"What do you make of the fact that, after that assassination, some version of him is made to be an untouchable hero? How does that happen?" asks the journalist Vann R. Newkirk II. "Because he's dead," replies John Burl Smith, a community organizer and one of the last people to meet with King before his 1968 murder. "He can't do any more damage."
Posed quietly, Newkirk's question is both leading and sincere. He likely already knows the answer, of course, but that's beside the point. The question is worth raising again and again with respect to how King and the civil-rights movement are preserved in American cultural memory-now especially, as right-wing forces conspire to keep the full, complicated picture out of educational syllabi or at least strip those histories of political teeth.
The exchange between Newkirk and Smith comes near the end of Holy Week, a magisterial new narrative podcast from The Atlantic, so named for the burst of grief, fury, and violence that washed over the country in the immediate wake of King's murder just before Easter. It follows 2020's Floodlines, which Newkirk also hosted, carrying over a contiguous feel and spirit. Where Floodlines waded into the unresolved history around Hurricane Katrina, Holy Week applies the same lens to the American failure to internalize the full scope of the civil-rights movement. This project intends to honor what made King dangerous while he was alive.
Esta historia es de la edición March 27 - April 09, 2023 de New York magazine.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor ? Conectar
Esta historia es de la edición March 27 - April 09, 2023 de New York magazine.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor? Conectar
Drowning in Slop - A thriving underground economy is clogging the internet with AI garbage-and it's only going to get worse.
SLOP started seeping into Neil Clarke's life in late 2022. Something strange was happening at Clarkesworld, the magazine. Clarke had founded in 2006 and built into a pillar of the world of speculative fiction. Submissions were increasing rapidly, but “there was something off about them,” he told me recently. He summarized a typical example: “Usually, it begins with the phrase ‘In the year 2250-something’ and then it goes on to say the Earth’s environment is in collapse and there are only three scientists who can save us. Then it describes them in great detail, each one with its own paragraph. And then—they’ve solved it! You know, it skips a major plot element, and the final scene is a celebration out of the ending of Star Wars.” Clarke said he had received “dozens of this story in various incarnations.”
The City Politic- The Other Eric Adams Scandal The NYPD shot a fare evader, a cop, and two bystanders. He defends it.
On Sunday, September 15, Derell Mickles hopped a turnstile, got asked to leave by cops, then entered the subway again ten minutes later through an emergency exit. This was at the Sutter Avenue L station, out by his mother's house, five stops from the end of the line. Police said they noticed he was holding a folded knife. They followed him up the stairs to the elevated train, asking him 38 times to drop the weapon.
Can the Media Survive?
BIG TECH, Feckless Owners, CORD-CUTTERS, RESTIVE STAFF, Smaller Audiences ... and the Return of PRINT?
Status Update
Hannah Gadsby's fascinatingly untidy tour through life after fame and death.
A Matter of Perspective
A Matter of Perspective Steve McQueen's worst film is still a solid WWII drama.
Creator, Destroyer
A retrospective reveals an architect's vision, optimism, and supreme arrogance.
In Praise of Bad Readers
In a time of war, there is a danger in surveying the world as if it were a novel.
Trust the Kieran Culkin Process
First, he nearly dropped out of Oscar hopeful A Real Pain. Then he convinced Jesse Eisenberg to change the way he directs.
The Funniest Vampires on TV
What We Do in the Shadows is coming to an end. Its idiosyncratic brand of comedy may be too.
The Water-Tower Penthouse
Gigi Loizzo and Angel Molina's apartment on the Grand Concourse in the Bronx looks out on Yankee Stadium.
