Rebecca Burns – författare

During the hot summer of 1906, anger simmered in Atlanta, a city that outwardly savored its reputation as the Gate City of the New South, a place where the races lived peacefully, if apart, and everyone focused more on prosperity than prejudice. But racial hatred came to the forefront during a heated political campaign, and the city's newspapers fanned its flames with sensational reports alleging assaults on white women by black men. The rage erupted in late September, and, during one of the most brutal race riots in the history of America, roving groups of whites attacked and killed at least twenty-five blacks. After four days of violence, black and white civic leaders came together in unprecedented meetings that can be viewed either as concerted public relations efforts to downplay the events or as setting the stage for Atlanta's civil rights leadership half a century later.Rage in the Gate City focuses on the events of August and September 1906, offering readers a tightly woven narrative account of those eventful days. Fast-paced and vividly detailed, it brings history to life. As June Dobbs Butts writes in her foreword, "For too long, this chapter of Atlanta's history was covered up, or was explained away. . . . Rebecca Burns casts the bright light of truth upon those events."

A compelling, original, and illuminating account chronicling the historic week between Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination and his funeral.In the aftermath of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, riots broke out in 110 cities across the country. For five days, Atlanta braced for chaos while preparing to host King’s funeral. An unlikely alliance of former student radicals, the middle-aged patrician mayor, the no-nonsense police chief, black ministers, white churchgoers, Atlanta’s business leaders, King’s grieving family members, and his stunned SCLC colleagues worked to keep Atlanta safe, honor a murdered hero, and host the tens of thousands who came to pay tribute. On April 9, 1968, 150,000 mourners took part in a daylong series of rituals honoring King—the largest funeral staged for a private U.S. citizen. King’s funeral was a dramatic event that took place against a national backdrop of war protests and presidential politics in a still-segregationist South, where Georgia’s governor surrounded the state capitol with troops and refused to lower the flag in acknowledgment of King’s death. Award-winning journalist Rebecca Burns delivers a riveting account of this landmark week and chronicles the convergence of politicians, celebrities, militants, and ordinary people who mourned in a peaceful Atlanta while other cities burned. Drawing upon copious research and dozens of interviews— from staffers at the White House who dealt with the threat of violence to members of King’s family and inner circle—Burns brings this dramatic story to life in vivid scenes that sweep readers from the mayor’s office to the White House to Coretta Scott King’s bedroom. Compelling and original, Burial for a King captures a defining moment in America’s history. It encapsulates King’s legacy, America’s shifting attitude toward race, and the emergence of Atlanta as a new kind of Southern city.