A Nation on Fire: America in the Wake of the King Assassination 9780470177105, 2008026789

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In A Nation on F/re, journalist Clay Risen relies on dozens of interviews and reams of newlv declassified documents to offer a sweeping day-by-day, city-by-city account of the riots, from the looting and burning in Washington to explosions of violence in Chicago, Baltimore, Kansas City, and 117 other cities, large and small. Taking readers inside the Oval Office, the Pentagon, and city halls across the country, he introduces them to key players at every level from the first army soldier to enter Washington to the crack team of Johnson aides who managed the crisis from inside the White House to the civil rights leaders who helped avert violence in Memphis, where King was shot. In an epic narrative, Risen shows how a mere ten days—between Lyndon Johnson’s withdrawal from the 1968 campaign on March 31 to King’s death on April 4 to Johnson’s signature of the 1968 Civil Rights Act on April 11—literally rewrote the course ofAmerican history, from race relations to urban decline to presidential politics. (continued on hack flap)

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Lyndon Johnson got the call a few minutes after 7 P.M.: “Mr. President, Martin Luther King has been shot.” Within hours, rioting had engulfed Washington, D.C. Before the violence was over, the U.S. Army occupied three major American cities, and National Guard units patrolled a dozen more. The riots that followed the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1968, delivered a death blow to the liberal dream of the 1960s, gave new life to the faltering conservative political movement, and launched urban America into a downward spiral from which much of it has never recovered.

A NATION ON FIRE America in the Wake of the King Assassination

Clay Risen

WILEY

John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Copyright © 2009 by Clay Risen. All rights reserved Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey Published simultaneously in Canada Photo insert credits: DC Public Library; © Washington Post: page 1; Lyndon Johnson Library and Museum: pages 2 top, 4 top, 6 top; Star Collection, DC Public Library; © Washington Post: page 2 bottom; Getty: page 3 top; Corbis: pages 3 bottom, 4 bottom, 7 top, 8 bottom; Lt. James V. Kelly, Baltimore Police Department: pages 5 top, 7 bottom, 8 top; Magnum: page 5 bottom; courtesy of the Washingtoniana Division, DC Public Library: page 6 bottom. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 646-8600, or on the web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Ill River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748-6011, fax (201) 748-6008, or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions. Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and the author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages. For general information about our other products and services, please contact our Customer Care Department within the United States at (800) 762-2974, outside the United States at (317) 572-3993 or fax (317) 572-4002. Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books. For more information about Wiley products, visit our web site at www.wiley.com.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data: Risen, Clay. A nation on fire : America in the wake of the King assassination / Clay Risen, p.

cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-470-17710-5 (cloth) 1. Race riots—Linked States—History—20th century. 1929-1968—Assassination. States—Race relations.

3. Inner cities—United States—History—20th century.

5. African Americans—Social conditions—1964—1975.

States—Social conditions—20th century. HV6477.R57

2. King, Martin Luther, Jr., 4. United

6. United

I. Title.

2009

973.923—dc22 2008026789 Printed in the United States of America

10

987654321

.

For Joanna

We learn, as the thread plays out, that we belong Less to what flatters us than to what scars. —Stanley Kunitz, “The Dark and the Fair”

Co ntents

Acknowledgments

xi

Prologue 1

1

King, Johnson, and the Terrible, Glorious Thirty-first Day of March

11

2

April 4: Before the Bullet

29

3

April 4: The News Arrives

39

4

April 4: U and Fourteenth

33

5

April 5: Midnight Interlude

69

6

April 5: “Any Mans Death Diminishes Me”

83

7

April 5: “Once That Line Has Been Crossed”

99

8

April 5: “Official Disorder on Top of Civil Disorder”

113

9

April 5: The Occupation of Washington

129

10

April 5: “There Are No Ghettos in Chicago”

141

11

April 6: Roadblocks

157

12

April 6: An Eruption in Baltimore

169

vii

CONTENTS

Vlll

13

April 7: Palm Sunday

183

14

April 8: Bluff City on Edge

193

15

April 9: A Country Rent Asunder

203

16

April 10 and 11: Two Speeches

217

17

A Summer Postscript

229

18

1969 and After

243

Notes

257

Index

283

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