A recent TIME magazine article reflecting on the Martin Luther King, Jr.’s last campaigns included the observations of James S. Sherman Professor of Government Philip Klinkner. “There’s a wave of riots in a lot of northern cities including Washington, D.C., [after his death] and the Fair Housing Act is seen as a possible way of preventing more,” said Klinkner, author of The Unsteady March: The Rise and Decline of Racial Equality in America. “It only passes because of these incredibly violent riots after the death of this apostle of nonviolence, so there’s a lot of irony laden in that.”
The April 2 article, written by alumna Olivia B. Waxman ’11, continued, “But, Klinker argues, aside from affirmative action in the ’70s, ‘there are no more major legislative victories for the movement.’”
