Martin Luther King Jr.’s Life and Legacy: A Conversation with Jonathan Eig

Jonathan Eig is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of King: A Life and five other books, including four New York Times best sellers. The New York Times hailed King: A Life as the “monumental” and “definitive” biography of Martin Luther King Jr.

Eig’s previous book, Ali: A Life, won a 2018 PEN America Literary Award. His works have been translated into more than twenty languages. He served as a producer on the PBS documentary Muhammad Ali, which was directed by Ken Burns.

The Birth of the Pill, Eig’s 2013 book, will be produced as a play next year by Chicago’s the TimeLine Theatre Company.

Eig began his writing career at age 16, working for his hometown newspaper, The Rockland County (N.Y.) Journal News and went on to work as a reporter for The New Orleans Times-Picayune, The Dallas Morning News, Chicago Magazine, and The Wall Street Journal. He lives in Chicago with his wife and children. He is currently at work on a biography of George Soros.

Seth Green is the dean of the Graham School of Continuing Liberal and Professional Studies at the University of Chicago.

Before joining Graham, Green served as Founding Director of the Baumhart Center for Social Enterprise and Responsibility at Loyola University Chicago. During his tenure, the Center launched a top-ranked specialty MBA program, a globally significant award for social innovation in business, and an array of educational programs that annually engage more than 4,000 learners. Green also served as an Executive Lecturer in Loyola’s Quinlan School of Business, teaching classes on social entrepreneurship and receiving recognition as the Mission-Driven Faculty Member of the Year in 2021.

Prior to Loyola, Green led Youth & Opportunity United (Y.O.U.), a nonprofit organization that prepares low-income youth for post-secondary and life success. At Y.O.U., Green oversaw the fourfold expansion of programs and a $16.4 million fundraising campaign to build a state-of-the-art youth center. He also spearheaded two strategic planning processes, resulting in an enhanced program model and deepened impact. Alongside Y.O.U., Green taught courses on nonprofit management as an adjunct lecturer at Northwestern University.

Earlier in his career, Green worked as a consultant at McKinsey & Company, guiding private sector clients through strategy development and change management. A recipient of McKinsey’s Community Fellowship, he spent one year of his time at the firm supporting nonprofit clients, including the Gates Foundation and United Way.

Green speaks and writes on social innovation. His commentaries and research have appeared in the Christian Science Monitor, Fortune Magazine, the Journal of Business Research, and the Social Innovations Journal, and he previously served on the Editorial Review Board of the Business and Society Review. Green has been a featured guest on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, MSNBC, and CNN, and his efforts have been covered by the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Chronicle of Higher Education. In 2008, Utne Reader named him one of 50 “Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World.”

Green is civically engaged in Chicago, having served on the Campaign Cabinet of the United Way of Metro Chicago, the Impact Investing Advisory Council of the YWCA Metropolitan Chicago, the Advisory Board of Concordia Place, the Membership and Engagement Committees of the Economic Club of Chicago, and the Advisory Board of the Executives’ Club of Chicago.

A Marshall Scholar, Green holds a J.D. from Yale University, master’s degrees from Oxford University and the London School of Economics, and a bachelor’s degree from Princeton University.