From a New York Times author interview headlined “The Making of a New M.L.K. Biography”:

Having written about Muhammad Ali, Al Capone, Jackie Robinson and other touchstones of the American imagination, Jonathan Eig says he recognizes a common trait in the disparate personalities he’s explored.

“Most of them, if not all of them, have a serious streak of rebellion running through their lives,” Eig said.

His latest biography sets out to show just how squarely Martin Luther King, Jr., belongs in that category, as a bold and often radical thinker whose forceful views on the Vietnam War, poverty and race relations were softened by time and political expedience.