"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 US 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. 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 of American history, from race relations to urban decline to presidential politics."--Book jacket.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 257-282) and index.

King, Johnson, and the terrible, glorious thirty-first day of March April 4 : Before the bullet April 4 : The news arrives April 4 : U and Fourteenth April 5 : Midnight interlude April 5 : "Any man's death diminishes me" April 5 : "Once that line has been crossed" April 5 : "Official disorder on top of civil disorder" April 5 : The occupation of Washington

April 5 : "There are no ghettos in Chicago" April 6 : Roadblocks April 6 : An eruption in Baltimore April 7 : Palm Sunday April 8 : Bluff city on edge April 9 : A country rent asunder April 10 and 11 : Two speeches A summer postscript 1969 and after.