Jonathan Eig will take the stage with guest host Rochelle Riley to talk about his Pulitzer Prize-winning biography, King: A Life, the first major biography written in decades about civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. Vividly written and deeply researched, this revealing portrait by a master storyteller is an intimate view of the courageous and often emotionally troubled human being who demanded peaceful protest for his movement but was rarely at peace with himself.
He casts fresh light on his family’s origins as well as his complex relationships with his wife, father, and fellow activists. In this landmark biography and relying on recently unclassified FBI documents, Eig gives us an MLK whose demands for racial and economic justice remain as urgent today as they were in his lifetime.
Rochelle Riley, director of Arts and Culture for the City of Detroit. She formerly worked as an award-winning, nationally syndicated columnist for 20 years and has been inducted into the Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame, North Carolina Journalism Hall of Fame, and the National Association of Black Journalists Hall of Fame. Her books include That They Lived: African Americans Who Changed The Worldand The Burden: African Americans and the Enduring Impact of Slavery.
