Introducing Holy Week

The Atlantic Interview

The Atlantic Monthly Group, LLC

Society & Culture, Politics, News

4.4 • 977 Ratings

🗓️ 19 May 2023

⏱️ 4 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Holy Week: The story of a revolution undone. The assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1968, is often recounted as a conclusion to a powerful era of civil rights in America, but how did this hero’s murder come to be the stitching used to tie together a narrative of victory? The week that followed his killing was one of the most fiery, disruptive, and revolutionary, and is nearly forgotten. Over the course of eight episodes, Holy Week brings forward the stories of the activists who turned heartbreak into action, families scorched by chaos, and politicians who worked to contain the grief. Seven days diverted the course of a social revolution and set the stage for modern clashes over voting rights, redlining, critical race theory, and the role of racial unrest in today’s post–George Floyd reckoning. Subscribe and listen to all 8 episodes now: theatlantic.com/holyweek Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Van Newkirk, a senior editor at The Atlantic, and the host of this podcast has just appeared
0:06.2	in your feed.
0:07.2	It's called Holy Week.
0:09.8	Take a listen to this trailer, and if you enjoy it, we've got a story that unfold over eight episodes.
0:15.9	Just search for Holy Week and subscribe.
0:19.1	Now here's a trailer. If they would shoot a man like Dr King and shoot my little boy, it's
0:36.3	they would shoot a man like Dr King and shoot my little boy, they'd shoot me. April 4th, 1968 is remembered by many as the end of the Civil Rights Movement, a time of loss. We had been taught about lynchings and the school bombings and Rosa Parks.
0:59.0	We had been taught about all kinds of stuff, but we were angry. We were angry because a white man killed a
1:10.4	prominent person in our life.
1:15.0	Grief can have a way of warping the historical lens,
1:19.0	trapping us in a moment,
1:21.0	and overshadowing some of what came before.
1:24.1	We played every summer we were outside in the back,
1:27.6	baseball, kick ball, volleyball, tag.
1:32.1	What came after King's assassination was a week of uprisings that have largely been forgotten.
1:39.6	We broke out and went up to 14th Street.
1:41.9	What did you see when you got there? Maybe about 2,000
1:44.7	people. What I got up there, they had burned most everything down.
1:53.0	I'm Van Newkirk, senior editor at The Atlantic.
2:00.0	I'm Van Newkirk, senior editor at the Atlantic.
2:05.0	For the past year, I've been talking to people about the assassination of Martin Luther King
2:09.2	Jr. and the ensuing unrest that upended so many of their lives.
	...

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