Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Transformative Power of Suffering
Some takeaways from Jonathan Eig's recent biography of the man we honor today.
In 2024, I determined to read Jonathan Eig’s recent biography of Martin Luther King, Jr., by the end of the year. I failed in that goal, largely because I read a number of other books and publications before I started “King, a Life.” Late last year, I finally began reading the biography in earnest and am now more than halfway through. It has not disappointed.
Eig’s well-documented book draws from MLK’s speeches, writings, interviews, and other materials. It vividly paints a picture of a man who, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, by virtue of his extraordinary eloquence and unflagging commitment to justice, was thrust into leadership of the nascent civil rights movement. Dr. King appears in these pages not only as the gifted orator that recordings of his speeches have allowed us to remember, but also as a pragmatic and courageous strategist who knew how to make an impact and sacrificed his own freedom and safety to do so. And he was willing, sometimes it seems even eager, to suffer arrest and imprisonment when doing so would help advance the movement he led.
In King’s time, the book reminded me, the struggle was not so much about civil rights in the abstract, but about ending the concrete policies of racial segregation that had so viciously afflicted the Black citizens of the Southern States. It was about ending state laws that forced Black riders to sit in the backs of buses, that prohibited Black people from sitting at lunch counters in white-owned stores, that segregated schools and hospitals and neighborhoods — pretty much every institution that mattered to most people.
Racial justice scored an important victory in 1954 with the Supreme Court’s unanimous decision in Brown v. Board of Education. That case held that “separate educational facilities are inherently not equal,” and that laws establishing racial segregation in public schools were therefore unconstitutional. But the decision did not end all forms of segregation, and did not even bring a timely end to segregation in the schools. It took many years of continued effort, numerous lawsuits, and additional Supreme Court action before forced public school segregation was finally eradicated.
Ten years after the Supreme Court’s decision, and after many speeches given and sit-ins, marches, and demonstrations led and attended by Dr. King, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on “race, color, or national origin.” Dr. King, who was in frequent contact with Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and eventually gained the support of President John F. Kennedy and then LBJ, was instrumental in its passage. (I haven’t reached that part of the King book yet, but I read about LBJ’s dogged efforts to get the law passed a few years ago in Robert Caro’s excellent three-part biography of the late President.)
But my purpose today is not to lay out a history of the civil rights movement, a task for which I am hardly qualified. Rather, I wanted to share a passage from Eig’s book that resonated with me because it echoes what I’ve heard and read in recent years from other thinkers I admire.
To place it in context, we must remember that Dr. King was not just the leader of a political movement; he was a pastor. For him, racial justice was both a value embedded in America’s founding documents and a Biblical imperative. Forced racial segregation not only offended King’s belief in equal rights; it also was incompatible with the teachings of the Hebrew prophets and, most of all, the teachings and example of Jesus. The Gospel narratives, combined with what King had learned from ancient philosophers and Mahatma Gandhi, as well as his own practical insights, led him to a firm commitment to nonviolence as the only acceptable instrument of societal change.
King was firmly opposed to violent protest from a moral and religious conviction, and because he believed violence would play into the hands of those who opposed the change he and others were trying to bring about. But he also recognized, as the example of Christ made clear to him, that a commitment to nonviolent methods for bringing about violently opposed change means to accept the suffering brought upon oneself as a result. As Eig explains:
Suffering had the power to bring people closer to Jesus, in King’s view. People who were willing to suffer rather than inflict suffering on others could set the example, he said, changing relationships between individuals, communities, racial groups, and nations.
Eig quotes from a letter King had sent to the editor of The Christian Century, which was preparing to publish an article King had written, and explains that King’s letter was echoing the words of Jesus in Matthew 11:28-30 (“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”) Referencing this passage, King wrote:
I have learned now that the Master’s burden is light precisely when we take his yoke upon us. My personal trials have also taught me the value of unmerited suffering. As my suffering mounted I soon realized that there were two ways I can respond to my situation: either to react with bitterness or seek to transform the suffering into a creative force. I decided to follow the latter course . . . I have lived these last few years with the conviction that unearned suffering is redemptive . . . The suffering and agonizing moments through which I have passed over the last few years have also drawn me closer to God.
Part of the appeal of Eig’s book is that he not only covers Dr. King’s letters and speeches with which many of us have at least some passing familiarity, but he also introduces us to gems of wisdom from King’s personal philosophy tucked away in unpublished writings that most of us have never seen. And what a gem he reveals here.
Eig makes no pretense that MLK was a perfect person. The book includes descriptions not only of King’s professional triumphs but also of his personal failings. But reading the book reminds us that, while America and the world are moving through particularly perilous times, the struggle for freedom and justice is not new. It has been going on throughout history and continues to pervade even now. Making a difference in that struggle requires wisdom, discipline, strong leadership, and a willingness to confront the forces of oppression. And that willingness to confront also means having the courage and commitment to accept the consequences of doing so.
One can only hope that Martin Luther King, Jr.’s example will continue to inspire others to take up the mantle of liberty and justice for all, and to know the redemptive, transformative power of any suffering that may fall upon them when they do.