The Word of the Lord Is Upon Me: The Righteous Performance of Martin Luther King, Jr.

This book is very informative. In this time where sounds bites seems to define who we are, this book takes a deep look into Dr. King's complete "personhood". A must read for those who want to understand Dr. King complete ministry.

The Word of the Lord is Upon Me is perhaps best described as a biography of the rhetoric of the century's greatest orator. Rieder mentions that part of the aim of the book is to reclaim the true Martin Luther King from the shallow appreciations of St. Martin that occur every January. King's medium was speech, and he was less saint than maestro, sampling from cultural traditions across the spectrum, recasting, remaking, and retelling.

Through King's words -- often plagiarized, borrowed, or written by others, then spoken in his inimitable voice and made his own -- Rieder's academic study and close reading becomes compelling. Rieder has a keen ear for language, bringing out the subtle nuances in the maestro's recombined rhetoric in beautiful prose of his own. "Righteous performance" in the book's title captures the extent to which King's inspired prophecy was carefully calibrated; his themes and voices often reflected the audience; and he was always keenly aware of his desired effect.

The one thing missing from the book is the voice of King himself, the instrument that animates the pages. As Rieder points out, absent his voice the words themselves can be uneven, as in King's published work, which was invariably heavily edited for white audiences. King's genius was in speaking to audiences across racial lines, connecting with each within their own tradition, and then analogizing that with the African-American struggle with civil rights. King did this with audiences from Southern Afro-Baptist congregations to Reform Jews, from white liberal Protestants to the AFL-CIO, bringing his audiences into his fold by the power of his charisma.

He was able to reach all these disparate listeners in part because he himself contained multitudes: his love of opera, weighty theological discussions, and language were no less authentic than his love of soul food, his bawdy sense of humor, or his deep belief in the redemptive power of a Christ who loved all humanity regardless of race.

(Full disclosure: Jonathan Rieder is an old friend.)