David Garrow

I'm a pro forma Bernie Sanders donor. In years past, when Michael Harrington was still alive, I was a very active member of Democratic Socialists of America. ”

Dr. King, if he were alive today, probably would simply be a minister, a pastor. His initial intent was, indeed, just to be a preacher. He didn't have any egotistical desire or need to be a public figure or celebrity. He got drafted - or, really, dragged into it - initially in Montgomery. ”

I think American life would be better without Twitter, and I think we'd have a better country if the president was not on Twitter. What people say in a bar or a pub doesn't necessarily merit being memorialised. ”

Once you choose to run for president of the United States and succeed, your earlier life, your biography, is a major part of American history. ”

Dreams from My Father' was not a memoir or an autobiography; it was instead, in multitudinous ways, without any question a work of historical fiction. ”

I first started reading about Barack and taking notes when he won the Iowa caucuses in January 2008 because I was embarrassed that, at that point, I knew virtually nothing about him. ”

King would certainly be overjoyed by Barack Obama's inauguration, but we must avoid, and indeed reject, any careless claims that Obama's swearing in marks the fulfillment of King's dream. ”

With Barack, there's an emotional need to succeed, to win, to obtain victory. He always believes that he's the smartest person in the room. ”

I have very purposely never signed up with commercial lecture agencies as most, I think, prominent historical authors do because, to me, that's a contradiction of who I believe I am given my absorption of the teaching of Martin Luther King, Jr. ”

The Barack who was so successful in Illinois in a Republican-controlled legislative situation for most of his time and who was a very outspoken progressive voice, that's not the man who we ended up having as president. ”