April 4, 2016
By Lily Rothman
The first week of April, 1968, (click here) “will be remembered for a long time,” noted TIME publisher James R. Shepley in his introduction to the issue that followed it. It was not a risky prediction. On Mar. 31, President Lyndon B. Johnson had announced that he would not seek reelection. Days later, on April 4, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated....
...One explanation for the waxing and waning interest is that the subjects that made Johnson so influential at that particular moment are no longer the topic of heated discussion today. Racial and economic equality, meanwhile, has never stopped being the source of some of America’s deepest arguments. While King’s death did not make the cover, his life—even 48 years later—continues to make news.
By Lily Rothman
The first week of April, 1968, (click here) “will be remembered for a long time,” noted TIME publisher James R. Shepley in his introduction to the issue that followed it. It was not a risky prediction. On Mar. 31, President Lyndon B. Johnson had announced that he would not seek reelection. Days later, on April 4, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated....
...One explanation for the waxing and waning interest is that the subjects that made Johnson so influential at that particular moment are no longer the topic of heated discussion today. Racial and economic equality, meanwhile, has never stopped being the source of some of America’s deepest arguments. While King’s death did not make the cover, his life—even 48 years later—continues to make news.
