The Heavens Might Crack: The Death and Legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.

A vivid portrait of how Americans grappled with King's death and legacy in the days, weeks, and months after his assassination


On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was fatally shot as he stood on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. At the time of his murder, King was a polarizing figure--scorned by many white Americans, worshipped by some African Americans and liberal whites, and deemed irrelevant by many black youth. In The Heavens Might Crack, historian Jason Sokol traces the diverse responses, both in America and throughout the world, to King's death. Whether celebrating or mourning, most agreed that the final flicker of hope for a multiracial America had been extinguished.
A deeply moving account of a country coming to terms with an act of shocking violence, The Heavens Might Crack is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand America's fraught racial past and present.

• Redemption: Martin Luther King Jr.'s Last 31 Hours
• The Seminarian: Martin Luther King Jr. Comes of Age
• To the Promised Land: Martin Luther King and the Fight for Economic Justice
• To Shape a New World: Essays on the Political Philosophy of Martin Luther King, Jr.
• The Promise and the Dream: The Untold Story of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy
• A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History
• A Chosen Exile
• JAY-Z: Made in America
• Said I Wasn't Gonna Tell Nobody: The Making of a Black Theologian
• The Strange Career of Jim Crow