The Big Nap: Indianapolis as City of the Future

On the corner of 17th and Broadway, in an African-American section of Indianapolis, there is a vacant space comprising two unused lots, sections of two parking lots, and the edge of a small park. On the evening of April 4, 1968, hours after Martin Luther King, Jr., was killed in Memphis, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., climbed up on the back of a truck parked on a basketball court at this corner and delivered an ex tempore speech that was broadcast on local television and radio. Kennedy was just beginning his campaign in the Indiana presidential primary, running against a local candidate (Roger Branigin, the governor), a state Democratic machine that opposed him, and a newspaper chain (the Pulliam Star-News Newspapers) that openly fought his can...