How Martin Luther King’s dream became Robert Kennedy’s nightmare

As riots erupted and smoke billowed from black neighbourhoods in the wake of Martin Luther King’s assassination, Robert F Kennedy met with black activists, politicians, and celebrities in a hotel suite ‘to tamp things down and divine what should come next,’ writes David Margolick in ‘The Promise and the Dream: The Untold Story of Martin Luther King, Jr and Robert F Kennedy’. In this excerpt, Margolick examines Kennedy’s response to the killing — and his belief that he, too, would die by an assassin’s hand.

The American Electra jet that Robert Kennedy arranged for Coretta Scott King lifted off in Atlanta at 9:15am on April 5.