DePaul University's Ida B. Wells-Barnett University Professor, Michael Eric Dyson, made a decision about three years ago that seems destined to change not only his own life, but the remembrances of Martin L. King, Jr. as well. He decided to write a book on King that would paint a more realistic picture of America's greatest civil rights activist-one that could talk about King's burdens and weaknesses, and examine how his political nature had evolved to radicalism by the time of his death.

     "I wanted to read a book that explored King's radical legacy," said Dyson. "It became clear that in order to read it, I had to write it."

     "I May Not Get There With You: The True Martin L. King, Jr." (The Free Press), released this month nationwide, was written by Dyson while he was touring the country lecturing and making media appearances. "I was going around the country giving all these speeches on King and I was just tired of the official story of King's rise, with no acknowledgement of the opposition to his ascent, no acknowledgement of the terror he confronted in making the dream real for America," recalled Dyson.

     An author and scholar who is one of the most sought-after experts on topics as diverse as religious ethics, race, hip-hop culture and gangsta rap, Dyson's latest tome has debuted to stellar reviews.

     However, criticism of the book is creeping through the African-American community. Much of the talk has to do with Dyson's head-on approach to dealing with King's human frailties, including his plagiarism and promiscuity. He also includes a brutally frank chapter on the King family's "commercializing the fallen leader's image." Dyson said he has already felt the long arm of the King family's disapproval, having had a speaking engagement at King's church in Atlanta, Ebenezier Baptist, cancelled after Coretta Scott King and her children got wind of what was in the book.

     Other critics from the African-American community have expressed concern about the parallels Dyson draws between King and today's black youth. Dyson maintains in the book that King has as much in common with the immortalized rapper Tupac Shakur as he did with the Rev. Ralph Abernathy, a co-founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).

     "What I wanted to do was to flesh out this stick figure," said Dyson, who is also an ordained Baptist minister. "When you restore flesh to the bleached bones of history, you've got to include the warts and pimples."

     In 13 chapters and 300-plus pages, Dyson examines King's ideology, identity and image. In the preface, Dyson warns that "in the last 30 years we have trapped King in romantic images or frozen his legacy in worship." Dyson says he seeks "to rescue King from his admirers and deliver him from his foes."

     In his section on King's ideology, Dyson addresses such subjects as how King's moral integrity caused him to take an unpopular stance against the Vietnam War at a time when even his closest friends and advisers would not support his position and risk offending President Lyndon B. Johnson.

     Dyson explains how King's ideas have been sanitized, particularly when it comes to his mistrust of white America, his commitment to black solidarity and advancement, and the radical message of his later life. "Today right-wing conservatives can quote King's speeches in order to criticize affirmative action, while schoolchildren grow up learning only about the great pacifist, not the hard-nosed critic of economic justice," Dyson writes.

     The chapters in part two of the book address King's identity. Here Dyson illustrates how King's democratic socialist philosophy and traditional beliefs shaped his public persona, including his progressive push of radical Christianity for the black church and his patriarchal practices with regard to women in the civil rights movement.

     Finally, Dyson deals honestly with two sensitive subjects that other authors have had difficulty examining with both fairness and accuracy: King's adultery and his borrowing heavily from the works of other scholars and authors. Dyson delves into King's sex life in the context of the total loss of privacy that King suffered under the scathing glare of the FBI and J. Edgar Hoover's campaign to smear his name. In quoting SCLC officer Andrew Young, Dyson recounts that "the campaign against Martin and the movement was less about sex than about fear of sexuality." Dyson paints King as a man who was often away from his wife and family 27 days out of the month and who was both "tortured by his adultery and comforted by its serial anonymities…".

     In addressing the charge that King plagiarized sermons and academic work, Dyson dissects the arguments of scholars Keith D. Miller and Richard Lischer. Dyson agrees with their suggestion that King's borrowing had a noble purpose, and invites his readers to explore fully King's use of language. He goes further to state that sloppiness in attribution, the enormous pressures under which King operated, even the nature of the black oral tradition may have played a role here, but are not excuses for plagiarism.

     Dyson, whose first introduction to King occurred at nine years old at the time the civil rights leader was slain in Memphis, said he hopes that his critics will reserve comment until after they've read his book. "I hope they will see that my intent is not to destroy King or remove the halo, but to restore him to the flesh and blood human being that he was, the man who struggled against social evil," said Dyson.

     In many ways, Dyson said that he's been writing the King book all of his life because he was so profoundly affected by the image of King's assassination on television, until he committed to learn all he could about this fallen American hero. Young Dyson spent afternoons at the public library reading King's speeches, and shortly thereafter joined the speech club at his school and began his own public speaking career. "I love King, absolutely," he said. "He was the greatest American that ever lived. We honor King by engaging him-warts and all. It does King no service to romanticize him. We need a sense of the obstacles he had to overcome in order to achieve the great things he did."

     Dyson, who holds DePaul's first university-wide professorship, will teach a class on King in the spring quarter. He is the author of several other books, including "Making Malcolm: The Myth and Meaning of Malcolm X," "Between God and Gangsta Rap" and "Race Rules: Navigating the Color Line."

     For information on Dyson's book tour or to arrange speaking engagements with the author, call 773/325-4675.