The Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. enters the narrative through the recognition of his former home, linking the historical event to an ordinary Atlanta streetscape. The passage identifies the house as his residence at the time of his assassination and notes that Coretta King still lived there when Roger White and Wes Jordan passed it.

The House and Its Historical Association

The house is described as good-sized but architecturally plain: a suburban-style brick home, well kept and set beside other houses of the same kind. Its unexceptional appearance makes the connection to King’s assassination a fact carried by place and memory rather than by any dramatic change in the surrounding scene.

A Passing Recognition

As Roger White and Wes Jordan travel along Sunset, Wes asks Roger to recognize the house. Roger identifies it as Martin Luther King’s home at the time of the assassination. The exchange briefly interrupts their drive, turning a familiar residential setting into a point of historical reference.

Residence and Aftermath

The passage adds that Coretta King, King’s widow, still lived in the house at the time of the drive. It gives no account of the assassination itself, its circumstances, or its wider consequences; its focus is the continuing presence of the home and the people associated with it.