King of the North Martin Luther King Jr.'s life of struggle outside the South

This stellar biography from political scientist Theoharis (Julian Bond's Time to Teach) makes a persuasive case that Martin Luther King Jr.'s campaign for racial justice has been significantly misrepresented, with his "lifelong challenge to Northern inequality... largely hidden in plain sight." Drawing on 15 years of research, including interviews with those who knew King, Theoharis reexamines his life with an emphasis on his thinking about and experiences of Northern racism in the 1940s and '50s--including hypocritical treatment he received at his liberal Pennsylvania seminary and housing discrimination he faced in Boston--building up to his 1965 statement that the "de facto segregation of the North is a new form of slavery covered up with the niceties of complexity." Theoharis counters the accepted narrative that King's activism against Northern racism only manifested itself after the 1965 Watts uprising, detailing King's prominent role in 1963 protests against segregated schools in L.A., New York, and Detroit, and his labeling of Chicago's "systemic and relentless" segregation as akin to that of Birmingham, Ala. Arguing that King's persistent highlighting of "the limits of Northern liberalism" has been suppressed in favor of "the comfortable fable of a King who changes the South... with a cast of Northern good guys," Theoharis unsettlingly demonstrates that "many of these same good guys were actively denying challenges at home by Northern Black activists and King in those very same years." The result is an exemplary history that forces readers to reassess their assumptions about America's racial reckoning. (Mar.)

MLK above the Mason-Dixon line. For decades, biographers have focused on Martin Luther King Jr.'s successful leadership in the South while suggesting that his Northern activism failed because it lacked direction and local support. Theoharis, a professor of political science at Brooklyn College, upends this narrative by painstakingly documenting King's relentless and impassioned battles against Northern discrimination and police brutality, an effort that had its origins in his experiences as a graduate student in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. Author ofThe Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks (2013), Theoharis also presents a fully developed picture of Coretta Scott King's activism, both in tandem and apart from her husband, whom she met as a student in Boston. Neither of the Kings forgot the racism they encountered as students in the North, and they worked with local organizers to address it throughout their lives. Yet time and time again the same white Northern politicians who praised King's civil rights work in the South either fell silent or became combative when King turned his attention to the systemic racism of the North. Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley did everything in his power to stop civil rights progress in the city and defended his white neighbors who "threw rocks, eggs, and firecrackers" at civil rights marchers as "fine people, hard-working people." TheNew York Times,Los Angeles Times,Chicago Tribune, and other mainstream news outlets often ignored or actively refuted King's accusations of Northern racism, creating a documentary history that has shaped King's legacy ever since. By looking beyond these sources, Theoharis depicts a complex, radical King whose fight against Northern racism alternately inspires and infuriates. A powerful must-read that sheds new light on King and the Civil Rights Movement. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.