Between the evening of April 4th, when James Earl Ray shot Martin Luther King Jr. and Easter Sunday April 14, 1968, looting, arson, or sniper fire occurred in 196 cities in thirty-six states plus the District of Columbia. Fifty-four cities suffered at least $100,000 in property damage, with the nation’s capital and Baltimore topping the list at approximately $15 million and $12 million (81 million in 2015 dollars), respectively. Thousands of small shopkeepers saw their life’s savings go up in smoke. Combined forty-three men and women were killed, approximately 3,500 were injured, and 27,000 were arrested. Not until over 58,000 National Guardsmen and regular Army troops joined local state and police forces did the uprisings cease. Put somewhat differently, during Holy Week 1968, the United States experienced its greatest wave of social unrest since the Civil War.

Somewhat surprisingly, this wave of the Great Uprising has received remarkably little attention. With the exception of Ten Blocks from the White House, collectively written by the reporters of the Washington Post in the immediate wake of King’s assassination, scholars have virtually ignored them.

— The Great Uprising by Peter B. Levy