On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was fatally shot as he stood on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. Today, his murder is seen as a national tragedy, a moment of collective shame. Yet at the time, King was a polarizing figure—scorned by many white Americans, worshipped by some African Americans and liberal whites, and deemed irrelevant by younger blacks—and his assassination was met with uncomfortably mixed reactions. In The Heavens Might Crack, historian Jason Sokol traces these diverse responses, shedding new light on a moment when our highest ideals were brought low. Riots tore through American cities while some whites celebrated King’s death. The effects rippled across the globe, from London to Johannesburg, and in Washington, DC, his murder spurred major gun control legislation. King’s assassination acted as a tipping point in the nation’s racial history. Just a few years prior, with the enactment of landmark civil rights laws, peaceful progress toward equality seemed probable. With King’s death, most agreed that the final flicker of hope for a multiracial America had been extinguished. The assassination exposed an enduring white racism and contributed to a rising militancy among African Americans. In the place of hope, outrage and indifference, anger and apathy reigned. King’s ideal of the beloved community dissolved into a fanciful dream. A deeply moving account of a country coming to terms with an act of shocking violence, The Heavens Might Crack reveals how King’s assassination shaped his own legacy—from a controversial figure in 1968 to a canonized hero today—and the course of the civil rights movement and race relations in America.

Martin Luther King Jr today is an uncontroversial figure, and we tend to see him as a saint whose legacy is entirely uncomplicated. But in 1968, King was a polarizing figure, and his assassination was met with uncomfortably mixed reactions. At the time of his death, King was scorned by many white Americans, worshiped by a segment of African Americans and liberal whites, deemed irrelevant by the younger generation of African Americans, and beloved overseas. He was a hero to many. But to some, he was part of an old guard that was no longer relevant, and to others he was nothing more than a troublemaker and a threat to the Southern way of life. In The Heavens Might Crack, historian Jason Sokol traces the diverse range of reactions to King's death, exploring how Americans - as well as others across the globe--experienced King's assassination, in the days, weeks, and months afterward. He looks at everything from rioting in inner cities to turbulence in Germany, from celebrations in many parts of the South to the growing gun control movement. Across all these responses, we see one clear trend: with King gone and the cities exploding, it felt like a gear in the machinery of the universe had shifted. Just a few years prior, with the enactment of landmark civil rights laws, interracial harmony appeared conceivable; peaceful progress toward civil rights even seemed probable. In an instant, such optimism had vanished. For many, King's death extinguished that final flicker of hope for a multiracial America. With that hope gone, King's assassination would have an indelible impact on American sentiments about race, and the civil rights landscape. The Heavens Might Crack is a deeply empathetic portrait of country grappling with the death of a complicated man. By highlighting how this moment was perceived across the nation, Sokol reveals the enduring consequences King's assassination had for the shape of his own legacy, the course of the Civil Rights Movement, and race relations in America.

All Eyes Are Upon Us explores the history of racial struggles in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York from World War II to the present. The Northeast has long basked in its reputation as the home of abolitionism and a refuge for blacks fleeing the Jim Crow South. But its cities have also stood as strongholds of segregation and racism. At times, this region witnessed bold experiments in interracial democracy: the schools of Springfield, Massachusetts, attempted to abolish racial and religious prejudice; white fans in Brooklyn embraced Jackie Robinson; voters repeatedly supported black candidates, including Senator Edward Brooke in Massachusetts and Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm in Brooklyn. Yet during these same moments, an opposing narrative unfolded- one highlighted by worsening black poverty, hardening patterns of segregation, and exploding incidents of racial violence. All Eyes Are Upon Us probes the conflict between these two warring traditions.

During the civil rights movement, epic battles for justice were fought in the streets, at lunch counters, and in the classrooms of the American South. Just as many battles were waged, however, in the hearts and minds of ordinary white southerners whose world became unrecognizable to them. Jason Sokol's vivid and unprecedented account of white southerners' attitudes and actions, related in their own words, reveals in a new light the contradictory mixture of stubborn resistance and pragmatic acceptance-as well as the startling and unexpected personal transformations-with which they greeted the enforcement of legal equality.