I May Not Get There with You: The True Martin Luther King, Jr. - Hardcover

Dyson, Michael Eric

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0684867761 ISBN 13: 9780684867762

Publisher: Free Press, 2000

Synopsis

Arguing that Martin Luther King, Jr., should stand beside the Founding Fathers in terms of his significance to American history, the author serves up a compelling portrait of a personally flawed but nevertheless great leader.

About this title

Review:

Provocative preacher-teacher Michael Eric Dyson, known for his hip-hop-style delivery and encyclopedic intellectual powers, heroically tries to update and examine the true legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. for a glib Generation-X world. Calling I May Not Get There with You a work of "biocriticism," Dyson peels away the superficial image of King the man to reveal a complex human being whose work was far from finished or totally understood. "In the last thirty years we have trapped King in romantic images or frozen his legacy in worship," he writes. "I seek to rescue King from his admirers and deliver him from his foes." To that end, Dyson takes aim at neoconservatives like Shelby Steele, who spin King's multiracial dreams into a right-wing call to end affirmative action, and goes after black militants who thought King was "soft" and overlooked the power of his "black radical Christianity." He also criticizes the government's co-opting of King's philosophy in a holiday, as well as what he calls the King family's well-meaning, but destructive, attempts to protect King's legacy. Dyson forces us to accept King for all of his faults--including plagiarism and womanizing--but more importantly allows us to see a real human being who rose to the height of humanity. --Eugene Holley, Jr.

About the Author:

Michael Eric Dyson is an ordained Baptist minister and Ida B. Wells Barnett University Professor at DePaul University. He is the author of Making Malcolm: The Myth and Meaning of Malcolm X, Between God and Gangsta Rap, and Race Rules: Navigating the Color Line. He lives with his family in Chicago.

About this edition

• Publisher: Free Press
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0684867761
• ISBN 13: 9780684867762
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 416