Managing White Supremacy: Race,Politics,and Citizenship in Jim Crow Virginia Book

This was a fine book up until the end. It's a light look into the effects of King's life and death on the Civil Rights Movement. I learned some things, especially about King's connections to Jesse Jackson and his influence on Al Sharpton. It also gives a brief summary of the differences in philosophy between King and other prominent black figures, contemporary with King and later.

But then Dyson ends it all with an imaginary interview with King, a "what would King say about his death and about the current times if we could talk to him now?" It's inspired by when Bill Clinton imagined what kind of report card King would give the America of the nineties, so I understand what Dyson is doing but it's bizarre, awkward, and plain distasteful. King is "interviewed" about how he feels about dying, whether or not he likes rap music (he likes the rapid-fire and witty delivery, but he doesn't approve of the violent and misogynistic lyrics), how he now fights for marriage equality, and his feelings about Oprah (he is her "biggest fan.") Dyson's half-hearted imitation of King's cadence in the audio version just makes it worse.

To be honest, this phony interview ruined the entire book for me. If the rest of it was exceptional in any way, I might be able to look the other way, but it's not, so I can't.