King of North Book Tour Detroit

What delight for us to host Jeanne Theoharis, author of The Rebelious Life of Rosa Parks, for her new book, King of the North Martin Luther King's Life of Struggle outside the South. We are excited to celebrate this important book that gives new insight on Martin Luther King Jr. We think of his birth, struggle and death as all southern but we have strong memories of him in Detroit practicing for march in Washington D.C.

This event will take place at St. Matthew St Joseph's on April 9th at 6pm. There will be rich conversation about the book, a Q & A Session and Book signing line. Free and Book Tickets are available at this link. There will be book available on site as well.

About the Book:

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.

About the Author:

Jeanne Theoharis is Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Brooklyn College of City University of New York. She is the author of the New York Times bestselling The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks and winner of the 2014 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work Biography/Autobiography and the Letitia Woods Brown Award from the Association of Black Women Historians. Her book has been adapted into a documentary of the same name, executive produced by Soledad O’Brien for Peacock where Theoharis served as a consulting producer. Her young adult adaptation with Brandy Colbert, The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks for Young People, was included in the Best Books of 2021 by the Chicago Public Library and Kirkus Reviews. Her book A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History won the 2018 Brooklyn Public Library Literary Prize in Nonfiction and was named one of the best Black history books of 2018 by Black Perspectives. Theoharis’s writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, MSNBC, The Nation, Slate, The Atlantic, and many more. She is also the author of King of the North (The New Press) and lives in Brooklyn.

"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

"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

"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

Host or Publisher Source Booksellers