A Study Of King
M., L.
CRUSADER WITHOUT VIOLENCE, by L. D. Reddick. Harper. 237 pp. $3.95. This book, by an occasional contributor to DISSENT, is a biography of Martin Luther King, the Negro minister who led the bus...
...It gives that picture from the inside, sympathetically yet not uncritically...
...The biographical section is done with appropriate modesty and restraint...
...In short, it is a serious book and it deserves serious attention...
...But even more valuable, it is a book which gives a detailed, intimate and authoritative picture of the new political trends within the Southern Negro community...
...it shows the development of King from his origins in a middleclass section of the Atlanta Negro community into one of the most complex and skillful political leaders in the nation...
...If for nothing else, that would make his book a valuable one...
...L. M. 310...
...This book, by an occasional contributor to DISSENT, is a biography of Martin Luther King, the Negro minister who led the bus boycott in Montgomery and has since become one of the most remarkable figures in American public life...
...The most interesting parts of the book, however, are those which show, even more than they analyze, exactly what non-violence, the so-called adaptation of Ghandi's tactics to Southern conditions, means...
...Reddick makes it clear that these new political tactics cannot be understood simply by glib references to their supposed origins, but must be studied in the concrete, as a gradual adaptation to unique circumstances...
...It is the work of a partisan, but not the work of a press agent...
Vol. 7 • July 1960 • No. 3
