When Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, America exploded. Riots broke out in 110 cities, thousands of homes and businesses were destroyed and dozens were killed.
During this chaos, and with the knowledge that the assassin was still at large, Atlanta was planning the biggest funeral in the city's history.
Atlanta would host 150,000 mourners, and the eyes of a troubled world would be on Auburn Avenue.
In “Burial for a King: Martin Luther King’s Funeral and the Week that Transformed Atlanta and Rocked the Nation,” former Atlanta Magazine editor Rebecca Burns presents a moment-by-moment account of the tumultuous week that began with a sniper's bullet and ended with a funeral that would test the motto, "the city too busy to hate."
Burns, 44, will discuss the book Thursday night at the Auburn Avenue Research Library as part of the King Holiday observances. Recently she spoke with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution about her book and the events of April 1968:
Q. Atlanta is great at myth-making. How much of the story of the peaceful funeral is part of that mythology?
A. Atlanta behaved remarkably, really. It did pull off what amounted to a state funeral with no state resources and limited funding, in the middle of a serious national crisis. . . Yes, there was an Atlanta PR machine at work, but at the same time people were doing a noble and good thing.
Q. There was a lot at stake.
A. It was life or death. The question was, ‘How do we work together to not have the kind of violence that was so devastating in other cities during that week?' Thousands of people were flying to Atlanta, a small city with a small airport: All the presidential candidates, celebrities, politicians and tens of thousands of everyday citizens. Not only was the city [focused on] preventing violence, but it was getting ready for this influx of tens of thousands of people, which heightened the risk.
Q. Your last book was about Atlanta’s race riot of 1906. This one is about Atlanta’s racial harmony in 1968. Was the choice of such bookend topics purposeful?
A. That’s what drew me to it in the first place. My first book was about one of the most disturbing chapters in Atlanta history. It was quite shameful -- white Atlantans behaved shamefully, but we learned from that. This was Atlanta's chance to redeem itself.
Q. How much impact did Martin Luther King's funeral have on the future of the city?
A. It was a pivotal event in relationships in Atlanta. One of the things that happened was the opening of white churches to host African-Americans. It seems like a no-brainer, but it wasn’t. That was a personal outpouring, it gave a human spin to events. . . . The gut reaction of everyday citizens was, ‘I'm going to bring a ham, I'm going to drive people around.' This was the silent middle class of Atlanta, black and white, that responded to this.
Q. Coca-Cola’s Robert Woodruff reportedly assured Mayor Ivan Allen that he would have a blank check to cover the expenses of mounting this funeral. What did he actually pay for?
A. There was police overtime, Porta-Potty rentals, transit fees . . . We don't know precisely, but we know he paid for some of those things. . . [The city] owed at least $100,000 in extra paychecks for police. In 1968 dollars, that was a substantial amount of money.
Event preview
Rebecca Burns discusses "Burial for a King: Martin Luther King Jr.'s Funeral and the Week that Transformed Atlanta and Rocked the Nation," Feb. 24. Free and open to the public. Auburn Avenue Research Library, 101 Auburn Ave., Atlanta, GA 30303. Information: 404-730-4001; www.afpls.org/auburn-avenue-research-library.
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