King of the North: Martin Luther King Jr.’s Life of Struggle Outside the South

by Jeanne Theoharis

From the New York Times bestselling author, a radical reframing of the life and work of Martin Luther King 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.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, African American, Social Justice, Race

400 pages, Hardcover

First published March 25, 2025

About the author

Jeanne Theoharis is professor of political science at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York. She received an AB in Afro-American studies from Harvard College and a PhD in American culture from the University of Michigan. She is the author or coauthor of four books and articles on the black freedom struggle and the contemporary politics of race in the United States.

Reviews

[Hannah]

You may not think you need to read this book, at least I did not think I needed to read this book. This is not the now well-trod exposure of the “radical King” and his cannibalization by right wingers once a year. While important, this is much more than that. This is about the ways that the media and Northern power players/elites amplified his work in the South as a foil to conceal and entrench the fixable “de facto” segregation of the North. It is a book about what a genius Coretta Scott King was. It is a book about the manufactured division between Black Power/Stokely Carmichael/Malcolm X and the Southern civil rights movement. It is a book that helps re-embody how terrifying it was to be the Kings, and how much courage they had.

I was just reading the messages that the Freedom Flotilla’s Madleen crew had delivered, since they have been taken hostage for the crime of attempting to deliver baby food and prosthetic child-sized limbs to Gaza. “If you’re seeing this, it’s because I’ve been kidnapped by the Israeli armed forces…”

So courage is on my mind, I suppose.

[Pete · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really great history. I knew only very little of King’s time in Chicago, and nothing of his extensive time in LA and NYC. This book will give you a much different view of both MLK and Coretta, even if you’ve already done some work to dig deeper below the surface level histories we are so often given.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Generally an interesting history. It could have been more focused, it got too much into a biography of the Kings at times. But the epilogue was actually kind of bad—I get that Theoharis was being a bit flippant about what it would mean to be like King, but why not just call on people today to be more like King?

[Andrew Batenhorst · Rating 5 out of 5]

I find it harder to get through nonfiction but this was hard to put down. I don’t really have deep revelations after reading but there’s a lot to chew on and think about.

[K. · Rating 4 out of 5]

3 1/2 - a lot of good information but it felt a bit superficial. This felt like a teaser of the deep-dive book I wanted. For sure still worth the read.

[Tyler J Hinds · Rating 3 out of 5]

6.8