The Word of the Lord Is Upon Me: The Righteous Performance of Martin Luther King, Jr. - Hardcover

Rieder, Jonathan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0674028228 ISBN 13: 9780674028227

Publisher: Belknap Press, 2008

Synopsis

“You don’t know me,” Martin Luther King, Jr., once declared to those who criticized his denunciation of the Vietnam War, who wanted to confine him to the ghetto of “black” issues. Now, forty years after being felled by an assassin’s bullet, it is still difficult to take the measure of the man: apostle of peace or angry prophet; sublime exponent of a beloved community or fiery Moses leading his people up from bondage; black preacher or translator of blackness to the white world?

This book explores the extraordinary performances through which King played with all of these possibilities, and others too, blending and gliding in and out of idioms and identities. Taking us deep into King’s backstage discussions with colleagues, his preaching to black congregations, his exhortations in mass meetings, and his crossover addresses to whites, Jonathan Rieder tells a powerful story about the tangle of race, talk, and identity in the life of one of America’s greatest moral and political leaders.

A brilliant interpretive endeavor grounded in the sociology of culture, The Word of the Lord Is Upon Me delves into the intricacies of King’s sermons, speeches, storytelling, exhortations, jokes, jeremiads, taunts, repartee, eulogies, confessions, lamentation, and gallows humor, as well as the author’s interviews with members of King’s inner circle. The King who emerges is a distinctively modern figure who, in straddling the boundaries of diverse traditions, ultimately transcended them all.

About this title

About the Author

Jonathan Rieder is Professor of Sociology at Barnard College, Columbia University.

Reviews

With the passage of time, those citizens that Americans elevate to the status of secular saints seem to be all things to all people, both conservatives and liberals enjoying claiming Lincoln or Jefferson as their own. It is almost 40 years since Dr. King’s death, and we can see a similar process unfolding as both Republican and Democratic politicians quote or paraphrase his words. Rieder, a professor of sociology, illustrates that King himself consciously facilitated that process. He examines an extensive variety of King’s public speeches and backstage discussions with close associates. It is evident that King chose to tailor his speaking style and occasionally the content of his message to fit his audience. Before southern, black congregations, King was a traditional Baptist preacher. In front of northern and primarily white audiences, his tone was calmer, more nuanced. In unguarded moments, an angrier King is evident as he expresses his frustration with slow racial progress. But the constant in his message was a demand for both compassion and justice that rightfully continues to captivate and inspire his countrymen. --Jay Freeman

Edition details

• Publisher: Belknap Press
• Publication date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0674028228
• ISBN 13: 9780674028227
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 408