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April 4, 1968

Martin Luther King Jr.'s Death and How It Changed America

Contributors

By Michael Eric Dyson

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On April 4, 1968, at 6:01 PM, while he was standing on a balcony at a Memphis hotel, Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot and fatally wounded. Only hours earlier King — the prophet for racial and economic justice in America — ended his final speech with the words, “I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight, that we as a people will get to the Promised Land.”

Acclaimed public intellectual and best-selling author Michael Eric Dyson uses the fortieth anniversary of King’s assassination as the occasion for a provocative and fresh examination of how King fought, and faced, his own death, and we should use his death and legacy. Dyson also uses this landmark anniversary as the starting point for a comprehensive reevaluation of the fate of Black America over the four decades that followed King’s death. Dyson ambitiously investigates the ways in which African-Americans have in fact made it to the Promised Land of which King spoke, while shining a bright light on the ways in which the nation has faltered in the quest for racial justice. He also probes the virtues and flaws of charismatic black leadership that has followed in King’s wake, from Jesse Jackson to Barack Obama.

Always engaging and inspiring, April 4, 1968 celebrates the prophetic leadership of Dr. King, and challenges America to renew its commitment to his deeply moral vision.

On Sale
Jan 6, 2009
Page Count
304 pages
Publisher
Civitas Books
ISBN-13
9780465012862

Michael Eric Dyson

About the Author

Dr. Michael Eric Dyson is an award-winning and New York Times bestselling author of over twenty books, a widely celebrated professor, a prominent public intellectual, an ordained Baptist minister, and a noted political analyst. He is a two-time NAACP Image Award winner, and the winner of the American Book Award for Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster. His book The Black Presidency: Barack Obama and the Politics of Race in America was a Kirkus Prize finalist. He is the co-author of Unequal with Marc Favreau. He is also a highly sought after public speaker who is known to excite both secular and sacred audiences. A native of Detroit, Michigan, he currently lives in Nashville, Tennessee. He invites you to follow him on Twitter @michaeledyson and on his official Facebook page (facebook.com/michaelericdyson).

Marc Favreau is the director of editorial programs at the New Press, the acclaimed author of Crash,  Spies, and Attacked!, and coauthor (with Michael Eric Dyson) of Unequal: A Story of America, a finalist for the YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults. He lives in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts.

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