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

by Clay Risen

A few hours after Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated at a Memphis motel, violent mobs had looted and burned several blocks of Washington a few miles north of the White House, centered around the U Street commercial district. Quick action by D.C. police quelled the violence, but shortly before noon the next day, looting and arson broke out anew -- not just along U Street, but in two other commercial districts as well.

Over the next several days, the immediate crisis of the riots was matched by an equally ominous sense among the nation's political leadership that they were watching the final dissolution of the 1960s liberal dream. For many whites who watched flames overtake city after city -- Washington, Chicago, Baltimore, Kansas City -- the April riots were an unfathomable and deeply troubling response during what should have been a time of national mourning. To them the rioters were little better than common criminals. But a look at the average rioter complicates such conclusions: they were primarily young (under 25) and male, but most made a decent salary, had a better than average education, and had no previous arrest record. In interviews and testimonies afterward, rioters recalled a sense of release, of striking back at the "system."

To say that the riots meant different things to different people would be exceedingly trite if it weren't also exceedingly true. In ways large and small, the King riots solidified attitudes and trends that destroyed the momentum behind racial progress, fatally wounded postwar domestic liberalism, created new divisions among blacks and whites, and condemned urban America to decades of poverty and crime. This book will explain why they occurred, how they played out, and what they meant.

Genres: History, Politics, American History, Nonfiction

312 pages, Hardcover

First published January 9, 2009

Reviews

[Erica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Risen gives almost an hour-by-hour description of the riots that occurred after King's assassination. For the most part, I found the level of detail interesting, but that may be due to the fact that I am familiar enough with Washington and Baltimore (2 of the 3 cities where the Army was called in) that I was able to visualize Risen's descriptions. His descriptions of streets and sectors of Chicago were lost on me.

Based only on the description of those few days, I would rate the book 3 stars, but it got the fourth star for its last two chapters in which Risen argues that the riots had a direct influence on the fall of 1960s liberalism and the rise of Nixon (and, more so, Agnew) and white/suburban America's focus on safety, guns, and law enforcement.

As an aside, I was a little taken aback by Risen's off-hand mention of Columbia, MD as a sprawling edge city in his prologue. In fact, Columbia was one of the first planned communities and it was planned to integrate races and classes. Its first residents moves in in 1967, well before the 1968 Civil Rights Act on Fair Housing went into effect in 1970. Considering the passage of the 1968 Civil Rights Act happened less than a week after King's assassination and Risen gives it ample discussion, I don't think it was accurate to put Columbia in the same sentence as Tyson's Corner (as he did).

[Christopher Saunders · Rating 4 out of 5]

Clay Risen's A Nation on Fire traces the chaotic weeks in April 1968 following the assassination of Martin Luther King. Risen starts with an acknowledgment of King's divisive nature; despised by white conservatives who accused him of fomenting riots, distrusted even by many liberals for his increasing opposition to the Vietnam War, resented by radical black leaders for advocating nonviolence. His death came at a particularly fraught moment, when he was supporting a strike in Memphis and planning a Poor People's Campaign that would have cemented him as a radical. King's death touched off an unprecedented wave of urban riots, which black leaders could neither direct nor control, and which terrified white voters into abandoning supporting for civil rights. Risen reconstructs the riots in meticulous, harrowing detail, but the book's arguably more interesting in showing the varied reactions to them. His book includes an intriguing portrait of Stokely Carmichael, the Black Power leader who'd been working towards a rapprochement with King, only to see his reservations about nonviolent protests tragically vindicated; from here his radicalism grew until he abandoned the United States altogether. Or the efforts of King's supporters to keep his coalition together, only to find it unraveling upon his death. White politicians react in various ways, from the empathy of New York Mayor John Lindsay (who, at great personal risk, patrolled the streets of Harlem to meet with angry blacks) and Bobby Kennedy (whose speeches in Indianapolis and Cleveland forestalled rioting) to the frazzled response of Lyndon Johnson, in the last tortured months of his presidency. All too recognizable, though, are the Silent Majority types who exploited the chaos for their benefit: Richard Daley, the Chicago Mayor whose "shoot to maim" attitude towards rioters was no more empathetic here than at the Democratic convention several months later; Spiro Agnew, the obscure Maryland Governor whose unhinged rant at a group of moderate black leaders for not stopping the violence made him an instant conservative hero (and Vice Presidential timber); and Richard Nixon, who more subtly but no less effectively rode the fear and backlash into the White House. It's a striking (and depressingly relevant) exploration of an America deeply divided, its divisions (racial, political and otherwise) thrown into stark relief by an outbreak of unprecedented violence.

[Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was born and grew up long after the events described by Clay Risen's book, but it's clear after reading it that they had an effect on me and my life. I first became interested in the King riots after living in some of the affected neighborhoods in Washington, D.C., and I was curious about local history. Mr. Risen's telling of the story is complete and insightful, and makes you think about why different people have such different reactions to tragic events. In particular, I was struck by the extent to which the actions—or simply the presence—of a single white leader seemed to prevent violence in some cities. It's interesting to think about what might have gone differently that weekend 46 years ago.

I was consistently impressed with the vividness of the minute-by-minute details of the events. But Mr. Risen also excels at providing a larger cultural context—from Stokely Carmichael's background to that of President Johnson's Attorney General Ramsey Clark, and how those backgrounds influenced the various reactions to the assassination and the riots.

I once thought of history as a boring, static subject—why would I need to know or care about what happened in the past? Books like this one take pains to show the connections between eras, and highlight the lessons we can learn from past events.

[Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stellar story/history of the USA just before, during, and after the riots that swept inner cities after MLK was shot. Risen really gives you the information you need to put yourself there and see the riots come, go, and how they affected our socioeconomic and political landscape. It focuses on DC which I found really helpful - amazing to put yourself on 14th and U the nights before, during, and after the riots. The RFK story of him visiting the destroyed streets of Shaw is told well, and LBJ's response efforts (effective and ineffective as they were) get a lot of attention. Chicago, Baltimore, Memphis, New York, and a few other cities get focus too, but DC was Ground Zero. Go read this book.

[Brian White · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent read. I didn’t know much about the riots after MLK’s assassination but the author’s coverage of the different cities and what happened was very interesting, especially with regards to Maryland. It was also interesting to read this in light of what’s been going on recent in America

[Redpoet · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent with loads of information

[Lainey · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very well researched and well written book concerning the days following the MLK assassination. Risen clearly knows how to create a story that is informative without being difficult to read. I am not a non-fiction reader (this is my second on of 2017 and the second one in years) and I'm very glad I read it. The story buff in me is thrilled to have learned more about a time period glossed over in my history classes.

For a full review: https://thebookwormqueen.wordpress.co...

[Andrea M. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I learned so much about the DC riots from this book! Of course, A Nation on Fire is about far more than the DC riots, and it really helped put some modern conflicts in context for me. I wouldn't call this a scholar's book but more of an extremely accessible summary of the time period. Before the author begins to describe the riots as they played out across the United States, he offers rich details about the political and social settings of the time. Day-by-day developments after Martin Luther King Jr's assassination are offered for many American cities. The material was fascinating and disturbing. The sections on DC are the lengthiest and the most detailed, which was perfect for me. This book pulled together everything about the DC riots that I have learned piecemeal over the last 15 years. More importantly, the book added to my knowledge immensely and left with me with a far greater appreciation for the causes and consequences of the riots in America in the 1960s. This was a great book.

[muraguri · Rating 3 out of 5]

Found the sections discussing the riots
in DC to be the most interesting parts of the book. Otherwise a typical history. Still worth a read.