Economy
Out of a National Tragedy, a Housing Solution
New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller used the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. to help create a superagency that would transform the state’s cities and suburbs. It didn’t last long.
Shortly after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated outside his motel room in Memphis on April 4, 1968, New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller issued a public statement. A true memorial to King, he said, “cannot be made of stone, it must be made of action.”
Five days later, the governor was in Atlanta to attend the civil rights leader’s funeral, and he expected to go to sleep that night having followed through on his statement.