Sanitizing MLK’s legacy begins by forgetting his life outside the South

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September 16, 2025 • 38 mins

In our mythological retelling of the Civil Rights movement, Martin Luther King, Jr. vanquished the racist apartheid system of Jim Crow in the American South. However, in her groundbreaking new book, 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. As the book description lays out, “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 episode of The Marc Steiner Show, Marc speaks with Professor Theoharis about the MLK Americans have deliberately forgotten, and what this recovered history tells us about how to fight against injustice today.

For full show notes and transcript, click here.

Credits:

Producer: Rosette Sewali
Studio Production: David Hebden
Audio Post-Production: Stephen Frank

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Sanitizing MLK’s legacy begins by forgetting his life outside the South