‘Young King’ charts childhood events that shaped MLK’s future

When Jonathan Eig’s Pulitzer Prize-winning biography “King: A Life” was published in 2024, it became the definitive account of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s life. But a new biography by King scholar Lerone Martin proves there’s more to the story.

“Young King: The Making of Martin Luther King Jr.” (Amistad, $34) is an engaging, detailed examination of the civil rights leader’s privileged childhood, rebellious teen years and ambitious early adulthood that goes a long way in humanizing the American hero’s public image.

It’s one of three MLK-related books publishing Tuesday. The other two are part of an ongoing initiative by Harper Collins to release commemorative editions of King’s speeches.

“The American Dream” (Harper One, $22.99) was a commencement speech delivered to the 1961 graduating class of Lincoln University and features an introduction by King’s granddaughter, Yolanda Renee King.

“The Other America” (Harper One, $22.99) was delivered at Stanford University in 1967, one year before King’s assassination. His son, Martin Luther King III, provides the introduction.

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. at age 6. (Courtesy of Richard Kaplan Collection, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison)

But it is “Young King” that casts new light on King’s origin story. Martin, a professor of religious studies and director of the Martin Luther King Jr. Institute at Stanford, reveals formative childhood events that helped shape King’s convictions as a human rights leader devoted to nonviolent resistance.

Having once described his family as “Negro wealthy,” King grew up in a multigenerational household in a 12-room Queen Anne house on Auburn Avenue, called “the richest Negro street in the world” at the time by Fortune magazine. His parents and grandparents were college-educated and fervently religious. The women in his household — his mother, grandmother and aunt — doted on the first-born son, while his father was a strict disciplinarian who didn’t spare the rod.

Called “Little Mike” until his name was legally changed to Martin at age 6, King was a sensitive boy prone to tears and unwilling to defend himself against schoolyard bullies. When his father delivered a whipping, he stoically endured it instead of resisting or running away like his siblings. His temperament created tension in his relationship with his father, who feared his son was too soft to survive in a hostile world.

Living in the Jim Crow South, King experienced racism early and often. White friends were made to shun him by their parents. While shopping one day, a white woman claimed he stepped on her foot and slapped him across the face. The Ku Klux Klan marched down Auburn Avenue.

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. (right) with sister Christine in 1930. (Courtesy of Richard Kaplan Collection, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison)

In 1961, King told journalist Mike Wallace that Jim Crow did “something to my growing personality.”

Following the death of his beloved grandmother, King entered his rebellious teenage years while attending Booker T. Washington High School. He began to question his faith, even identifying as agnostic for a while, and started defending himself against bullies. He also began nursing a growing resentment toward white people for their Jim Crow laws.

A turning point came when King won his high school oratorical competition for his speech on “the Negro and the Constitution.” He traveled to Dublin by bus for the state competition but failed to place. On the bus ride home, he took his first public stand against Jim Crow by refusing to relinquish his seat to a white passenger. He ultimately capitulated to his teacher’s pleas and retreated to the back of the bus in anger, but a seed was planted.

Upon his return home, he decided to forgo his senior year of high school and apply for early admission to Morehouse College. During the summer break, he joined a Morehouse work program picking tobacco on a farm in Connecticut.

The experience was a revelation.

“For the first time he saw life beyond the bounds of the Jim Crow South,” Martin writes. “No signs berating him with Whites Only or Colored Only. He ate where he wanted; he spoke to whomever he wanted. He shopped where he pleased and had his choice of seats at the movie theater.”

It was during this pivotal time that King reconnected with his faith and preached his first sermon as the elected religious leader of his fellow “Tobacco Boys.”

His course for the future was set.

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. (front) with brother A.D. in 1936. (Courtesy of Richard Kaplan Collection, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison)

Martin’s account proceeds to chart King’s journey through his Morehouse years and on to seminary and Boston University, where he got his doctorate. And he follows King, a dapper dresser nicknamed “Tweed,” through his sometimes messy dating exploits and ultimate marriage to Coretta Scott King.

“Young King” ends with the newly minted preacher accepting his post as pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. There, the stage was set for the burgeoning civil rights leader’s mission to change the course of history.