King of the North

Martin Luther King Jr.’s Life of Struggle Outside the South

From the New York Times bestselling author, a radical reframing of the life and work of Martin Luther King Jr.

“Theoharis shows us through penetrating research and sensitive, scholarly insight that Dr. King not only was keenly aware of the history of antiblack racism in the North, but battled it from the very beginning of his career.” —Henry Louis Gates Jr.

The Martin Luther King Jr. of popular memory vanquished Jim Crow in the South. But in this myth-shattering book, award-winning and New York Times bestselling historian Jeanne Theoharis argues that King’s time in Boston, New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago—outside Dixie—was at the heart of his campaign for racial justice. King of the North follows King as he crisscrosses the country from the Northeast to the West Coast, challenging school segregation, police brutality, housing segregation, and job discrimination. For these efforts, he was relentlessly attacked by white liberals, the media, and the federal government.

In this bold retelling, King emerges as a someone who not only led a movement but who showed up for other people’s struggles; a charismatic speaker who also listened and learned; a Black man who experienced police brutality; a minister who lived with and organized alongside the poor; and a husband who—despite his flaws—depended on Coretta Scott King as an intellectual and political guide in the national fight against racism, poverty, and war.

King of the North speaks directly to our struggles over racial inequality today. Just as she restored Rosa Parks’s central place in modern American history, so Theoharis radically expands our understanding of King’s life and work—a vision of justice unfulfilled in the present.

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Praise

“King of the North is a revelation—a much-needed book that shifts and enhances our appreciation of MLK’s radical vision.”
—Jonathan Eig, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of King: A Life
“Fresh, electric, grounded in its research and yet radical in its scope, King of the North is a modern masterpiece.”
—Steven W. Thrasher, author of The Viral Underclass
“A distinctive and urgently needed account of an often-under-appreciated side of Dr. Martin Luther King. Theoharis reveals new depth and complexity to the quieter dimensions of his thought in the shaping of a national and global synergy of Black political power.”
—Patricia J. Williams, author of The Alchemy of Race and Rights
“King of the North is a compelling, carefully researched account of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s largely invisible but important and impactful activism outside the Jim Crow South. Theoharis’s feminist analysis of Coretta Scott King’s unrelenting activism forces readers to see their partnership/marriage anew, as well as other women freedom fighters who were critical to the success of the contemporary Black freedom struggle throughout the U.S.”
—Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Anna Julia Cooper Professor of Comparative Women’s Studies at Spelman College
“Theoharis demonstrates how King, with equal spiritual and political precision, cut at the heart of systemic racism’s stranglehold on the American body politic. King of the North is a necessary and exceptional addition to the canon of King scholarship.”
—Dr. Lester A. McCorn, president of Paine College
“Theoharis delivers another revelatory, meticulously documented account that revises our fundamental assumptions about American history, with critical implications for our future. This indispensable book is a vital resource for all who seek to ‘make real the promise of democracy.’”
—Alondra Nelson, Institute for Advanced Study
“With insightful precision and narrative power, Theoharis shows that the struggle to end Jim Crow was by every measure a national movement. For the first time in a King biography, Coretta Scott King’s active partnership in the struggle is made clear. King of the North is a revelation.”
—Barbara Smith, co-founder, the Combahee River Collective
“A groundbreaking history. With deep research and brilliant insight Jeanne Theoharis illuminates new parts of Martin Luther King Jr.’s revolutionary legacy that speaks to our disturbing present. A must-read.”
—Peniel Joseph, author of The Sword and the Shield: The Revolutionary Lives of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X
“In this gripping history, King of the North provides a powerful reminder that the civil rights struggle always involved more than segregation in the South. Those who seek to carry on King’s legacy today would be well-served to read this vital book.”
—Kevin M. Kruse, professor of history, Princeton University
“Jeanne Theoharis redirects our collective gaze from the racial regime of the South to his time in the North, and the people, political campaigns, and repressive circumstances above the Mason–Dixon line. That reframing alone is enough of a reason for you to pick this book up, but Theoharis’s spotlight on the intimate depths of the intellectual union he shared with his wife, political partner, and spiritual and intellectual compatriot Coretta Scott King is the reason you will not want to put it down.”
—Noliwe Rooks, author of A Passionate Mind in Relentless Pursuit: The Vision of Mary McLeod Bethune
“Just when you thought you knew everything about MLK, Jeanne Theoharis comes along and proves you wrong. Within these gripping pages we meet a public King who is well aware of Northern racism and is concerned with addressing it throughout his public ministry.”
—Lerone A. Martin, Martin Luther King, Jr., centennial professor and director of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University

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