, theres so much material in that archive alone that. I could have written a 500 page book just on the bus boycott. So it was for me to keep it to 600 pages, but i dont know that ill do another book in the same area, but i still certainly felt like there was a lot more i could have learned my last before i turn it over to better questions from the crowd. Authors like you, you write books for a reason. People like me review them so you are clearly the more talented. Is there a question you had been asked by someone like me about this book that youve been waiting someone to ask but they havent been smart . So let me try to be enough to know that i dont know the question. So let me ask you can you ask yourself a question . Oh, my god. Thats what working on what can tell us about your. You must have a you must feel like you have a relationship with king now, the closing thoughts before we turn over to them. How would you characterize relationship with Martin Luther king, jim . Oh, i would say with all of my subjects, i am haunted with fear of disappointing them and, certainly more so with king than any other. If you think about it, what does a biographer do . You take someone elses life in their in your hands, someone youve never met and youre never going to meet. And i worry theyre going to haunt me for the rest of life if i screw it up. And when i first biography was was a biography, lou gehrig. And gehrig was so shy he never gave any interviews . I had no. If i was getting him right. Was he shy . He was just really insecure. Was he shy because he was stupid and he didnt want to open his mouth . And he revealed right. I wasnt sure. And i would have dreamed about spotting him across the room and oh, my, its gehrig. I can finally go talk to him. And he would always and walk away. As i approached with one dream, i saw him hitchhiking and i pulled over. I cant believe it. Im going. Hes hitchhiking. And i pulled over and he said no, keep going. And that is my constant fear. And with Martin Luther king, maybe more than any, because he means so much to the world, really believe hes the greatest american weve ever produced. And to take his life in my hands is absurd, is it . Nobody has that right . But every biographer takes that leap of faith that that act of hubris. And all i can do is like it. My best shot and hope that he appreciates that i tried my hardest and no doubt i got lot of things wrong. No doubt there were moments when you look at them, are you kidding me . Thats not what i said. Thats not what i meant. But i would hope that he, lou gehrig and al capone and muhammad ali would at least say, all right, you gave it your best shot, kid. But i think youve me realize it might take away from this is that in future interviews im going to have the Author Interview himself. Thats working out better. Yeah, but now its to turn it out to the crowd. I hope. I hope we have some questions and if the person celebrating her 85th birthday happens to still be here, she she should get one. Shes here. Im going to throw it back to you in the back question, please. As ive aged i find it increasingly difficult. Be conscious. Become conscious, are painful situations. And it has or as much as i knew about kings life, i was wondering how you deal with the relationship that pain youre exposed to when you work with someone like king how you personally that even when youre doing biography there were moments in writing this book where i wanted cry where was so angry at the way hed been treated and how painful he was suffering. Theres this moment where hes talking to one of his best friends after he gave the speech at Riverside Church on april 4th, 1967, and criticized american war effort and really summarized all of his religious beliefs and they had come together in this moment in which he was challenging america not just to desegregate but to wipe out materials them, to work on poverty, to stop fighting wars and that speech he calls one of his best friends. And we know this because the fbi was listening and recorded the call and the friend says i didnt like that speech it didnt sound like you and i dont understand why youre risking all of the work youve done. Youre going to blow up your relationship with lbj, youre going to cost us a lot of financial and and i just wanted to cry for king and he says to his friend maybe i was politically, but i wasnt morally wrong. And i dont have. Hasnt this friend been listening these years to who this man really is . So i to channel my sadness, my rage into what i was writing and there were moments where i just i hope it comes across on the page where. I basically felt like it was psychotherapy where i was just basically fyou for jager hoover. This paragraph is going to really you hard,. And i hope, you feel it when you read it because thats i was feeling sometimes. Jonathan, could you stand up . Oh yeah. Im so. Yes. Okay. Hi, everybody all right. Looks like we have war eagle in the back for eagle love, dolly. All 600 pages. Ive been dying to start. King did you ever anticipate so much was going to happen now in the media, the king malcolm x revelation, alex haley, now thats getting so much attention. So i discovered this about a year ago one of the things i always do and i didnt do this in my first few books, im a slow learner is if i find a great interview with an important person in my i track down the archives of the journalist who did the interview and i check to see if there are notes from the interview. If there are tapes or transcripts from the interview to see what got left out. When the case of ali, i found a Sports Illustrated reporter who had probably 30 hours of tapes that he made with ali. He just kept a tape recorder running the whole time. Even when they were watching tv. So i could tell you what commercial was on right before ali came on to declare that wasnt going to fight in the vietnam war. But the best interview that the longest interview that king ever did was with alex of roots fame for, playboy magazine. So i found haleys archives at duke university. I asked them if they had the tapes from the interview. They said no, i assume that they had the transcript of the they said, yes. So they sent me the transcript of the interview 85 pages long, and it was very different from what was published and the most famous, most important thing that king ever said about x. Its been printed in history books. Generations comes from that interview. And he said, malcolms fiery, demagogic oratory will bring nothing but pain for the black community. Hes us. And it goes on and on its not in the the transcripts show that king said Something Like that about the nation of islam. But when asked about Malcolm X King said, i disagree course with any calls for violence. But i also dont feel like have all the answers. Im not so arrogant to believe that i can learn something from malcolm x. So thats what king said. Playboy didnt print it. Playboy changed the and i discovered that about a year ago. I put it in my book wondering, if anybody was going to notice i alerted several of the most important prominent africanamerican scholars in america because. Theyve been teaching this. And several of them said to me, oh, no, ive been Teaching College kids that quote for, 20 years. But so theyre not going to it anymore, are theyre going to correct it and much to my surprise pleasant surprise, the washington picked up on that. Its a page in my book, but the Washington Post picked up on it, ran the story last week, and it made international news. So i was thrilled because often you put these things and i know, you know, another writer, the room, Jeff Pearlman knows this. You put these nuggets that you found in your book and nobody really notices them and you hope that people will eventually appreciate it or its set the record straight. You know, we did not put his arm around Jackie Robinson, the quiet the racist crowd. And in cincinnati on may 17th, 1947, i corrected in my book, but nobody seems to notice because its still in the movie. Its still all these other books and documentaries so im really happy that at least this time people to be getting the getting the clue, getting the news. So thanks to, jonathan. Im noticing something odd here. People on the front are really, really shy. So were going to go to the back for another question. And i think maybe we might just have to pick people out of the front row, you know, put a microphone in front of you. Youre not brave enough and well stick with the back of the room. You have a question . Hi. This is now your third third africanamerican that you featured. Why do you choose these people then . Do you ensure that proceeds from your books actually go to either support foundations that are in their honor or their actual families and again, why thats a great question. I think. Why . Because i think. If you dont believe again, like if you dont, that black history is one of the most important and interesting parts of american, then youre just not paying attention. Or youre also the governor of florida. So i, as a trained journalist, have always just looked for the best stories i could that other people werent telling. And i did not set out intentionally to write about any particular race or issue, just looking for the best stories i can tell. And it was shocking to me that nobody had done a muhammad ali biography. And when i when i realized it had been 35 years since the last king biography, what i did was ask the people who knew king best if they thought we needed a new king biography and if they would help me to do it. Then i asked a lot of the leading scholars who had written about king over the years if they thought needed a new biography of king and they would help me. And i ended up having this really Supportive Community around me and felt like it was just an thing to do. And i hope it will fuel others to write biographies. I really strongly believe that we need a new biography of Coretta Scott king, and i would like to be a part of that if that biographer comes along who helps them, because i have a lot of Research Materials that would go toward supporting that. And i have never set aside any that made any plans to with any of my books. I dont make financial promises. I support causes. Ive raised, you know, many, many thousands of dollars for the lou gehrigs disease i helped design the Jackie Robinson museum with Jackie Robinsons family, and his foundation had become an part of my life with the ali family. Ive helped them to make a documentary that was produced and directed by ken burns. I dont know and i dont have some of these books, havent made any money, to be honest. But so the financial thing is always very fluid. And again i am happy and i think part of it. When you take on a biography, when you take on a lou gehrig biography, you become responsible in part for lou gehrigs legacy, especially in his case, he no family. So i feel that having benefited and shared in his story, i have a responsibility to carry that forward and to become an advocate for lou gehrigs disease. And i if i can help in any to promote legacy of Martin Luther king, obviously would be a huge honor do so and i have been working with some members of the king family on some projects that theyre interested in. Im with morehouse now. Im an open book like i think every book that i write, i feel a commitment to talk to pat, to, you know, to pass it forward or whatever that expression is to be a part of that community. And it looks like our threats to the front row worked. And we have a volunteer. Thank you so much. Writing this book, i, you know, as as a child growing up as a child of a black baptist minister, you know, king was always prevalent in our lives, too, to understand, to revere. And your book created not only that, but now this love love beyond respect so so thank you for that. Thank you. And now to ask you youre impressions and thoughts and feelings about king before the biography and now after. Whats the change. I always felt like he was one of our great heroes. I did not appreciate just one an amazing hero is he is i did appreciate fully the depth and this might sound stupid because his name is reverend and dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Im not really fully appreciate the depth of his religious conviction and spending that amount of time him has made me more spiritual to be for one thing, but it has certainly made appreciate how few of us really live the words that we recite from the bible. And i came away really loving him more than i even thought i possibly could. Thats perfect. Im told that are out of time and i going to yield to the people in charge. Jonathan, i agree this has been an absolute pleasure. I will also be in the line to buy some more of the books so that we can ask why you can only quote so many