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

A Ms. Magazine Most Anticipated BookShortlisted 2025, Museum of African American History Stone Book AwardFrom 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, h