Well, they were good books, but I can’t say I learned all that much new stuff about King. Things I didn’t know:
Convicted or indicted segregationist killers were getting preferential treatment from southern politicians all the way into the mid 1980s.
J Edgar Hoover was even more evil than I thought. For chrissakes, talking about the smaller skulls of blacks and how that made them stupid? Not notifying King of assassination threats?
Spike Lee whitewashed the hell out of the Nation of Islam in his screenplay of Haley’s book. They were pure fucking evil, and it was blatantly obvious they had Malcolm killed. Not to mention that 5 assassins were in the room that day, not one.
Malcolm X was possibly the first political pundit. He had little or no power base, relying entirely on outrageous statements for publicity and income.