Burial for a King
Martin Luther King Jr.'s Funeral and the Week that Transformed Atlanta and Rocked the Nation
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
In the aftermath of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, riots broke out in 110 cities across the country. For five days, Atlanta braced for chaos while preparing to host King’s funeral. An unlikely alliance of former student radicals, the middle-aged patrician mayor, the no-nonsense police chief, black ministers, white churchgoers, Atlanta’s business leaders, King’s grieving family members, and his stunned SCLC colleagues worked to keep Atlanta safe, honor a murdered hero, and host the tens of thousands who came to pay tribute.
On April 9, 1968, 150,000 mourners took part in a daylong series of rituals honoring King—the largest funeral staged for a private U.S. citizen. King’s funeral was a dramatic event that took place against a national backdrop of war protests and presidential politics in a still-segregationist South, where Georgia’s governor surrounded the state capitol with troops and refused to lower the flag in acknowledgment of King’s death. Award-winning journalist Rebecca Burns delivers a riveting account of this landmark week and chronicles the convergence of politicians, celebrities, militants, and ordinary people who mourned in a peaceful Atlanta while other cities burned. Drawing upon copious research and dozens of interviews— from staffers at the White House who dealt with the threat of violence to members of King’s family and inner circle—Burns brings this dramatic story to life in vivid scenes that sweep readers from the mayor’s office to the White House to Coretta Scott King’s bedroom. Compelling and original, Burial for a King captures a defining moment in America’s history. It encapsulates King’s legacy, America’s shifting attitude toward race, and the emergence of Atlanta as a new kind of Southern city.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
After King was shot in Memphis on April 4, 1968, riots broke out in cities across the country, and more soldiers and National Guard troops had to be deployed on U.S. soil than at any time since the Civil War. Yet Atlanta, preparing to host King's funeral and thousands of visitors, remained relatively calm a tribute to the unlikely alliance between the city's progressive mayor, police chief, student activists, business leaders, ministers, and King's inner circle. Drawing on White House transcripts, FBI records, oral histories, and her own interviews, Burns (Rage in the Gate City) recreates that week in dramatic scenes that shift from Coretta Scott King's bedroom (where much of the funeral was planned) to college campuses, churches, and the White House. Though Burns attempts to put the assassination in a broader context by tracing Atlanta's evolving record on civil rights and President Johnson's passage of the Equal Housing Law the day after King's funeral, this engrossing but narrow book provides an affecting blow-by-blow of events during a week of national mourning.
Customer Reviews
Good book Bad book
This book in theory is good. As a VERY BIG FAN of Dr. King I wad attracted to this book. After reading the allotted amount I decided to make it my first iBook however as I continued to read the book it really wasn't what I thought it was. Yes I describes the effects of Dr. King's death but I felt as I read more and more that the book included things that I would consider as "fillers" and confused me. Such as the book is divided up by days such as the day he died as day one and so on and so forth but yet as I begun to read I was reading about things that happened in 1960. I felt some things should have been left out or better organized. But this book did provide info that I had never known before. So I gave the book 4 stars.